Chess Advice most chess players don't like to hear

If it ain't fun, what's the point. Lighten up and bloody well enjoy this simple yet thoroughly amazing, annoying, complex game. If ya think ya got patience, play some chess and discover how much patience you don't have. It's a wondrously maddening game, and I love it.

You mean whenever someone has to do something to improve that isn't fun they should just not do it? 

I kinda agree with him because for me improving is the fun part. It is possible to have both. If improving at chess isn't fun, you should do something else.

Well David I personally disagree about the comment that when studying tactical puzzles, if you don't solve it in a minute you just give up and if this happens a few times stop doing that for the day. I think the mind can handle more than a few new patterns and I think patterns are only one part of the calculation process, the other stuff is deep visualization and calculation. In my puzzle book I rarely take less than a minute to solve them (I think they're relatively complicated though, certainly much harder than on tactics trainer). Maybe that's a bad thing but in any case I can feel the improvement as I practice looking for a solution. It's more like if after 5-10 minutes and you can't even find a decent candidate move, then you look at the solution and learn from it.

I don't think you can get enough of patterns, but I also think that it's a little unproductive to only allow a few new ones for a whole day you decide to work on tactics.

I could be totally wrong, but I think my improvment would be really slow if I stopped after being stumped just a few times.

Edit: Holy crap, I just had a pleasant suprise. I haven't used tactics trainer in almost a year and now I'm seeing huge improvements, with me solving all of these puzzles averaging about 10 seconds. Of course most TT puzzles aren't that complicated but it is showing me I do know my patterns. So David I think it's a bit general to go by all types of puzzles.

quite an interesting thread.

two points a few people seem to have missed from my comments:

- the tactics advice was mostly for players from 1000-1800. so for example when elubas responds, i see he is rated 2250 in echess, probably between 1900 and 2200 otb. and then he goes on TT and knows a lot of patterns already and is solving them quickly. so.... the sample advice i was giving doesn't apply to him.

- i clearly said that in addition to knowing patterns there is a calculation/visualization component to tactical ability. re-read my previous post if you missed my whole discussion of that.

someone asked about cm: there are definitely cm courses at my level. daniel rensch's course on the scotch was tough for me, as was sam shankland's "improve your chess," which basically tests every aspect of one's chess at a very high 24-2500+ fide level. and then, since there are some big gaps in my positional knowledge, i enjoy jeremy silman's course "the roots of positional play" (or understanding?) i've done a few dozen but luckily for me there are a few hundred. i'd work through them all if i had the time, but i have to keep up with all the other content on the site, can't just do what's good for my game.

as for extra advice on what to do with your time... i'll try to work on some articles to help with that.

but very quickly, if you are 1600+, start doing some calculation exercises that take you about 20 min to solve. do 2 or so in a day. every three hundred points increase the length of the puzzles you are doing by 10 minutes. keep doing 2 or 3 per day. that's just a rough suggestion, not scientific. i have more details, but less time ;-)

I would say I could have about 1-2 hours a day to dedicate to chess, perhaps more on the weekends... what would be a good way to spend that time? I'm pretty serious about wanting to get better... I'd like to one day get to 1800+ at the very least.

I used to be really into chess 5+ years ago and I decided to get back into it. I'm probably about 1400-1600 OTB, but I've never been rated.

I have quite a few books that I haven't spent enough time on too (many are gifts... and my own impulses haha):   Chess by Lazlo Polgar, How to Reassess Your Chess + Workbook, The Amateur's Mind, My 60 Memorable Games, The Art of Attack In Chess, The Art of Sacrifice in Chess, the Art of Chess Combination, Combination: the Heart of Chess, Logical Chess Move by Move, Zurich Intl. Chess Tournament 1953, and a few others...

I also have Chess Mentor... I've tried it out and it seems quite helpful.

What should I focus on right now? I know I should study tactics everyday, about 15 minutes or so. I should probably play at least one somewhat long game too, 20-30 minutes. I am willing to dedicate time to the endgame and to the opening, at least enough to build a repertoire that I am comfortable with and fully understand: I don't want to memorize moves for the sake of it, I want to know how to use an opening. I know openings are not the most important part right now, so I'm sure I'll spend more days a week on the ending. I figure I should analyze my games too, but since I don't have much time for chess each day since I go to school, should I only do 1 or 2 of these a week? What about following master games? I'd like to have a balanced system of study. I'm fairly dedicated so if I can actually set out detailed plans on what I want to do, I will stick to it to the best of my ability.

I don't know best how to form a study plan, but I used to dedicated (and still do some time) time to study each day, and kept trying to keep it balanced like you were saying.  Something like master games on Monday-Wednesday with endgames on Thursday-Saturday and openings on Sunday with tactics every day or every other day with analysis of own games on some other day and don't forget the 20-30 min games online etc etc and it was just too confusing.  For me what worked much better was to just pick a book I knew would help (lets say the Reassess book(s) or an endgame book) and just focus on that each time I wanted to study until I had finished the whole thing.  You don't feel so balanced, but you're actually letting this stuff sink in instead of trying to focus on 10 things at once.

We're all different and you may find it better to do a balancing act, just letting you know my experience with it.

That advice makes a lot of sense... I'll consider doing that. Maybe I'll try out a week or two with the juggling (lol) and then see about focusing on one thing at a time. It might help me get reacquainted with the game. You're probably totally right on this one though.

My coach, NM Homer Cunanan, said to me, Don't forget the fundamentals and study the openings. Always practice, join tournaments and study masters' games.

Ironically, I'm trying to master imbalanced and instructive openings to better my game. I feel if I get a really good understanding of the french, ruy lopez, sicilian, queen's gambit, and king's indian (among many others in fact, such as the dutch and benoni, but these would be my big 5) and learn from the masters playing these openings I will significantly improve from where I am now. That takes a ton of hard work though, but in any case at least it's fun to look at those strategically and tactically complex openings, AS LONG as you aren't reading theory like a zombie, you need to try to find your own moves and try to understand it.

In chess more often than not (despite the fact we may not like to face it) -the best defence is not always a good offence, sometimes you just gotta play the more passive position and defend your material advantage against the enemy's initiative. This is a harsh lesson but essential for a good player.

Actually, ostriches don't do that.  It's a total myth.

After trying to navigate some very sharp openings through memorization (I know that's a bad way to do it) I'm taking something of a similar approach.  Even though I'm not a 1.d4 player I'm trying to understand the basic ideas behind many different types of opening structures.  Going back to opening's I can wrap my head around and leaving my memorized knowledge earlier to substitute a clear plan is satisfying and improved my results (in club games).  I went into some IQP/panov positions on purpose for about the first time ever lol.

Oh, I agree for the most part study should be fun. But my philosophy of life is not that the best choices are always the easiest. Sometimes we just have to make sacrifices. 

Do you know where I can find any of these exercises?

Test your Chess IQ (Livshitz) is made up of such exercises that test calculation/visualization/tactics.

I haven't seen Vol 1 in quite a while but it is probably in the sweet spot.

For Volume 2 maybe 1700 ELO is recommended, and for strong and dedicated solvers, Vol 3 would be good.

 I was going to say this, but I see it's been said.

Thanks. What sort of level is volume 1 intended for?

hi folks,

the livschitz book is indeed a possibility. another source are tough positions from your own previous games. you know, those positions where you weren't sure what to do, and finally you played a move.

now, i also hinted (or promised) to various people that i'd have another suggestion about studying. here it is, i hope you're thrilled:

http://blog.chess.com/view/computer-workout-20

Maybe minimum c. 1400 for Vol 1? Don't quote me. It would be good practice for considerably stronger players though, and when done you always have Volume 2 or 3 (Grandmaster Challenge) to pick up and continue training with. GM Challenge is supposed to be very hard but I haven't seen it yet.

Livshitz's tests are grouped in 8 positions, with a theme (X-ray attack, for example), and they are timed so you can come up with a score and a rating at the end of the book. Time penalties are in play for overstepping the allotted time for the test set--sometimes you gamble that you can solve one as the time ticks.

There are usually several sets of 8 positions for each theme, and the last set will be much harder (and longer) than the first set.

Despite the hint of having a theme, the positions can be devilish and finding the right path (for full credit) exasperating but really fun for dedicated solvers. Sometimes there are "subtle" tactics 5 or more moves into the solution that really challenged my visualization and calculation skills. Sometimes they are challenging for the novelty of the solution. See for an example one that I found novel:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/cuter-than-average

I have Volume 2 still and probably should post a page or two of it for y'all here.