How do you study chess? - Chess Forums

JosephDurham

Feb 12, 2018

0

#1

Perhaps this is the wrong area for this question, if so, I apologize; I am curious, how do you study chess? What advice do you give to a newbie on HOW to study the game? What advice do you give to an intermediate? Looking forward to reading the responses.

jdroli1070

Feb 12, 2018

0

#2

play, play and then play some more. personally, I suck at tactics; I can't stand them. This will be how most responders will tell you to improve. it's all a matter of taste. I find that only by playing full games will you learn how to play a full game. Anyway, start by playing a few people for fun. take a look at where you made your mistakes and you will learn how to play better chess!

Homsar

Feb 12, 2018

0

#3

Reading chess books is one great way... I highly recommend anything by Silman

Toohey_Dee

Feb 12, 2018

0

#4

I agree with Homsar wholeheartedly about Jeremy Silman's books. Right now I'm reading The Amateur's Mind. Every beginner should read this book with a chessboard by his side. It's very instructive.

masterfowler

Feb 12, 2018

0

#5

yes...read books about strategy and positional play and dont do tactics...you will have so much fun dropping pices every game............dont you guys think there is a reason tactics come so highly recommended???OP,heresl is my opinion for what its worth...develop pieces,castle before move 9 and do tactics...evetday...this should be your main focus...better tactics mean you wont be dropping pieces so much and you will see when your opponents drop them...easy wins at lower levels...most of your games will be decided by a few tactics instead of solid positional play

Zoomiewoop

Feb 12, 2018

0

#6

Even though studying tactics may hurt your brain for a while, I don't see any substitute to practicing it until you stop hanging pieces and falling for very simple traps. You may hate it at first, but pretty soon it starts to come naturally. It's kind of like memorizing your multiplication and division tables -- might be a pain at first, but eventually it's easy, and there's no way you can do anything math without that basic knowledge and skillset.

Die_Schanze

Feb 12, 2018

0

#7

playing much, don't do the same mistakes over and over agian. Doing some tactics, endgames and also looking at opening principles will also help.

mazi_khan26

Feb 12, 2018

0

#8

really me personally I jus learn from my mistakes and loses a big factor to me is Wat color ... if I'm playing white I'm more dominant looking to take key material or going in for the checc mate but if I'm blacc I'ma play with you and test to see Wat I'ma do and how I'ma set you up... my big bro taught me how to play and away said chess is lik life jus gotta know Wat u doin and how to move and learn to take losses and turn them to wins

blueemu

Feb 12, 2018

0

#9

Study is barren without play. You should play slow games, in parallel with your studies. Blitz and Bullet might be fun, but they have strictly limited potential for improving your understanding of the game.

Study all phases of the game, not just tactics (or worse still, just opening lines). A balanced regimen of tactics, model mates, basic opening principles, tactics, simple endgames, old (mid-1800s to early 1900s) Master games, tactics, common Pawn structures, and tactics will give better results and is also less boring than a concentrated focus on one subject.

But play. Always try to translate your lessons into moves on the chess-board. Play a variety of opponents... some better than you, some worse, others who are at roughly your own level of play.

JosephDurham

Feb 13, 2018

0

#10

I’ve enjoyed your responses. Looking forward to reading others. Thank you!

kindaspongey

Feb 13, 2018

0

#11

masterfowler

Feb 13, 2018

0

#12

well,Blueemu has probably given you the best answer right there...he is 100% right...you need to play as well as you need practice with any study to make info stick

Piperose

Feb 13, 2018

0

#13

masterfowler wrote:

yes...read books about strategy and positional play and dont do tactics...you will have so much fun dropping pices every game............dont you guys think there is a reason tactics come so highly recommended???OP,heresl is my opinion for what its worth...develop pieces,castle before move 9 and do tactics...evetday...this should be your main focus...better tactics mean you wont be dropping pieces so much and you will see when your opponents drop them...easy wins at lower levels...most of your games will be decided by a few tactics instead of solid positional play

Excellent point Master Flower...I mean Master Fowler🤓, sorry 🤓x2...

Hence, from this day forward, I'm your follower !

Roo_2_Unlimited

Feb 13, 2018

0

#14

I listen to ASMR videos, read books on political science and practice tactics. I try to do about 100 relatively easy tactical puzzles per day but it drops considerably when I am tired. If you want to train get Lucas chess

http://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/

andrewnox

Feb 13, 2018

0

#15

There are also some good YouTube channels out there worth watching, you can learn a lot from them - it's like having little lessons from IMs and GMs, what's not to like?

YT Channel Recommendations:
iChess
GingerGM
PowerPlay Chess
John Bartholemew
Saint Louis Chess Club

timojohannes

Feb 13, 2018

0

#16

DeirdreSkye wrote:

There is only one way to study chess seriously.

A good book , a real board and a lot of concentration.

Every other way is for those that can't do that.

Focus in increasing your analytical skill.This is, according to Dvoretsky, the most critical skill of a chessplayer because chess is mainly finding the candidate moves ,calculating concrete lines and deciding which the best move is.

I think you are totally right about his. Also the person mentioning playing slow chess instead of blitz or bullet to improve ist totally right. There you learn so much about positional play and strategy, openings, endgames. "Daily Chess" on chess.com is a good thing to start with.

But still, I would recommend to do some tactics everyday, and repeat those you did not get after a short while. Chess is also about patterns (mating/tactical). And with practicing tactics you can learn them and manifest them.

I think @GSerper definitely agrees with me here, saying:

"When I analyzed Carlsen's games from the World Rapid and Blitz championships in Saudi Arabia, I indeed noticed that Carlsen used dozens of different patterns in his games, and I am talking only about patterns familiar to me. Just imagine hundreds of patterns familiar only to Magnus! So, maybe Carlsen's unique pattern-recognition ability—based on his excellent memory—is the big secret of his success?" (in the article "Magnus Carlsen's Biggest Secret")

And when you analyze games, always ask yourself: "What are the cadidate moves?" "What is the next best move?" "Why is it the best move?" "What's the purpose of this move?"

For example, the book "Winning Chess Brilliancies" by Yasser does exactly that, explaining every move. Other good chess books do the same.

And yes: Silman's books are good, I just started with "How to Reassess your Chess".

I personally enjoy wathching good stuff on Youtube, Saint Louis Chess Center is great.

m_connors

Feb 13, 2018

0

#17

Plenty of very useful advice here. Yasser Seirawan has several good books for beginners I particularly enjoy.

And, with tongue firmly placed in cheek I will answer your question, "How do I study chess?" with very poorly.

masterfowler

Feb 13, 2018

0

#18

I finally have a follower hahahaha 😂😂😂

SeniorPatzer

Feb 13, 2018

0

#19

I think you have to overcome impatience, and to learn to manage inevitable frustration. This will help to maintain the internal motivation to study chess.

Zoomiewoop

Feb 14, 2018

0

#20

DeirdreSkye wrote:

sing_hu wrote:

DeirdreSkye wrote:

There is only one way to study chess seriously.

A good book , a real board and a lot of concentration.

Every other way is for those that can't do that.

Focus in increasing your analytical skill.This is, according to Dvoretsky, the most critical skill of a chessplayer because chess is mainly finding the candidate moves ,calculating concrete lines and deciding which the best move is.

I think you are totally right about his. Also the person mentioning playing slow chess instead of blitz or bullet to improve ist totally right. There you learn so much about positional play and strategy, openings, endgames. "Daily Chess" on chess.com is a good thing to start with.

But still, I would recommend to do some tactics everyday, and repeat those you did not get after a short while. Chess is also about patterns. And with practicing tactics you can learn them and manifest them.

Who couldn't agree with this.Of course every chessplayer needs tactics.But while tactics training helps you identify the pattern , it is a player's analytical skill that will allow him to calculate the lines.Let's not forget that finding tactics is 50% of chess , creating them is the other 50%.In higher levels the creative percentage increases dramaticaly(maybe up to 90%) since you can't hope that the tactic will land in front of you out of nowhere , you have to create it and that needs a lot more than pattern recognition.

I am curious what you mean by "creating tactics." I have generally heard chess broken down into strategy (long-term plans, principles, and positional play) and tactics. It seems to me that if you see the possibility of creating a tactic, that is itself tactics and your ability to "create tactics" would be roughly equal to your ability to execute tactics. If you don't see an opportunity to create tactics immediately, or if your aim is instead to create long-term positional weaknesses that could yield tactics, then that falls into strategy. Am I missing something?