How to move forward in my chess.

Hi,

I've been taking suggestions and advice from players on Chess.com along with playing and studying since I have been here. Now that I have a little more information for people to look at I'd like input on where to focus my chess going forward here for the next several months. Here is some information from my Chess.com profile that might help you when giving advice to me (which I appreciate!):

Blitz rating: 1635/32 games played (No longer play this from advice of players here)

Standard rating: 1612/26 games played (play 20|15,30|30, 75|30, or 90|30)

Online rating: 1665/21 games

Tactics rating: 2027/42 puzzles 81% pass rate (only can do 3/day here so I spend time on Chesstempo.com doing more too)

Other information not shown on my Chess.com profile. I don't know much about opening play, over time I have developed my own opening play and I have been learning some of my opening play is known opening play so I've been looking a little at it from what I can find online. I normally play sacrifically, as black I will sacrifice a pawn early on most of the time to take the initative and get a lead in development. This backfires on me at times. I like to attack and I am not good at defending nor do I enjoy doing it. If you look at my profile games list you'll probably notice a trend of games where I don't have much attacking chances I fall apart easily and I will occasionally end up with a bad position and down material from openings.

Going forward what should I focus on the next few months if you were me? How would you work on your chess game if you had around two hours a day to do it and what opening plays would you "book up on" (borrowing a term from a Chess.com player who told me I needed to work on my opening game)?

Thanks for reading.

I doubt openings are the biggest weakness in your game ... there's more sinister stuff wrong with your chess (or my chess or anyone who is below Federation Expert!)

This whole "study hard" attitude may be a tad inefficient if you don't know how to study smart ... so I would prioritize and get somebody else to tell you what are the mistakes you are really making.

Invest 1-2 hours getting a stronger player to go over 5-10 of your losses and write you a prescription of things to focus on.  (as in personal attention, not just light-critiques/comments on a forum!)  If you are really serious about getting better, you probably wouldn't mind paying any of the really good Master+ rated coaches anywhere in the world for this critique.  (I did and trust me, it really helps!) Humans, as a rule really suck at self-critique.  You may also get an assessment if the openings you are playing are sufficient or bad and most coaches/mentors will make a few recommendations.

You're a much better player than I am, but is there any chance that you are not aware of the chess.com study plans?  For intermediate opening study, there are 35 common "tournament" openings that are suggested for study.  Not that you have to "know" the openings cold, but 7 to 10 moves deep is recommended.  There are various digital resources available (I like Chessking's Chess Openings, What You Need To Know) to do this and of course lots of books.  Paul van der Sterren's Fundamental Chess OPenings seems to be the new gold standard because of his "every move explained" approach.  It's obviously much more useful to know the reasons behind each move than to just memorize a list of moves.  That should keep you busy for awhile.

1.Always play slow games.If you dont have time for 90+ 30 then 25+10 is also good.Always play with increments to buffer the time factor.

2.Dont forget to analyze your game after.There are plenty of free programs online that are free.SCID + Houdini and youre set to go

3.Read a Book preferably on the Endgame.I suggest Silman's Endgame Course.And Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual as complentary book.I never bothered with opening books because theory changes alot anyway.Google  Chess Endgame Simualtion to practice what you have learned.

For Tactics Book,I suggest Art of Attack by Vikovic

If anyone can suggest a good Strategy book that would be great.Im still trying to find it.I didnt like My System

4.As with openings.Try using Chess Position Trainer.It's completely free.Although I seldom trained in it.I only used its training feature when Im sure my opponent will play a certain line.But most of the time,I use it as a database of my games modified to play the best moves.

5.There's alot of material and resources you can find in the internet you see.You just need to be patient.

Other useful sites

Youtube Kingscrusher-has a tactical style

            Chessnetwork-Positional style

            Matojellic-Short instructive model games

            Chessexplained-now this guy is a goldmine.He has a complete d4 repertoire and an e5 repertoire for black    

Chesspub.com is  good for browsing the latest theory.

Chessgames.com is good for just browsing games if you are bored.

If all else fails you can always check Wikipedia.Openings,Endgames.You name it.Wikipedia never fails

stop soliciting advice and make a decision for yourself.  Then go do it.

I'm sure I have a lot of weaknesses but its hard to self critque well when I'm not even entirely sure what I am looking at or should be looking at. I know my end game play is poor and I just loaned a book a few days ago that I hope will help me improve on that (Silman's End game book like chessBBQ suggested here). I don't have a lot of money but I really like your suggestion of getting a really good player to critque my play. How much did it cost you and what did you get out of it?

roi_g11,

thanks for the opening book recommendation. It doesn't seem to cost a whole lot so I think I'll be able to get the money for that soon. Any opening ideas for the black side?

baddogno,

I didn't know they had study plans here. Still learning a lot about this site and how it works. Would you be able to link me to the study guides or tell me where to look for them on this site? Thanks!

heister,

I don't see anything wrong with asking for advice. Babies need a lot of help until they grow up a little and begin to do things on their own after all. Thanks for reading and your comment.

For a good initial critique, most good coaches are available for 40-50$. The really good ones will "study" a whole bunch of your losses and be able to identify  to the areas you really need to focus on.

Igor Khmelnitsky's  Chess Rating Exam (a fantastic self-assessment book, btw!) tries to do this but it doesn't substitute for a real coach who looks at other "chess behaviors" that don't reveal themselves in your games alone. For example : the better coaches will want to know "how" much time you spent on each move (online timestamps such as those generated by games played on most chess servers like ICC and FICS) so that they can see how terrible your time-management skills are as well. :)

I've worked (many sessions over a year) and consulted (short few sessions) with two coaches (40-70$) back when I was a Federation D class player *(1200-1400 USCF) and stuck on a plateau for more than a year.   Really helped me work "smarter" ... they did a good job showing me the right way to do it. It  definitely took some work on my own but it helped me rapidly climb to the class B levels (where my lack of committment to push any harder has me sitting happy + satisfied where I am today :)) 

@MartzVariation

Sure, the study plans are found by clicking "learn" in the green banner at the top.  Last item in the menu.  Without a premium membership you won't have access to everything mentioned, but it should be a good place to start.

Thanks for the advice and help guys. That is a lot of money for me shivsky but maybe I can do it once to get an overview of my game and guidance on where my weakest parts that I need to work on later this year. Yeah thanks again for the comments.

@Martz - I only said that because you've posted this same question before, not sure how many times.  Not being overly cruel, just saying it how it is.

I'd buy a strategy book like Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy and divide my time between reading it and playing/analysing my own games.

I would ignore opening study completely.  I'd try to play classically, according to opening principals, and in general avoid giving up any material in the opening.

Not exactly the same question as before, the first was more broad and like I said in my initial post I have more information so people might be able to give me more targetted advice. Thanks for your input from the last topic I made.

Wafflemaster I will look up that book when I get the chance. On openings what do you mean by play classically? I'll try not to give up pawns in the opening. Also how do you analyze your games and do you only analyze your losses?

join a club where you can discuss your (moves) games.There is always someone (s) better than you.

By what I read on your first post here, you might be interested in Dan Heisman's puzzle-book on defence, titled "Looking for Trouble", for some exercises in this area.

I mostly only analyze my lost games. First I look at the game on my own and try to find out how I lost the game. Usually it can be traced back to some tactical error. Then I let the computer analyze my game and it points out all the tactical combinations that I missed and also the ones that my opponent missed. Then I write down the motifs and maybe some other notes about each of those missed lines. That helps me realize what things I am missing in the game. By doing this, I have noticed that one of my weak areas when looking ahead several moves is that I often miss pins that occur. So now I pay extra attention to the possibility of pins when calculating.

For openings I play blitz games and then afterwards review where I went out of book or my opponent went out of book, and then I look up why that is not the best move, how to punish that move, and what better move could have been played instead. 

Good stuff. Being able to self-assess in a disciplined manner such as listed above is a rare quality. Everyone assumes we can do it but 99% of us half-ass it.

In general I mean openings that put a pawn in the center early.  I only mention losing material because you said you like to gambit pawns but when it doesn't work well then you fall apart.  To me this means you know tactics but not much strategy.  Anyway, it's open for debate but personally I suggest openings like the Ruy Lopez and Queen's gamibt declined over, say, the Latvian and Albin Counter Gambit (and also over openings like KID and Larsen's).

I analyse any game where I felt unsure about a position or think I made at least 1 mistake.  Whether I win or lose doesn't really matter, I just want some lessons.  So quick draws or easy wins I tend to ignore.  Also, I often look over an internet game once briefly but I only analyse tournament games.

I analyse a game by playing it out over a board move by move until I feel like one side is better (or the evaluation changed e.g. back to equal).  Then I look at the most recent move, do I think it was the move that changed the evaluation?  Many times no, so then I backtrack 1 move at a time until I find it.  This requires some thought and variation checking obviously. 

Once I identify all the places where I think the evaluation changed I assess those positions and come up with candidate moves as if it were a game and write down my variations.  After I get all my thoughts on paper (which might take a few days because fresh eyes help) then I show the game (not my analysis) to a stronger player to see what their comments are (even if they say something that turns out to be wrong, it's useful to see how they think about the position) and then with a computer I check if I missed anything big in the game or in the variations of my analysis.

waffllemaster wrote:

MartzVariation wrote:

Wafflemaster I will look up that book when I get the chance. On openings what do you mean by play classically? I'll try not to give up pawns in the opening. Also how do you analyze your games and do you only analyze your losses?

In general I mean openings that put a pawn in the center early.  I only mention losing material because you said you like to gambit pawns but when it doesn't work well then you fall apart.  To me this means you know tactics but not much strategy.  Anyway, it's open for debate but personally I suggest openings like the Ruy Lopez and Queen's gamibt declined over, say, the Latvian and Albin Counter Gambit (and also over openings like KID and Larsen's).

I analyse any game where I felt unsure about a position or think I made at least 1 mistake.  Whether I win or lose doesn't really matter, I just want some lessons.  So quick draws or easy wins I tend to ignore.  Also, I often look over an internet game once briefly but I only analyse tournament games.

I analyse a game by playing it out over a board move by move until I feel like one side is better (or the evaluation changed e.g. back to equal).  Then I look at the most recent move, do I think it was the move that changed the evaluation?  Many times no, so then I backtrack 1 move at a time until I find it.  This requires some thought and variation checking obviously. 

Once I identify all the places where I think the evaluation changed I assess those positions and come up with candidate moves as if it were a game and write down my variations.  After I get all my thoughts on paper (which might take a few days because fresh eyes help) then I show the game (not my analysis) to a stronger player to see what their comments are (even if they say something that turns out to be wrong, it's useful to see how they think about the position) and then with a computer I check if I missed anything big in the game or in the variations of my analysis.

Wow, thanks for the detailed response! I will look up those openings you mentioned. I don't play much real life games, but I'll analyze my games on chess.com like you do tournament games. All my games are now over 30 minutes a side or greater so they should be helpful improving my thinking of positions and finding my flaws. Thanks again, really helpful responses guys!