My strategy is simple. Find any piece, pawn or even the king you can attack (or the opponenent can attack). If none, fight for control of squares, files and diagonals.I dont care about imbalances and pawn structures.
"Just because a book contains lots of information that you don't know, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be extremely helpful in making you better at this point in your chess development." - Dan Heisman (2001)
Yea, it's normal. Don't expect to get better overnight. Improvement takes some time. Particularly understanding positional ideas is a long term goal.
As with most chess books, I think the Silman chess book focus is not on blitz.
"..., you have to make a decision: have tons of fun playing blitz (without learning much), or be serious and play with longer time controls so you can actually think.
One isn’t better than another. Having fun playing bullet is great stuff, while 3-0 and 5-0 are also ways to get your pulse pounding and blood pressure leaping off the charts. But will you become a good player? Most likely not. ..." - IM Jeremy Silman (June 9, 2016)
I was reading Dan Heisman's suggestions today on self study programs -
If you take my Chess.com rating which is generally between 1550 and 1600 in G30 or longer and subtract 200 points ( I have seen this number floating around a lot here on chess.com), I should have a USCF rating between 1300 and 1400 - this would put me solidly in step 2 and the beginning stages of step 3.
Armed with this information, Mr. heisman suggests that "My System" or 'Modern Chess Strategy' are more appropriate for my skill level. I own both but have never read either, perhaps I should go down a book in level and continue working on tactics and annotated GM games.
TCA
Also Silman's attitude that once you follow the imbalance checklist you'll automatically find the right move is a bit misleading...
I am far from really good at this game but I do enjoy it. That said, here is my advice for what it is worth. I read Amateur Mind but then read How to Reassess You Chess and things started to get a little clearer. Two things that helped the most; I have to remember to be patient, the concepts will come and they will work given time and practice; second and more immediate, don't forget your basics when hunting for an imbalance (is there a tactic available now, is everything including my next move, safe, etc.).
That's my two cents. Hope it helps a little.
TheChessAnalyst wrote:
"... I am over looking some simple tactics because i am so focused on implementing the things that I have been reading. ..."
Is this problem likely to go away if one switches to My System or Modern Chess Strategy?
Dont care about your rating fluctuations and DO NOT STOP STUDYING Silman's Book at any cost . Read it 2 times at least .
Good Luck
Your rating going down might be because you are making a radical change to your playing style and thought processes and are thus now a beginner at the things you are now trying to do. In time though the new ideas will become second nature to you and you shouldn't have to spend as much time and effort looking for how to implement them in your game and the problems you are describing should go away.
Learning is a far less conscious and linear process than people seem to think it is.
Trying out new ideas in anything but the slowest of time controls is a recipe for failure. You either get in time pressure and blunder, or you revert back to your normal way of thinking and don't use the new stuff at all.
The two best ways to train new chess material, in my opinion, is either through daily correspondence chess or analyzing grandmaster games. With correspondence, you have as much time as you need to go through all your thinking checklist without getting into time trouble. If you still lose, it's because there is something wrong in your thinking or your application, not your time handling.
Second, take a random GM game, go 10-15 moves in, and then analyze that position. Same thing, take your time, go through all your new thinking material, see what applies, and then come up with a move. See what the GM did. Did you get it right? Hey, you are playing like a master! If not, figure out why. In can be really helpful here to have a computer check afterwards, but make up your mind first. Don't just think for three seconds, guess a move and then see if Stockfish agrees. Dig deep.
If you do these things, you'll get the new knowledge deeply imbedded in your chess understanding, which will then improve your faster time controls.
I have started reading Jeremy Silman's book The Amateur's Mind (the first chess book I plan on going cover to cover because of the good things mentioned here on Chess.com) and have been trying to implement the 'work the imbalances' into my games. Unfortunately, my rating is going down! A few reasons for the rating loss are obvious:
1) I am getting into time trouble a lot because I am spending so much time on my moves.
2) I am over looking some simple tactics because i am so focused on implementing the things that I have been reading.
These problems have nothing to do with Mr. Silman's advice in the book, and I am not blaming Mr. Silman (he didn't move the pieces for me ) or his book for my poor performance.
My questions are:
Is this normal, do people usually suffer losses in both rating and games while they are trying to assimilate new knowledge?
I didn't seem to have this problem when I was just playing through GM games and tactics every week are books worth the effort or is playing through thousands of GM games and doing tactics just as informative?
Thank you in advance for any thoughts, suggestions, or just plain old inspiration!
TCA
What youre experiencing is completely normal. It comes with improvement. Youre trying to implement what youre learning into the game, and as with all things new, it will take time for what youre learning to become "muscle memory"
SmithyQ is right on the ball with good advice, except that I am not sure Stockfish that Stockfish is the best judge of whether move is strong or not. It has categorised some of my moves as bklunders because they merely win without risk, rather than saccing a rook to mate in 6!! But it will certainly point out if you've made a gross blunder or short-range tactical error.
And when analysing GM games you may of course use books and databases to help you understand the three conventional phases of the game.
Modern GM games are too difficult for most of us to understand and they do not show clearly how to exploit weak play (because even the losers rarely play the sort of weak moves that abound at lower levels). For that reason some strong players recommend games from much earlier, where the kind of errors you'll see at sub-2000 level are made and punished.
One final point is that whether you study old or modern games good annotations are essential for most of us.
Thanks for all the great responses - SmithyQ seems to have really broken down how to "Learn" and use this new material, I guess perseverance is key at this point.
Whether or not Silman's book is results-producing, it's pretty normal for someone's performance to drop while studying. What generally happens is that you latch onto new concepts and focus on those during games (as you should). But your overall level and style of play from before ghosts for awhile. As you get a better understanding of what you're learning and put it to good use, it will become second nature. At that point you will start to blend what you've just learned with your abilities from before. Just stick with it. The brain is just fine at holding onto everything at once. But when you are trying hard to shove new stuff in, your brain wants to focus on that, and other things can become fuzzy.
I have started reading Jeremy Silman's book The Amateur's Mind (the first chess book I plan on going cover to cover because of the good things mentioned here on Chess.com) and have been trying to implement the 'work the imbalances' into my games. Unfortunately, my rating is going down!
A few reasons for the rating loss are obvious:
1) I am getting into time trouble a lot because I am spending so much time on my moves.
2) I am over looking some simple tactics because i am so focused on implementing the things that I have been reading.
These problems have nothing to do with Mr. Silman's advice in the book, and I am not blaming Mr. Silman (he didn't move the pieces for me
) or his book for my poor performance.
My questions are:
Is this normal, do people usually suffer losses in both rating and games while they are trying to assimilate new knowledge?
I didn't seem to have this problem when I was just playing through GM games and tactics every week are books worth the effort or is playing through thousands of GM games and doing tactics just as informative?
Thank you in advance for any thoughts, suggestions, or just plain old inspiration!
TCA