"... Logical Chess ... is definitely for beginners and players who are just starting to learn about development, weak squares, the centre, standard attacking ideas, and the like. In many ways, it would a wonderful 'first' book (or first 'serious' book, after the ones which teach the rules and elementary mates, for example), and a nice gift for a young player just taking up chess. ..." - IM John Watson (1999)
http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/assorted-recent-books
Best to completely ignore the naysayers who have nothing positive to contribute (here breakingbad12 and DeirdreSkye). They are typical immature internet bullies who have a compulsion to impose their toxic personalities on others. They need to evoke responses in order to continue defecating their negativity. Without the attention of others to feed on, like weeds deprived of water they will eventually dry up and blow away.
I improve on chess when I was young simply by watching better players play. You can view my games if you like.
Ok, maybe off-topic but... why do people always announce their "ignorance acts"? Instead of just ignoring, or leaving a thread right away, why do people announce this fact before? Doesn't it have the opposite effect than intended? 
OP,
I don't think I am qualified to help you but I will try anyways.
I just saw one of your games in your archive. It was 120 min per side game. You played bird's opening with white. Your opponent was 200 points higher rated than you. And your opponent checkmated you using 9 min in less than 25 moves. You used 30 min.
Your game and profile tell me a few things:
1) since you are playing such long formats, it means you are serious about your chess improvement.
2) you have played less than 100 blitz or bullet games. You have not done many tactics.
3) most probably you are taking the advice of some experts to play long games very seriously.
Now what you need to do to improve:
1) don't avoid blitz and bullet. They are the most useful formats for improving players. Play lots of blitz and bullet. The more, the merrier.
2) do tactics daily.
OP,
Now what you need to do to improve:
1) don't avoid blitz and bullet. They are the most useful formats for improving players. Play lots of blitz and bullet. The more, the merrier.
I couldn't disagree more with this advice. The faster the game the less time you have to think about what you are doing. Bullet and Blitz are simply games of making (mostly poor) chess moves faster than your opponent, hoping his/her clock time expires before yours, and hoping to not get checkmated first. Is it fun? Perhaps. Does it improve your chess skills? Very little, if at all.
Give more weight to the perspective of higher rated (i.e., titled) players on the topic....
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-blitz-and-bullet-rotted-my-brain-don-t-let-it-rot-yours
Any kind of time control can improve your chess, but longer games have greater effects. I don't like the "avoid blitz!!!!" mantra. Daily and blitz require different set of skills, and it's good to your overall chess knowledge to improve every aspect of the game. The problem is that blitz is addictive in nature. If you manage to overcome that, there's no reason to worry, honestly.
"..., 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.
Of course, you can do both (long and fast games), ..." - IM Jeremy Silman (June 9, 2016)
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive
The link on "longer time controls" by Silman (page 1 post 11 by Russ Bell) was good!
I missed such things...longer time controls on OTB; especially when the stronger club players shared their analysis.
It was there, where I felt growth/learning made an impact.
You really are funny.You accuse me of trying to get people money when you push people in a site that already gets their money.
Bad humor but humor nevertheless.You know , I could also claim that you are here to find customers for Chessable and accuse you that you are just a salesman that tries to get his commission but I seriously couldn't care less even if you are.
I have tried to help many people with many ways and never get even a dime.Because unlike you , I respect people that try to become better and I tell them the truth.Yes , go to chessable if you are too lazy to put any effort in the game.Chessable is better than nothing but certainly worst than something(anything).Even if you can only dedicate 2-3 hours a week it is much better than parrot learning what Chessable has to teach you.
Have you ever met any serious trainer?Because I have one in my chess club and over the time had the chance to discuss with a couple more.None of them spoke highly of Chessable and all of them said that these "methods" are a good way to take money from the vast majority of lazy on line amateurs.
For anyone who wants to improve , there was never a better method than a good book , a real board and a lot of concentration.
It doesn't have to be dozen of hours every week.2-3 hours are enough as long as you manage to isolate yourself in Chess Planet and forget everything else(not easy but not impossible either).
It is not only about improving.It's about discovering the real beauty of chess.It's about reading , understanding and then employing what you understand in a game.It's about becoming a GM just for a few moves every game.That's a great feeling , trust me.
Sorry to be so direct to you man, but the things you are saying here are just ridiculous. Your are talking about a website that you don't know at all, but some people from your club told you that they don't like Chessable. Well, this is great! Why you talk about something that you don't know at all? Taking the money of the people? What do you mean? In Chessable you can register for free, and you can build up your own repertoire there without paying anything! You can purchase books there, sure, but you can use material for free. Yes, exactly, for free.
There is chess teatcher who wrote a whole book on basic endgames for his students, and he published the book there so that his students can learn with it - and all other people on this planet too.
In Chesssable we have classical books on endgames, on tactics, on openings. You can't reduce Chessable to one single author or book: there are different books by different authors.
One of the best Brazilian players publsihed there. His name is Rafel Leitão. Probably you never heard about him, but his FIDE rating is 2619, and he won the Brazilian Chess Championship in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2004, 2011, 2013 and 2014.
We have a great 1.d4 repertoire published by one of the most famous "YouTube-chess coaches", John Bartholomew. We have there the classic book "100 Endgames You Must Know" by Jesus de la Villa. We have also the classic "Improve Your Chess Tactics: 700 Practical Lessons & Exercises" by Yakov Neishtadt.
For the same money which I would spend for one hour with an expensive coach who would tell me basic stufff about opening, middlegame and endgame I can buy several books on these topics and learn by self-study.
Is this what you call "lazy method"? There are a lot of people in Chessable spending several hours per week to improve their game. I never did so much tactics in my life as in Chessable, where I have the possibility to repeat regularly the combinations that I got wrong. This is hard work. I learned there a whole 1.d4 repertoire, a whole repertoire for black against 1.e4 (the Scandi), and I am lerning right now even a second system against 1.e4 (the Hyper Accelerated Dragon). I am learning a whole repertoire writen by a GM against everything but 1.e4. This GM will usually answer all my questions about moves I don't understand in few minutes. How many authors you know will answer questions about the book within few minutes? Not one, right? Yes, I knew.
I am also learning regularly two endgame-books. If you want to know how some people in chess.com think on Chessable you can try to read the blog by Milliern, who wrote that "I was surprised by how useful I've found it". I send Milliern once a message abbout how interesting Chessable could be for him, who likes very much to learn endgames. His blog is
here: https://www.chess.com/blog/Milliern/review-chessable
His first impression on the website was not great:
"I came to chessable thinking it was a joke. It’s heavily points-oriented, like a video game, and it has a slightly overly flashy look to it, though the aesthetics of the interface are decent."
He changes his opinion, though:
"My experience with the chessable digital version of 100 Endgames You Must Know was highly favorable. Because I’m a data nut, I can tell you exactly how long it took me to go through the paper version in 2008, setting the board included: 88 hours. That doesn’t include positions I photocopied and carried with me, but actual sit-down time with the book and board. The chessable version has taken me 34 hours (and change), and I’ve gone through the book more than 9 times already. The degree of efficiency, not having to deal with setting up the board, is outrageous. Even if you are a Cretan who must count on your fingers, you certainly get the gist of that kind of efficiency. The books still contain the text that they have in hardcopy version, so you aren’t losing anything. There are analysis boards, so you can study the content in a spaced repetition format, as is their feature; or you can slowly study positions."
I am also trianing regularly with 4 tactics books containing on total 1950 postions from different levels. I am learning in Chessable since 248 days, I din't miss one single day in this time - and I am not an exception at all, as a lot of people are training regularly there, several of them much harder than me.
You say you respect people (unlike me, you said), but you don't see any problem to be highly disparaging and arrogant about my attempts to help the OP. Probably it did not even come to your mind that different people can have different opinons about how to improve in chess? I talk on this forum about Chessable as I talk in Chessable about chess.com - this is a normal thing to do. Once I was telling people to use "Chess Position Trainer" to learn and review openings, and I still thing CPT is a great thing, but I thing Chessable is even better. At least I have experience with the website, so I know what I am talking about - contrary to you.
torrubirubi,
thanks to this thread, I just registered at chessable. But, I don't quite understand what features it has. Am I supposed to buy all those books? or are there any free tools or features?
I like kindaspongey posting, a lot of recommendation are helpful and he is nice person too, torrubirubi is very helpful and if chessable help a player, why not use it.
Deidre Skye, I suggest you go back when you were helpful, there is no reason to criticize kindaspongey and torribirubi. Being negative and sarcastic and mean-spirited won't help a player get better.
torrubirubi,
thanks to this thread, I just registered at chessable. But, I don't quite understand what features it has. Am I supposed to buy all those books? or are there any free tools or features?
Just register, have a look in a couple of the free books and see if you like the whole thing. You dont have to buy books, but some of the very good ones you have to buy. But first try the free ones to see how the spaced repetition works.
good luck!
This is reason why Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev is the best chess book for beginners and intermediate; here is the review by IM John Watson
Lastly, we look at two reprints of classic instructional books, both converted into algebraic notation from their original descriptive-notation editions. Batsford's new edition of Logical Chess: Move by Move, written in 1957 by Irving Chernev, is a collection of 33 games with a famous player on at least one side of the board. Chernev's idea was to 'explain' every move of every game, mostly with a paragraph or more of prose, and sometimes (but not often) with supporting analysis. Since he has to justify every move, the book is replete with advice, principles, axioms, and tips to guide one's play. These are at the most elementary level, and the first thing to realize about Logical Chess is that it is definitely for beginners and players who are just starting to learn about development, weak squares, the centre, standard attacking ideas, and the like. In many ways, it would a wonderful 'first' book (or first 'serious' book, after the ones which teach the rules and elementary mates, for example), and a nice gift for a young player just taking up chess. For one thing, the games are clearcut and instructive. In one of the Dvoretsky books, a point is made about classical games being more instructive than modern ones, not because they are better, but because the ideas are so simple and because players allowed their opponents clear, one-sided advantages. This is very true of Chernev's games, which are almost all examples of miserable defence by the loser, or of utter lack of understanding (by modern standards). But precisely for that reason, they contain powerful thematic lessons for the beginning player. My only warning would be that the impressionable student should be gently reminded by a friend or mentor that most of the rules and principles Chernev so dogmatically states do not actually have any consistent validity in real-world chess, so that the book should be looked at as a way to get started thinking about positions, not as a reliable guideline to what chess is really about. With that proviso, I would recommend it heartily to anyone just starting to explore the game, and therefore, to scholastic chess teachers as well.
To get better, you should get a coach to help figure out what best course of action is given your strengths and weaknesses.
I am a National Master with 10+ Years of Teaching Experience, available for private and group lessons. To learn more about my chess services and general chess news, see www.premierchess.com or www.facebook.com/premierchess.
Email me at erabin66@gmail.com or call (917)776-1306 today to set up a free 30 minute consultation or ask any questions.
@torrubirubi -
I enjoyed your post #39. Particularly your detailed information about Chessable. I have visited the site, and although I am not a member it appears impressive in terms of its instructional and training resources. The post should prove very informative to many chess.com members, notwithstanding the objections of the naysayer, purveyors of negativity.
Speaking of which...
You are correct about DeirdreSkye, who is apparently knowledgeable about chess, but is clueless about how to engage respectfully and courteously with humans - indicative of a personality disorder coupled with immaturity. Better to ignore and not waste energy on people like this, who need to elevate their self image by diminishing others...
all of my pupils improved approximately 200 rating points in a few months (4-9 months).
for detailed information visit https://improveinchess.wordpress.com/training/private-lessons/
Such a lazy way to help others. Hey, I gonna make a list and then copy and paste everywhere. Don't get me wrong, it's a good list but, c'mon, don't be so generical. Create a link for your list and paste that link. This is just a matter of politeness and common sense. What he does is almostly a reddit bot type of thing.
I agree with you. Unfortunately there will be always guys that find that useful.And if you insist , BullyBoss RussBell will appear to encourage kindaspongey to do the same useless thing , baptising it "useful".
As for Shock_Me , if he waits to improve with these lists , he will wait a lot.
I’d have to respectfully disagree. I joined chess.com in November- I’ve followed @kindaspongey links which are mostly to book reviews on another chess site (not chessable). I liked the site, made the required donation to a chess foundation to get a membership and I’ve been going through a good deal of the site’s content. And I’m still not good, but I am definitely improving. I believe it’s at least partly due to my study from that site, and even if that’s not why, I’m certain I’ve enjoyed the content. If @kindaspongey had stopped posting his lists, I know I wouldn’t have found the site, I would never have gone through ancient dead threads, so me personally, I’m glad he still posts them