improving chess skills

I really want someone who can motivate me and give me advise about my chess program. I am  29 years old already and working. I do not have the luxury of time to focus on chess. but I really want  to improve.Can I still attain a Masters level at my age?

When I was in elementary years, I am a strong player. Back then I was 11-12 yrs.old.

I bought books and study. However, during my high school and colege years my interests was focused on my studies and I sacrificed playing chess.Now,  i'M INTERESTED AGAIN. want to improve really. I think It would be a greta accomplishment if i Can be a master.

tnx

Yes, you can still be a master at your age (any age really). Getting to FM, IM, GM or even higher is another question, and may take natural talent or starting out really young.

My plan in general, and I'm a whole lot older than you, is to study tactics, tactics and more tactics. If you can improve your board vision (your memory of patterns) then an increase in chess strength will follow.

Don't get bogged down in openings. It's an attractive nuisance that will devour all your chess time if you let it. Also try to play more open and tactical openings if you can. When I was starting out, our local master/trainer encouraged us to play the King's Gambit and answer 1 e4 with 1... e5.

Specifically, I plan is to spend lots of time on the tactics trainer here at chess.com, as little opening study as I can get away with, combined with mainly Rook endgame study (they're by far the most common, and there are a bunch of good endgame videos here), and some middlegame strategy and theory. I'm wating impatiantly on Silman's 4th edition of 'Reasses Your Chess'. That'll eat up my study time for a good long while.

Once I'm confident that I won't make a fool of myself I'll dip back into the tournament scene. I've had a LONG layoff from chess, but I'm determined to be the best player I can. Who knows, maybe I'll rattle a few cages at the Senior Nationals or something.

PS: there was one famous master, who's name escapes me now, who learned the game relatively late in life (in his 30's maybe) and still went on to become one of the strongest players in per-war Europe.

thanks for your informatio.................

but i still do not know how can i improve my chess skill? i love this game coz my father is very good player in chess.

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Thanks Estragon

i will follow your roules.

Thanks alot again...............

I dont know if i'm doing it right but this is my plan. (with regular games OTB and in chess. com)

1. I am going to master one opening for white as my repertoire and blacks reply to d4, c4, e4 and other first move by white. I fact I printed games from databases of all variations of English opening - c4 , and slav, semi slav, and caro-kann. I have a lot of printed materials already. maybe 4 mnths each will do.

2. After studying games of all varaiations of my repertoire, im going to proceed middle game and  tactics, but only focus on my repertoire. checkmates, sacrifices and combinations and attacks of english, slav and semi-slav and caro kann. I have lots of study materiasl printed already.

3. I am going to solve puzzzles but only about my repertoire.

4. study basic endgames. but with special attention to my repertoire.

 I will study and play regularly. my time table is 3 years and i'm a master

what do you think????

tnx a lot. ps comment on my game plan.

The classic method is to study engdames first, then middlegames/strategy, and lastly focus on openings.  Tactics can be studied throughout.  Classically, study time is divided into study and playing.  The weaker you are the more time should be spent playing.  Once you reach master you need to study more than play. 

There are many ways of doing things, and there doesn't exist one method that works for everyone.  But if you're aiming relatively high (master) then it would be best to not try and create a new method, but instead follow a plan that uses methods and ideas that have stood the test of time.

Your plan seems to make sense, but it's more of a plan a beginner would come up with.  Classically you don't start with the openings, and there is good reason for that.

Openings seem important, but relatively speaking they are a small part of the game, even at the master level.  It sounds like the crux of your plan is about openings so this is worth mentioning.  Simply through the lots of playing you plan to do, you can gain a strong opening repertoire though repetition.  Your plan focuses too much on openings.

Tactics can't be broken down into opening type.  There are simply too many possibilities.  Especially as you're working your way to master, class players can and will play about anything.  Studying tactics by theme (fork, pin, skewer, mates) is the most useful way to break them up, if you're going to break them up at all.  I think your plan doesn't focus enough on tactics.

Solving tactic puzzles builds skills you can use on every move of every game including calculation, visualization, and of course learning tactical patterns.

About endgames.   You may be able to find the common endgame types given an opening repertoire, but if you want to be a master it's a given you need to know all the basic endgames.  There's no such thing as a basic endgame you can just skip over and not learn.  Your plan doesn't give enough to endgames.

Your plan leaves out any strategy.  The most useful thing about playing over master games from your openings is observing and thinking about the strategies masters have used.

As said at the beginning, it's important to spend much more time playing than studying in the beginning.  As a new player, a person simply lacks the basic experiences of what goes on in a chess game and wont be able to really absorb anything beyond the most basic lessons.  I think you plan should take this into account and set aside a lot of time for serious games (not fast games).

If this plan isn't to your taste, then don't do it!  The primary reason most people play chess is to have fun.  It's just that if you really want to be a master, unless you have a lot of natural talent, it can't be all fun, at some point there is work involved and the work is not easy.

copy. tnx alot.

tnx