Just play the game

Can anyone tell me if there is any substance to the following statement.  "In order to be a good chess player you need to play the game and learn from each game."  i say this because alot of people that I have asked about certain tactics and play always tell me to read this book and read that book.  In all honesty i have read tons of book and after so many they all say the same thing.  H1 takes z3 and so on and so on.  I am willing to believe that some of the greats that started playing at age four didnt read books but played the game.  SSSSOOOO again, what do you all think?  Reads every book written or play and learn?

Both! I know that if you read a book you can suffer from information overload. Just get one or two ideas and put them into your games. I have found that I try to use new ideas too much and use them when they are not appropiate (and lose). My rating goes down and I back off the new ideas and use them more appropiately. Then my rating goes higher than it was before. Then I try to find another new idea to use in my games, and the cycle is repeated.

As I said if I get too many new ideas and plans they tend to get jumbled and I have trouble sorting out what I did wrong.

I hope this helps you.

Thx for da advice!

There is essential fundamental knowledge to acquire as a foundation to build upon. This has been accumulated over a long time. One needs to learn these from somewhere. Actual game experience would take far too long. Books for different stages of development are one way to speedily acquire this knowledge.

What one should be working at can be broken down into different areas. Try and determine these for your present skill level and chip away at them. They will become part of your game over time.

At times it can be difficult to assess where one's weakness lay. This is a good site for help.

Improvement comes from both theory and practice. Finding the right balance is the tough part. At lower levels, it should probably be 80% playing time (including reviewing your own games) to 20% book study time. The higher you go, the more book theory you'll need.

But I have definitely seen way too many chess players (myself included, at times) who spend too much time reading books and not enough time playing, and wonder why they aren't improving. I've also seen some (especially kids) who just play and never read books, and they'll improve to a point, but then they hit a wall where they just can't improve any more - usually around 1800 USCF, from what I've seen among tournament players.

As I said, it's a balancing act.

yeah you really need to both if you want the maximum improvement. learn from your own mistakes + learn about the game via books

and fischer as a kid would love to learn from chess books. he would go into a club and look around the room until he found someones book lying around, and tried to blast it cover to cover