My study plan (need advice)

Hi,

I am a weak chess player but i have the enthusiasm and love for the game, and i am thirsty for improvement!
After reading many articles by GM's i came to the conclusion that the best way to improve is by training (systematically) - that's why i took the plan from http://chessok.com/?p=21207 and i modified it for myself, i picked two openings for white and two for black that i want to play. For that Ill get the dvd's from chessbase and i already have the software from chessok.
(I will use opening blunders and opening lab to test my knowledge of the openings by solving the puzzles there)

I may also decrease the time to 3 hours per day max because it seems to much for me.

Here is my plan:

 

I am hoping for a IM/GM advice. Any suggestions are welcomed though!
Thanks!

note: I am already familiar with the common tactical motifs and mating patterns but ill work on them with other software to master them to at least 90% on the test

The very initial stage we call conditionally our ‘base line’. The aim at this stage is to acquire a playing skill of approximately 2200 ELO. At this stage a chess player must have a successfully tested opening repertoire which includes 2 openings as White and 2 openings with the black pieces.

 

That's an interesting page and it sounds like a promising plan for reaching IM (though what do I know about that?).

One thing that stands out to me is your disparate choice of openings. The original page (excerpt above) gave no indication of which openings or types of openings, or which combinations of openings were good. I would *think* that two openings similar in nature should be chosen, but you chose very different pairs of openings. For White you chose the Queen's Gambit, which is classical style, drawish, sedate, and the King's Indian Attack, which is hypermodern style and requires a lot of memorization of many openings. For Black you chose the Najdorf Sicilian, which is *very* tactical and requires so much memorization that the game of chess can lose its fun because it becomes a horrendously large memorization chore with few positional heuristics to get you by (this happened to me once), and the QI/Catalan/Nimzo-Indian, which are much more positional than tactical. This sounds like an odd pairing, and a warning sign to me.

Personally I would choose only openings that fit my taste and abilities, and I would choose pairs of openings that were similar in character. For example, if you like drawish, positional games, then for White you could choose only the Queen's Gambit, plus any early deviations by Black from that d4-opening (Dutch Defence, Nimzo-Indian Defense, etc.), and as Black you could choose Petrov's Defense (against 1. e4) and QGD (against 1. d4). Those choices would not only stick to the same style as either color, but would give you occasional overlap with the same opening for either side (Queen's Gambit and Nimzo-Indian).

I personally think the most important thing you said in your post is that you are thirsty for improvement. That comes and goes for a lot of us chess diehards. Just keep soaking up information as much as you can, systematically or otherwise. When I go through my chess phases I don't really have a plan, I just sort of keep studying and watching videos and whatnot because there is nothing else I'd rather do. Life gets in the way sometimes, and you may find in 6 months you're less interested in chess, but I think the thirst for knowledge is a way bigger asset than following a script. Keep at it, keep learning and you will see improvement. Learn as much as you can while you have the fire to do so.

 

 

My thoughts on this were that i can be versatile both playing more passive and aggressive that's why i picked these.. However i may be better at first to stick with only one of a type than continue with the more positional like the d4.

I can't really say what is my style, i am still trying to find it, but i really like being aggressive so i guess i will go with King's Indian Attack for white and Sicilian Najdorf for black. (hopefully the memorization thing won't burn me up)

 

Thank you

 

(thought i am still not sure about my choices) 

Watch some MatoJelic in the mornings too

 To be honest at this stage you don't need to have an exclusive study plan.. just go for tactics and play as much as you can.. try to learn from your mistakes by analyzing them and don't repeat them over and over again and don't try to waste your time here writing articles and questioning ! Instead watch videos related to " beginner chess"

My suggestion, for what it is worth: you may wish to ease into your study.  If you check the forums, you will see there are filled with people putting out similar plans, hoping for improvement ... and very few show any real improvement.  Heck, most don't stick to it after a week.

If you try to do too much too quickly, you face burnout.  This has happened to me (several times), it's happened to others, and it could happen to you.  Rather than jumping in with 4 hour days, try just one hour.  Do that for a full week.  If you still want to do more, or to play some blitz, you can do that, but you are only committed to that one hour.  If you can do that for a week or so, up the total hours.  Go to 90 minute sessions, then two hours, etc.  This way you build momentum and get excited about your progress, rather than feeling bogged down during the inevitable bad days.  You never want chess to feel like work, like you have to do X number of hours day, because as soon as you think that, your improvement and desire will crater.  

With that caveat out of the way, your plan looks as fine as any self-study plan.  I wouldn't worry too much about which openings you play, whether one is tactical and theory-heavy while the others are not.  Just pick openings that lead to positions you like.  That said, there is no need to learn two openings as White.  GM Simon Williams recommends just picking one.  It will save you study time, and you will learn the resulting middlegame and endgame plans quicker.

For variety or fun, you can play any opening for a random game, but 80-90% of the time you should play your set 'serious' openings.  I would also suggest to focus on openings for maybe your first 2-3 weeks, just so you fully learn the plans, and then to shift your focus to middlegame and endgames, which are far more important for your skill development.

Good luck in your chess journey.

 
Constant practice and hard work makes the player the two go hand in hand if you want to make rapid progress and climb the rating ladder one other thing they aren't telling you pay close attention to your fitness and nutrition like eat well (fruits and greens no junk food or crap) exercise often get in really good shape ( lots of cardio and strength training) get enough sleep if you have no energy and can't keep up and take the stress and the pounding your not going to make it.

 

Good luck!

There are lots of forum posts on how to improve from where you are, and in my opinion they give good advice. The advice: first, practice tactics, second, play longer games, third, learn something about positional play (Silman's books, or Srokovski's Chess training for Post-beginners are commonly recommended.) I am rated a few hundred points above you, and I can tell you that players at my level need to know very little about endgames because we don't get to level endgames very often. Usually the position has become quite materially or positionally imbalanced in the middle game and the endgame is elementary. As far as openings, at my level, everyone has deviated within 5 to 7 moves at most. So nearly all opening training is useless. I resisted this advice for quite a while but I started following it this year. Result? My ratings at each chess.com time control jumped 50 to 100 points. I used to almost never beat players with bullet ratings over 1200, now I rarely lose to players below 1250, and frequently beat 1300+ players. I saw my ratings jump even though I put in maybe an hour or two a week at most in training. I made a vow today to not play bullet chess until I've completed the daily ration of tactics on chess.com (I think it's 15 or 20 puzzles). If I stick to that vow, and finish Srokovski's book by the end of the year, I expect I'll see another jump in ratings. And they'll be no stopping me if I also I play two long games a week!

 

Normally it's better for a beginner to stick to more straightforward tactical lines rather than the nitty gritty grind of slow positional chess in openings like KIA and KID.  I would forget d4 and play e4 as white, but d4 is the choice of a lot of beginners nowadays and it is not necessary to start out with an e4 opening repertoire, though, in my opinion, I think it's easier to play e4 as a beginner than d4, unless you play the colle.  

 

I don't think you will find a good opening repertoire out there for free though, however, if that site you are talking about offers you one might as well take it.  Heck if it's free do it!  I paid for mine LOL

 

You didn't give us a lot to go on btw.  All you did was show us the first 5 days of your training regimen, which is the first part of a long journey that may take you years to complete.  So the information is incomplete because we do not know if your program is guiding you correctly.  Heck I'm probably not qualified to tell you if this program is guiding you correctly but as incomplete as it is neither will an IM or a GM.  To give you some insight on what I am talking about if you don't understand the first part of your regimen says you are going to learn d4 with garry Kasparov, but, it doesn't say how many variations, how many lines deep, etc.  That course would probably be a huge video if it showed every variation of all d4 openings, the sidelines, QG, and the Indian Defenses.  The sidelines is just one book, and the QG is another book, and the Indian Defenses is one whole other book.  That's 3 books, and that doesn't cover all d4 openings btw...  d4 by itself is a huge topic that will take years to complete.  If you pick 4 openings only (2 as white and 2 as black), that ... would be silly, because how in the name of oprah winfree's ass are you suppose to know what the hell your opponent is going to respond with?  Is this for real?  2 openings as white and two openings as black? LOL  For example what if your two white openings are the QGA and the QGD, what if your opponent plays Nf6 first move?  Your out of book already!  See my point?  You will need to know more than just 2 openings LOL LOL LOL LOL.  This is why I say it's easier to start off with e4 because there  are a lot less openings to choose from in e4 than in d4.  With d4 there are so many things your opponent can throw at you.  I believe most beginners who study d4 and play in a tournament for the first time will come across a d4 opening that they never seen before.

 

this is what you got to do.  pick either d4 or e4.  Let's say for arguments sake you pick e4.

 

What responses can you have with e4?

 

c5, e5, e6, c6, Nc6, d5

 

To name the ones I think are good.  In order to create an opening repertoire for those openings you'd have to study all of those responses, and that is just one move deep.  It gets more complicated as you go furture.  That is more than just studying 2 openings LOL...  

 

Just think of the possible openings you can get into depending on what a person you do not even know will do after seeing your move.

 

Honestly I would say do not memorize anything past 3-4 moves.  Do memorizing later.  Start out with playing lots of chess, and analyze the games after you finish.  I'm learning that you should play games with long time controls, in my games I see that the problem is that I do not have enough time to think in a 10 minute game and make bad moves because of it and often lose with time when I am ahead or end up taking a draw because time ran out and all he has is his king and I have a queen and a rook but I couldn't get a mate in before the time elapsed. 

 

I see your blitz rating is less than 1000, that means you need to study basic tactical motifs.  I would check out dan Heismans website and look for tactic training books.  The object is not to find a book with hard problems that will challenge your mind, but to find a book that has easy basic tactical motifs that you can solve in less than a minute, and do them until you can do them in your sleep, so that the tactics will be so easy for you to see on the board that you will see them in a moments notice.

 

I say again play a lot of games!  Analyze them.  Play games with long time controls.  keep a chess journal.  Write your own opening book.  What I mean by that is when you get hammered in the opening take note of it by writing it in your little opening book, and later drill it on a chess board a few times or so maybe once or twice a week, as much as you can, until you have it down pat.  Keep adding openings to it and drill them as you go.  Do this, and you will never need to buy a book on opening traps.  

 

If you encounter a new opening, go over it in whatever resource you have available and add it to your opening book to drill for later.  Keep doing this and you will know a lot of different openings.  This is best to do when you do not have an opening repertoire, because if you had a good repertoire, you would not encounter a new opening...

 

I'm in the same boat as you.  Just trying to get better myself.  I have been off and on with chess for quite a while.  I hope to stay active for about 6 months and hopefully gain about 100 points.  

 

Always got to study tactics though.  You do know that right?  I personally think I am going overboard with studying tactics, so I am not the best person to ask about what is a good tactics regimen LOL.

I don't see anything in the plan about going over losses. Most GM's get to be GM's because they absolutely hate to lose and they know they lost because of some mistake they made. To them making that mistake is enraging and embarrassing. Check out the many videos of guys like Carlsen or Nakamura leaving the board after a loss. I read today that multi WC Anand was upset at his bad play even though he drew and advanced.

These guys have and still do go over their losses to find out where they went wrong so they never lose that way again. Spending time eliminating and remembering ways that you lost usually pays off.

"... Overall, I would advise most players to stick to a fairly limited range of openings, and not to worry about learning too much by heart. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)

To me, at least, it sounds like way too much work to try to learn both the King's Indian Attack and the Queen's Gambit. The King's Indian Attack is sometimes suggested as a sort of quick-fix opening solution for near-beginners, but notice the reservations that IM Watson had while mentioning the idea.

"... For players with very limited experience, I recommend using openings in which the play can be clarified at an early stage, often with a degree of simplification. To accomplish this safely will take a little study, because you will have to get used to playing wiith open lines for both sides' pieces, but you can't eliminate risk entirely in the opening anyway. ... teachers all over the world suggest that inexperienced players begin with 1 e4. ... You will undoubtedly see the reply 1 ... e5 most often when playing at or near a beginner's level, ... After 2 Nf3, 2 ... Nc6 will occur in the bulk of your games. ... I recommend taking up the classical and instructive move 3 Bc4 at an early stage. Then, against 3 ... Bc5, it's thematic to try to establish the ideal centre by 4 c3 and 5 d4; after that, things can get complicated enough that you need to take a look at some theory and learn the basics; ... Of course, you can also play 1 d4 ... A solid and more-or-less universal set-up is 2 Nf3 and 3 Bf4, followed in most cases by 4 e3, 5 Be2 and 6 0-0. I'd rather see my students fight their way through open positions instead; however, if you're not getting out of the opening alive after 1 e4, this method of playing 1 d4 deserves consideration. ... a commonly suggested 'easy' repertoire for White with 1 Nf3 and the King's indian Attack ... doesn't lead to an open game or one with a clear plan for White. Furthermore, it encourages mechanical play. Similarly, teachers sometimes recommend the Colle System ..., which can also be played too automatically, and usually doesn't lead to an open position. For true beginners, the King's Indian Attack and Colle System have the benefit of offering a safe position that nearly guarantees passage to some kind of playable middlegame; they may be a reasonable alternative if other openings are too intimidating. But having gained even a small amount of experience, you really should switch to more open and less automatic play." - IM John Watson in a section of his 2010 book, Mastering the Chess Openings, Volume 4

The KIA is discussed in Winning Chess Openings by GM Yasser Seirawan (1999).
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
For more on the KIA, one could try The King's Indian Attack: Move by Move by Grandmaster Neil McDonald (2014).

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7277.pdf

Perhaps, it would be of interest to look at The Fianchetto Solution by Emmanuel Neiman and Samy Shoker (2016)

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9029.pdf
and Starting Out: King's Indian Attack by John Emms (2005).
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627034051/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen81.pdf

Obviously, there is some "theory" (stuff one can study), but perhaps considerably less than what is involved for many other openings. I suspect that many chess clubs have a KIA enthusiast.

The Queen's Gambit is one of the major openings of chess, and there is the potential to get involved in trying to learn a huge amount of stuff, but a Chessbase presentation would probably be written with the idea of avoiding the most demanding lines, and, in any event, there is a good chance that one's opponent will not be up on all the latest theory either. Possibly of interest:

First Steps: The Queen's Gambit by Andrew Martin (2016)

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7652.pdf

Starting Out: Queen's Gambit Declined by Neil McDonald (2006)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627005627/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen93.pdf

Queen's Gambit Declined by Matthew Sadler (2000).

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708234438/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen15.txt

The Kaufman Repertoire for Black & White by GM Larry Kaufman (2012),

https://web.archive.org/web/20140626221508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen162.pdf

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/955.pdf

 Your study plan should include studying endgames. A good understanding of endgames will shape your middle game plans.

The Najdorf seems to be pretty much the standard example of an opening for a beginning player to avoid, and even the Sicilian is often discouraged. Nevertheless, many go ahead with such ideas.

"Generally speaking, 'Starting Out' and 'Sicilian Najdorf' are not exactly words that one envisions in the same title, because anyone who is just starting out should not dive into the vast ocean of theory that is the Najdorf. For beginners, the time invested in studying even minor lines can be more productively used solving tactical puzzles and basic endgame technique.
...
... In some lines, a good understanding of basic principles will take you far, while in others, such as the Poisoned Pawn (6 Bg5 e6 7 f4 Qb6!?), memorization is a must, as one wrong move can cost you the game in the blink of an eye. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140626175558/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen87.pdf
"... one simply cannot play the [Najdorf Sicilian] safely without studying the complications and remembering a lot of concrete variations. If you are averse to doing this, or you have a poor memory, you are better off avoiding such lines." - FM Steve Giddins (2003)
"As a professional player, I participate in many opens. I need at least 7.5/9 for the first place so I have little margin for mistakes. ... It suffices to mention the 6.Bg5-attack with forced variations all the way up to move thirty or more, to understand my reluctance to use the Najdorf. ..." - GM Alexander Delchev (2006)
Around 2010, IM John Watson wrote, "... For players with very limited experience, ... the Sicilian Defence ... normally leaves you with little room to manoeuvre and is best left until your positional skills develop. ... I'm still not excited about my students playing the Sicilian Defence at [the stage where they have a moderate level of experience and some opening competence], because it almost always means playing with less space and development, and in some cases with exotic and not particularly instructive pawn-structures. ... if you're taking the Sicilian up at [say, 1700 Elo and above], you should put in a lot of serious study time, as well as commit to playing it for a few years. ..."

I like doing at least 5 tactics a day (I'm lazy)a few lessons on tactics and strategy, and play one online game afterwards.

and a variant once in a while

I would make the point that the available part of the plan seems to me to be too rigid. If one is in the midst of going over a nimzo-indian game, for example, one does not want to feel obliged to stop and go on to the study of an ending just because the plan says so. If one's experience is anything like mine, one never knows how long anything is going to take. A video may have a certain running time, but I never know how many times I am going to have to stop the thing in order to give myself time to take in this or that.

Subscribing to this great thread.

Possibly of interest:

Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Simple-Attacking-Plans-77p3731.htm
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1949)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Endgames_for_Kids.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf
Seirawan stuff:
http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_beginner/ev_winning_chess.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-Beginner
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092617/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review560.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-winning-chess-endings
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
http://www.nystar.com/tamarkin/review1.htm

Chess.com Study Plan...

https://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory