sounds like a good plan. good luck with it.
My Tactics Study Plan
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Sounds like Michael de la Maza's 7 circles, and also sounds incredibly boring.
Coach Dan Heisman has a similar plan using Bain's Chess Tactics for Students. You might want to wander over to his site (danheisman.com) and check it out.
Thanks I'll stick with it.
Boring? Well, it's not all I'm doing. For the other 30% or so of time I will be watching chess commentary videos to help with strategy (and they are fun to watch); playing blitz, working on openings/endings - I have just ordered the Silman endings book so that will come too, whatever I feel like. This will add spice to the mix, plus I don't mind 'boring' a little if it equals improvement.
I have just gone over a set of 10 again, did the same 10 yesterday from chapter 2, took me 20 minutes in total - that's not too much time. There were only two that I had forgotten that I had to think through. Rote learning might not be everyone's cup of tea but it surely works? Think of those maths times tables at school.
Edit: thanks I'll have a look at that site. I'm just mainly going by the suggestion of repetition of puzzles, looking over some of the same puzzles to cement ideas, etc. Cheers.
Your study plan is like Michael de la Maza's 7 circles plan. It might help to check blogs of players who went through the same kind of regimen (they are called the "Knight errants").
Good luck with your studies.
Hi, I just thought I’d share my tactics study plan, see what you think of it (and maybe posting it up will help to make me stick with it as well! )It’s nothing at all radical, it is simply what I think is a more systematic plan than what I’ve been doing – I need structure! It’s put together from sound advice I’ve got from good players and scraps of things I’ve read previously.
Instead of randomly doing tactics puzzles or just going on tactics trainer when I feel like it, I’m going to do the following:
1
I have a sample of 200 tactics puzzles. (These are taken from the Chess Travellers Quiz Book, great book, but I suppose they could be from any). I’m going to do these 200 repeatedly in sets of maybe 10 or 20 and I’m going to over and over them until I can see the solution immediately, first time, every time. Basic traditional repetition really. If I can’t clearly visualise the end position(s) from the solution, I’m going to get the board out if necessary, and make it stick that way. The sets of 10 or 20 should ensure that I can do them in 20/30 minute sessions each time and obviously getting quicker (hopefully) as I go over them – and so then I will introduce a new set and do the same for those. I will also keep going back to the other sets to make sure they stick obviously.
The puzzles themselves are your typical ‘white to play and win’ sort of thing, which is usually a mate but can be material advantage or ‘winning endgame’ so at least there is a little variety. They are also arranged in ascending difficulty, so that the first chapters are relatively easy but they get harder as they go along . So I have a range of different patterns and ideas at various difficulties, all taken from master games. So I think this sample is a good one to use.
2
I’m going to do this daily and spend as much time on it as I can spare. Of the time I can put aside for chess, which over the next three months say, is three-six hours a day – maybe 70% of the time I will spend doing this.
3
I will continue to use tactics trainer everyday as well, perhaps in the region of 25-50 puzzles?
I plan to do this over the next three months and then re-assess the situation. It might take longer than that or a lot less, I have no idea. I think that I need to stick to it for at least three months though before I assess it properly, to see if it has had any effect on my game, so maybe if the 200 sample is not big enough I can increase it a little? We’ll see.
Anyway, it would be interesting for me to see if this more structured approach has any positive effects on my play and rating. Currently, my ratings have remained relatively constant throughout the year at around:
Tactics trainer 1600-1700
Standard rating 1450-1550
Blitz rating 1300-1350
So any potential increase in rating may (or may not) suggest that the method has had some positive effect? We’ll see. It probably won’t prove anything either way and maybe three months is just not long enough to see any improvement, but I’ll update after three months anyway.
If for some reason you think this is a really bad idea and will be a waste of time, let me know your reasons why (this way I don't waste three months) but I can't see how doing this would hurt.
Thanks.
(My eventual all round target is 1800 in blitz and standard play. I'm also hoping to join a club shortly if possible too, though at my level I would be close to the bottom of the pile.)