Myth about improving

I had no idea. This is so fascinating!

I agree with the chess book thing, it is true!

Ok, my program is for all skill levels. Those that have some experience at the game already have an idea how to figure out what went wrong. (Stay away from chess engines though, reasons have been given in my program). If one has no skill lever, ie beginner, they can acquire it by playing games. You do learn from playing.

By analyzing your games, both your tactics and your positional judgement improve. As I have noted in some of the recent lessons, 001 could have gone 10 hours, or longer! It just set the table. Each subsequent lesson taks parts of 001 a step further. Lesson006 accentuates "candidate Moves" Lesson007 accentuates "The Principle of Two Weaknesses" and discussion of candidate moves is ignored, for he most part, else the lesson become too long.. However, they still exist and must be considered! The trick is to take every thing I teach and learn them step by step and integrate them into your own games and study.

In short, there is no quick answer, but in the long run, there is a definitive answer to everythng you need to become a master class chess player. As i note in 007, it would be great, yet Sci-Fi, if we could magically acquire Fischer's chess skills when he passed on. Instead, I'll just share absolutely everything I know about the game, even if it takes me 20 years! Then, if you folks remember what I taught you, you will surpass me. (But it won't take you 20 years!)

Thanks for the reply.

I guess it's a neverending circle. As you get stronger, you are able to spot your mistakes/weaknesses easier and work on them. As you eliminate these errors you become more aware of other areas to work on.

I have done over 5000 puzzles on chesstempo and a couple hundred from books. I still miss basic tactics in my games but I got a lot better at solving puzzles. I guess the young chess players who eventually become masters use a different method to study tactics.

It is not a different method.  What I am going to describe for you is what I did and still do to become and remain a 'professional gunslinger' (a very strong player.)

While still practicing the basic checkmate endgames, you need to begin your daily tactics practice regimen.  It is just like an athlete's daily workout.  It is designed to keep your brain in good physical shape.  The daily tactics practice sessions, like an athlete who builds muscle memory, build pattern recognition because groups of neurons in your brain get into a firing sequence which is triggered  when your eyes see the pattern in the chess position.  You will eventually find it very easy to visualize the tactic pattern in your mind.  That is what you wan to be able to do.  You do not want an electronic diagram that you can move the pieces around on or that are move around for you once you have guessed at an answer.  I garauntee you after a month of doing this the tactical pattern on the chess board will jump up off the board and smack you in the forehead in a flash no matter what position you are looking at in actual game or anywhere.  I know because it happened to me. 

The daily tactics practice session is performed like this:  (I can't really tell from looking at your home page what your level of tactics pattern recognition is.  For this reason I am going to recommend that you get a book on Amazon or wherever that is cheap ($5 or $6).  The book is titled, "1,001 Chess Tactics and Sacrifices in Chess", by Irving Chernev.  What you will do is work 27 diagrams per day.  Begin with first diagram in the book.  Get yourself a timer.  Give yourself 3 minute per diagram.  When you have selected and answer to the diagram. Stop the timer and check your answer with the answer table in the back of the book.  If you got it right put a check mark next to that diagram.  If you got it wrong put an X next to that diagram.  Move on to the next diagram. DO NOT spend time studying that diagram anymore. Repeat the process until you have done 27 diagrams.  There are 9 diagrams per page so you will do 3 pages in one practic session.  After that STOP. After you have worked the last diagram in the book it is necessary to repeat the process, beginning with the first diagram in the book paying special attention to the diagrams you marked with an X.  Those are your tactic pattern blind spots. 

After you have gone through the book 3 times, get a book that has tactical position diagrams from actual otb games played by GMs and IMs in rated tournament games.  Repeat the process that you did with the previous book.  There are many such books published.  

There are couple of other things you have to do to have a complete training regimen.  I will tell you what those are if you are still interested.

One thing I found is that if I overdo then I get tired the instinct gets bored and almost by magic I begin to lose many games in a row

The 10,000 hour theory has been around for a long time, but was recently popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers,"  in which he offers examples ranging from the Swedish Junior National Hockey team to the Beatles and Bill Gates as evidence that mastery takes this amount of time.  Gates had access to computer time way beyond his peers, the Beatles were performing live in 8 hour shifts for a German promoter, and the Swedish team players are selected from the age of 8 to excel.  It also applies to learning an instrument, to professional sports, as well as to my work, trading stocks (I'm in my 10th year, and I shudder to think how much I lost in my early years!).

The topic clearly illustrates the main problem I proposed in the first topic. People are discussing several different study methods yet no one knows which is the most efficient.

@Transpo thanks for the advices

Your welcome.  As I was writing my previous post I remembered a scene from the movie, "Searching For Bobby Fischer.  That scene illustrates perfectly what it is that is going on while your are practicing.  I don't know if you have seen the movie.  But, in the scene I am talking about. The young Josh Waitzkin (the chess prodigy) is examining a position on the chess board.  His coach is seated across from Josh at the table.  His coach can see that Josh is having trouble finding the answer(the correct sequence of moves in the position.  His coach suddenly realizes what is causing the problem.  So, he says to Josh, "...Here let me make it easy for you..." And, with one sweep of his hand he clears the pieces off the board and onto the ground.  The coach realized that the static position on the physical board was interfering with Josh's visualization in his mind.

guesso, I'm not sure you can simplify the answer into "THE most efficient"  ... The truth is the "most efficient" will vary from person to person, at different ages, skill levels, etc.  

Transpo offered excellent advice, but most people don't like the idea of so much work.  Bobby Knight, an American basketball coach, said it well: "Everyone wants to play in the championship game, but nobody wants to come to practice."

... there's no replacement for hard work.

I can't tell you how many times in a tournament I have walked away from the board and strolled around the tournament hall or even outside.  The walking away is designed to accomplish the visualization in my mind and not stare at the physical position on the board of the torunament game I am playing.  The walking away is designed to change my perspective of the position and/or I am seeing ghosts when analyzing variations. Sometimes I will distract myself from thinking about the position by engaging someone in a conversation outside or looking at the positions of other games being played in the tournament hall.  Many a time I have come back to the board after one of those strolls and have gotten a completely different perspective of the position and won or drawn a game that otherwise I would have lost or drawn.

I'm pretty sure the best method is a mix of the Russian method (systematic training + active learning) and whatever you fancy to keep your chess sparkle intact.

This is the first post of the topic which really catches my eye. Could you give some more information about this Russian method please?

As far as books, the ones which were helpful to me as a beginner were Chess Master vs Chess Amateur by Max Euwe (which really does explain the thinking process behind each move in a game, including the poor moves), Ludek Pachman's Complete Chess Strategy (especially First Principles of the Middlegame - gave me a great foundation for positional play), and Fischer's My Sixty Memorable Games (Fischer and Evans do a great job explaining strategy, tactics, and how to evaluate a position).

It also helped that I was able to practice a lot of what I learned from books. There was a chess book store in a local mall near my home. They put out boards in the promenade area where anybody could play. I use to play blitz all the time, and when I'd lose, I go into the store and look up the opening I just played. Then I'd come back to the boards and try and exact my revenge. The store clerks hated me because I did a lot more looking than buying, but at least I learned a lot. 

That's a good story, chapa ...

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1019820

This collection of the most instructive games of chess is where I started ... a paperback and an 8" x 8" board.

What I call the Russian method is mainly systematic work, such as :

- solving puzzles sorted by theme

- playing and analyzing your games

- go over (relevant) master games, and do some 'guess the moves' exercises (see Kaidanov's videos on solitaire chess)

- regularly train your tactics

- solve studies,

etc.

This is the hard part of any training regimen, so I think it's best to balance it with chess fun, chess fun meaning practising any chess activity you are interested in, be it blitz, mate in #2, openign study, or whatever you fancy and doesn't feel like working on your chess

An old story was that some guy walked up to Bobby Fischer and asked him if e could have a lesson. Bobby said sure. First lesson was to play through all the variations in the MCO from cover to cover including all the notes. The guy was stunned but came back a few weeks later and told Bobby that he had done the first lesson. The guy then asked for his next lesson,...Bobby said Ok, do it again....

Great Comment Transpo -  I put all or nearly all of Averbakh's & Ed Lasker's (Basic Mating positions) on A5 cards with a diagram.  I have about 1250 now (Pongo, Livshitz, Chernev - Combiations The Heart of Chess, and Combo's that I played on the Internet that I call Real Returns)

You have to study tactics; It's the point - CheckMATE the KING;.

 Probably, a book like Nunn's Middlegame book would be good, but better are the Yussupov series.  But even Yussupov makes it clear you have to set-it UP!!  No Computer.  

Regarding your remark with the 'mark's' in the book:  FULL ON!

I mark the diagram with a check (success) or a 0 (failure),  1/2 (partial - although only in horseshoes and hand grenades do you get partial credit).

Algorab - Livshitz recommends that you do one or two hard sit-down concentrated sets of puzzles 2x a week but no more.  

Good choices are:  

• John Nunn's Puzzle book,
• Hort's Find the BEST MOVE,
• Livshitz 3 volume set.  (Livshitz remarks that it is better a concentrated session of say 90 minutes where you set it up on a 3-D board and work out why.)  

Really stay away from the computer.  It's too easy to grasp for the Grey Monster and not engage your BRAIN.  It is harder and more tiring to SET-IT-UP.  But I know what you mean,... I grow to hate the cards and my dbase of positions sometimes.  

As DaliLuk above remarks, no one wants to come to practice.

They say that Practice Makes Perfect, "Close, but NO Cigar!"

"Perfect Practice makes Perfect,..." and if you have limited time (or parents who forbide you to spend more than 90 minutes on the INternet), I would once again say that Reinforcing Tactical Patterns will give you more Return on Investment then any other study.  If you get to the 2050-2250 level then Lev Psakhis (Advanced Chess Tactics; this book deserves the Book of the Year Award.  So much useful and REAL life experience.  Lev tells it like it is and he deserves some respect, i.e. 2x Soviet Chp; I hope he is winning his battle with cancer.  Sorry for the plug);

Anyway, I have to stop my Rant,.... and study some tactics    Oy 

Tony H - Gud ON U
I found a used book by some very famous American Basketball coach in NorthEnd of London,... John Wooden.  I guess he is very famous.  Forgive my ignorance, but wonderful words:

Four Laws of Learning (John Wooden)

1. Explanation
2. Demonstration
3. Imitation
4. Repetition

The goal is to create a Correct Habit that can be produced instinctively under GREAT Pressure.  To make sure that this goal is achieved, add the following three extra laws of Learning:

• Repetition
• Repetition
• Repetition

I, obviously need to follow my own advise.  ;-))

Great Comment