Play a lot of long (90 min) games, and give them all full depth of your attention--use your extra time to look at all the moves.
That's better than playing 9 10 min games.
Quantity vs Quality
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neurionb wrote:
I played a lot of games at first, then asked people more experienced than myself what my weaknesses were based on all those games. Then I played a lot fewer games, focusing on those weaknesses. Hope that helps :)
Good idea. I agree with this guy. Play a lot of games ( not WAY too many say like 30) to figure out what your main weaknesses are and focus in on them later.
Jul 28, 2008
0
#4
I play a lot of correspondence games and look back only at the losses
I have a lot of losses but I generally play people better than me because you learn more. Lots of times people will help you. When messing with a new opening i play truckloads of blitz games to see what kind of variations are likely to arise and then focus on the ones I didn't understand. Keep in mind that I'm not that good.
anthony
There was a period where I played a lot of games, and started to make a lot of mistakes because I didnt have time to really analyze what was going on. So I started playing fewer games and trying to make quality moves. The down side is that I miss the variety, always having moves to make.
When my main concern was only winning I liked to play lots of games. Now that I'm more focused on learning, I find that fewer games helps me to really think over and use any concepts I may have learned, and of course to find the many mistakes I tend to make.
It's a good question! Personally, I don't understand how some people embark in 50 or more games at a time!!! I play 10 or 15 at the most & carefully analyse them at the end to see what the key moves for either side were...
Midgame, this gives me the oportunity to study more options & possible responses to my moves &, eventually, make better moves.
In my opinion, if you get into too many games at the same time, inevitably you'll lose interest in some of them & end up not caring weather you win or lose.
It depends on the person and where they are at. They say when a person is pretty new to the game a lot of blitz is good because you will see a lot of different positions and get a quicker feel for the magic of how the pieces work together.
I did this at first and it did help a bunch, but after awhile I began to feel that playing a lot of games especially quick ones was doing more harm than good. I am not a quick thinker, nor do I absorb stuff so quickly, so I stopped playing quick chess all together and the games I do play I really try to take my time and look deeply into the positions I encounter. This has helped my game lots, I don't blunder near as much and enjoy the game more.
good question Mr Sheers
I prefer a middle of the road approach....currently I feel overloaded because of the tournamnets I am in and my game suffers. About 20 is a good number for me.
Unlike some though I hardly ever analyze my games...I play for the enjoyment soley and I really am in mind to push to improve my game. To me the experience I get form the games is best for me for improvement. Basically I feel that with experience comes improvement.
I will latch onto an opening and use it in the majority of my games until I feel I have played it out enough to either decide I do not care for it or the opposite then I will focus on a different opening for awhile.
Currently I have been experimenting with the sicilian for quite awhile now as black and I was on an english opening kick as white. Now I am going back and forth with the english and e4 as white. I think next I will try d4 for awhile.
I did the first tournament, and it was pretty fun. I was overwhelmed with the number of games I had to play at once. When I found myself with 15 or so games I had a hard time making moves just to keep from timing out. I love chess and I hate losing, so for me I think that right now playing fewer games is best. Ive been able to play a couple games at a time and really focus on them. I played my first Sicilian game and did pretty well because I was able to study it and learn about it.
Playing fewer games does narrow your focus, and while that is good, I do feel sometimes that I am missing out on other styles of play that I would like to learn.
Over the last couple of months I have not taken a game that is less than seven days per move. That has helped me a lot.
it depneds if you are just starting you want to play lots of blitz to get experience but later on you'll want to play longer games as to focus on your weaknesses
fischeryouth wrote:
it depneds if you are just starting you want to play lots of blitz to get experience but later on you'll want to play longer games as to focus on your weaknesses
Some coaches advise that playing blitz games as a beginner is exactly what you don't want to do.
Jul 29, 2008
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#13
I feel that in most learning, repetition is key. The mind is like a muscle, and you need to exercise it. By playing a lot of games at first, you can develop the ability to intuitively recognize common patterns (the areas of control and weakness that specific pieces have, or patterns of placement of pieces, etc.) that happen in chess. Developing a good intuition, I have found, is a necessary step on the way to becoming good at chess, but it is only a preliminary device for most of us. I am only beginning to move on from there, so I can't say too much about where to go next.
"Quantity has a quality of its own..." - Stalin
Hard to argue with the guy.
I now go for 'my version' of quality, although it is more quantity in reality.
I have in the past had a total of over 100 games! (at one site) and for me this was just unmanageable and my rating suffered a little.
I now play at more than one site, and I only play around 15-20 games (here) which is the most at any one site for me, with up to a total of 60-70 games!
I know this is still probably too many, and as an earlier post I could not view all these game boards and know my opponent, and often have to 'refresh' myself with the postion by moving 3 or 4 moves back or referring to notes.
I do find spreading the games however is/seems more manageable as I don't often have more than maybe 5 or 6 games waiting at any one site and for me gets around another earlier post whereby I always have a move to make and maybe more variety, and my rating 'across the board' is starting to climb a little and also I am enjoying the 'game load' at it's current level.
Edit: I suppose if I did have as little as 5 or 10 games my rating might climb quicker, but I don't think I would enjoy the overall experience as much.
A few days ago I decided to stretch myself and play an extra game at a time, for a total of four. So, definitely not a quantity guy here.
Seems to me it is more important to play a complete game at one time rather than have many games going and play a move at a time (with sometimes days between moves). With many games going on at once in correspondence chess, it's hard to keep overall sight of strategies and trends in development for each individual game. That's why the "live chess" feature on chess.com is a good one--you can play complete games without leaving the board. (Plus the site saves the PGN so you can go back later and analyze the game.)
MHOP wrote:
Seems to me it is more important to play a complete game at one time rather than have many games going and play a move at a time (with sometimes days between moves).
Yes and no. When you only have to make a move or two a day, it forces you to really think it through. I usually open up analysis board, and try different combinations, sometimes going a number of moves ahead. I find it to be really instructive.
In live chess on the other hand, you don't have the time to properly analyze your moves.
MHOP wrote:
Seems to me it is more important to play a complete game at one time rather than have many games going and play a move at a time (with sometimes days between moves). With many games going on at once in correspondence chess, it's hard to keep overall sight of strategies and trends in development for each individual game. That's why the "live chess" feature on chess.com is a good one--you can play complete games without leaving the board. (Plus the site saves the PGN so you can go back later and analyze the game.)
Thats the beauty of playing less games. I find that it only takes a few ticks for me to reacquaint myself with the positions because I have studied them so intensively. I goes with out saying that you wanna play "real" or live chess as well.
The question I would like to put for is:
With regards to improving ones game-
Is it better to play fewer games and give them you full depth of attention, or is it better to play a lot of games where you can experience more situations?
I look forward to your comments:)