Some myths about training and improvement

Myth #1. You must play strong players.

You will be in difficulty to find an opponent much stronger than you. Strong player are not interested in playing against weaklings. If your rating is bellow 1800 and somehow you find a GM or FM to play with, you will be beaten all the time, which may be not good for your confidence. Therefore, it is advisable to play those who are of approximately equal strength with you, then you will feel your own progress.

Myth #2. You must solve tons of tactics and do this for several hours a day.

This can only be true for an absolute beginner, it can be helpful in a limited degree. The solving of puzzles is an art of its own, and is very different from playing chess with real opponents. You can be a great solver of puzzles and still be a weak player. Once you got acquainted with the common tactical motifs and combinations, there is no sense to repeat them again and again. Do not repeat what you already know, something like 2+2=4, go to the next stage and study the openings. The fact is that strong GMs spend of most of their training time (up to 95%) on the opening preparation and not on puzzle solving.

Myth #3. You must study the classics.

This is even more doubtful than the previous statement. With the advent of computers and availability of great many study resources chess changed a lot. Today the level of chess culture in the world is much higher than it was a century ago. One certain thing is that you can never become a strong player, a GM or FM, without studying the games of your modern strong contemporaries. There are also chess connoisseurs (on chess.com in particular) who know the classics well, admire and love them and have read tons of old, famous chess books, but their level of play is far bellow that of FM or GM.

I am s weak player, but those myths don't seens to make sense. How to be a good player ns find tactics on your own games if you can't find them in puzzles? How to understand the more complex games of today's super GM if you don't understand the classics first? It's like learning modern physics without learning Newton first. All GM and famous chess authors advise against focusing on openings until you are over 2000. Are they all wrong?

There is an interview of Anish Giri on YouTube, and he advises to study the openings. He preserves his great tactical vision by playing on the internet, and he said nothing about puzzle solving. Must a modern pop musician know classical music? No. Magnus Carlsen did not focus on the classics as well, his top book is not Capablanca', nor Bronstein's, nor Nymzovich's, but Kramnik's written in our time. You did not mention you "famous chess authors" though. Anyway you may have your opinion, and I have a right to express my own.

I did all the things you said are myths and got good chess improvements so I will stick to following your myths

There indeed a lot of strong young players today who doesn’t know much about the classics. However, I think that there are good arguments for studying classics, especially in games with your openings and of course commented by one of the players. For me it is a joy reading Nimzowitsch’s Mein System and learn from him. He died 1935 and is still teaching players from all levels today. There is something cool about this.

I agree 100% with you concerning tactics and openings. When I began to play in a club I didn’t know much about chess, but I payed attention how to play the openings, and I was able to win against people with much more experience than me just because they did some mistakes in the first 10 moves.

Sorry, but I can't agree with you. I think these statements are correct, and that's why:

1. You must play strong players. That's true - one should play vs opponents of the same level or higher (by saying higher I mean within reasonable limits higher, not +500 elo points stronger)
2. You must solve tons of tactics and do this for several hours a day. That's obvious and correct. You should solve tactics to improve your tactical vision and be capable of calculating deep variations.
3. You must study the classics. Of course, in the back days the knowledge of the openings wasn't good enough to be tested by current GMs, but in the other aspects of chess  classics are great - that's why they are called classics.
   

 

You said almost nothing. Please do not troll. What do you mean "good chess improvement"? What is your rating? For how long have you been studying chess? You provided no information at all to prove I was wrong. My rating is 1919 in blitz on chess.com, which I suppose is higher than yours

 

Your arguments are not persuasive, just a mechanical repetition of what all novices believe to be true. Such people study chess for decades with no significant improvement. You may believe those myths, if you like. Compared to my arguments, yours prove nothing if they are arguments at all.

OK, these arguments are based on the common sense:

1. I can't see the reason to play against much weaker opponents, and I believe that I can only improve by playing the same level opponents or stronger (as I've said within reasonable limits stronger).

2. Tactics are really important, because if one is really good at them, then he can "imagine" long variations without actually playing them. That really helps when you are reading a chess book, so you don't need to spend your time to play variations on the board.

3. Classics are a way easier to study, than modern elite grandmaster's games and that's why they are recommended to chess players which are under 2400 FIDE rating. One can't really learn a lot from Kasparov's games if he doesn't know modern openings, he isn't that great at strategy and endgames. You know, something might be pretty obvious for IM and GM, but it's really not for a regular 2000 elo player.

 

Do you know the word "patterns"? Strong players, like Anish Giri, do not solve tons of tactics. They know the tactical patterns, remember them and recognize them in their games. They also play a lot and analyze a lot. It is better to follow their example, which has proven to be effective than the example of the connoisseurs who study the classics for decades, read tons of old, outdated books with no sign of improvement. GM Alexey Shirov once said that after he studied Morphy's games, his play deteriorated. Whose opinion is more valuable, Shirov's or some wannabe authority whom nobody knows? Chess is like science. A scientist does not have to read the original works of Newton, Darwin and others who lived long ago, but must know all the latest scientific discoveries.

 

They just recognize this patterns because when they were young they solved a lot of tactics. Now they don't really need to solve puzzles anymore, they have already mastered tactics. For those that are not masters, solving problems is the way to get this pattern recognition ability. Of course scientists need to know Newton. They don't need to read the original Newton work, but they do. Need to know the laws and equations of Newton. A modern scientist could say Newton is dated because the relativity... Indeed but it just matters for very advanced physics, for 99% of the cases Newton works well. The same you could say to Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca etc , ideas. They might be dated for Super GMs, but for 99,99% of the players they still worth learning.

The problem is that a chess player with, let's say, 1700 elo or 2000 elo isn't a scientist, but he is a rather student. In the school students learning Newton's physics but not the modern one, right? So I don't think that someone is going to succeed in sports, if he pick ups a training program of an Olympic winner. Again these pieces of advice (you called them "myths") are made for 0-2400 chess players. And they do work for them.

Tactics is essential, no doubt about this. And openings and endgames and strategy. Playing with stronger players is useful if they explain you the moves in the post-mortem. The main point is here if a player below 1800 should play only by principles or learn a basic repertoire. I would say a basic repertoire is useful.