Study tips please!

I found the picture of a guy using Lamprecht's FCE endgame book, anybody knows if he is a strong player ?

Hmmmm.... he looks familiar... maybe.... OH! It is you!

Sarcasm implied because so many people dunno what sarcasm is

@ OP:

This a simple, highly effective, and FREE method to get to 1400+ from where you are. It takes work, but it's worth it.

60-80% of time on Chesstempo tactics. Push that chesstempo rating as high as it'll go. Start with 80% of your time on Chesstempo, then decrease it a bit as your chess rating goes up.

20% of time watching (and REwatching) the youtube free videos of St. Louis chess lecture, particularly the ones from Akobian. This will teach you the basic simple solid noncalculational moves as well as the more complex positional moves you should be making in your games. 

10% of your time on basic endgames. We're talking really basic stuff. Start learning to mate with Q vs K, R vs K and P vs K, and that's probably enough. But you should be able to do it fast - like nearly instantaneously against a full strength engine, like you would at the end of a blitz game. Takes only a day or two to learn this. You'll get the rest of your endgame at your level in the chesstempo tactics.

All the other stuff (openings, etc.) are not bad but lower yield - do 'em for fun, but these two things are the core. Those Akobian videos are better than all the books I've read for <1600 level play.

Oh, and totally IGNORE those folks who say to buy these two books at your level:

- Fundemental Chess Endings by Lamprecht (in the Magnus carlsen picture above)

- Dvoretsky's Endgame manual (mentioned earlier)

I have both of them now; just got Dvoretsky, and have had FCE for a year and even studied the first quarter of the book in detail. 

Both books are aimed at the 2000+ level player level. You can still learn from it at <2000, but there are better books at that level which will actually provide problems that you will see in your games.

This is like the 3rd or 4th problem (out of hundreds) in the Dvoretsky book. Doesn't look that hard, but I'd be pretty impressed if anyone here solves this thing including sidelines completely accurately. 

Dvoretsky's final line involves the white king going Kd5, Kc6!, Kc5!,  Kd6!, then zigzagging back to Kf5 for the opposition and the win. It's all about opposition, and once you get that you can figure it out, but it's pretty hard to see, even with the solution.

And this is probably one of the more basic level problems in Dvoretsky's book.

Why should Rich-McD-75 listen to anyone who uses "u" for you and "r" for are.  You must be a member of the Twitter generation, and you know what they say, tweets are for twits.

You just keep pushing your single-minded, cockamamie agenda, don't you?  And Rich-McD-75 should listen to a 1450 without teaching experience?  hicetnunc is correct!  Then again, you know what they say, You can always tell a Californian, but you can't tell him much.

If my agenda is to avoid books 2000+ if you're like 1300, then yes I'm pushing it for sure.

Keep on pushin' your post-chess culture, post-literate, we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-chess-books, and those who have some idea of proper chess instruction will keep on ignorin'.

??? 

I friggin' LOVE chess books and think a lot of folks could benefit from reading them! 

Just because I think chesstempo is far better than any tactical book I've come across doesn't mean I hate chess books. 

And I even like the Dvoretsky book - a lot! But it's advanced, and likely of low yield to the OP at his current rating. He won't even get to use any of the advanced principles that Dvoretsky's book is best at. If you disagree, just look at that sample problem I posted before and tell me the OP needs to know opposition to that level in his games.

I bet I actually have more chess books than most folks. I have probably 8-10 of them, but unlike most chess book people, I actually READ AND STUDY mine, pretty regularly. It's not the number of books, it's what you do with it.

And despite loving chess books, I'll still stand firm that for a lower-rated player like the OP, free youtube videos from St Louis chess are not only all he'll need for a long time, but likely higher impact than buying a chess book on strategy. Even a book like Silman's is really for 1600+ level players, whereas most of Akobian's lectures are crystal clear even 1200 level players. 

I love endgame compositions for their beauty and hidden resourcefulness.  They often teach piece coordination too.  Unfortunately, the example you give is hardly likely to occur in a game.

Jesus loves you

Yea, he is one of the strongest players in the world. It's Fabiano Caruana.

Just check out that earlier example I posted from the Dvoretsky book, and that's one of the EARLY examples in the Dvoretsky book.  They just get more complicated from there. Hence me telling OP to avoid that book and go for simpler ones. 

I'm not an endgame rookie, but Dvoretsky clearly assumes you have a pretty substantial fund of endgame knowledge even before gonig into his examples. If you doubt this - his chapter onthe complex subject of corresponding squares devotes like one page to the background on corresponding squares, and he expects you to know the rest on your own enough to figure out the (advanced) problems he sets forth. And this isn't like late in the book - it's one of the earliest sections of the book. 

FCE is not much simpler as well. Something like Silman's endgame book is probably most useful for the OP in terms of studying endgames at his rating that he'll actually encounter in his games.

You must have me confused with someone else.  I never recommended Dvoretsky's works and tactics without thorough explanations for the novice are a waste of time.  I don't know about Akobian's methods, but Dan Heisman's Novice Nook columns, which have won awards, are the real deal.  These are tried, true and tradtionally good methods.

As I've said before, fine if your methods work for you, but recommending them to others without empirical evidence that they really do inculcate the basics does not impress.

"If you find an opening here that appeals to you and you wish to find out more about it, the next step would be to obtain an introductory text devoted entirely to that subject." - GM John Emms in his 2006 introduction to basic opening principles, Discovering Chess Openings

"Throughout the book Emms uses excellently chosen examples to expand the readers understanding of both openings and chess in general. Thus equipped the student can carry this knowledge forward to study individual openings and build an opening repertoire. ... For beginning players, this book will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board." - FM Carsten Hansen, reviewing the 2006 Emms book

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

For someone seeking help with choosing openings, I usually bring up Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014).

http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html

I believe that it is possible to see a fair portion of the beginning of Tamburro's book by going to the Mongoose Press site.

I actually agree with this, though for the novice Averbakh's Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge is probably where I'd start.  Silman is systematic in his endgame approach, though there may be even better endgame books for someone approaching his first OTB tournament.  Thing is, Rich-McD-75 is better off just playing through complete games, which is why I took time to write Post No. 17.

I completely agree, Mr. Blair, Discovering Chess Openings is a great place to start.  Thanks for including a portion of Carsten Hansen's review, which should help point the way for Rich-McD-75.

I'd like to back up what hhnng1 said as I think it's good advice.  Tactics are the quickest route to improving at your level, and tactics training will continue to give you your greatest returns/time spent up until about 1450-1500.  Get used to doing them on the computer as it's much faster than having to set up the pieces for ten thousand puzzles. I've watched all of Akobian's videos, Ben Finegold's, others on the St Louis Chess Club, and dozens/hundreds on this site as a premium member, and while a lot of lectures are helpful Akobian's are some of the best I've seen. After watching Akobian's videos, my blitz rating increased from ~1450-1700 in about a month. Pretty sure there's a correllation there!

Any study plan or book can help you if you spend time with it, but those that require a higher level chess understanding should be avoided. I've mostly improved by watching chess videos, but I know there are faster roads to improvement than just by watching lectures. I would recommend checking out Dan Heisman's Novice Nooks though.

Also, don't be nervous about a tournament. Just play your best moves regardless of your opponent and learn from it. If you stick with it, you'll improve hundreds of points yet, so your performance just starting out is irrelevant. Good luck!

Yes, you are correct about tactics, and that point has been made before by many good players and instructors, but who says you have to set up the pieces on a board.  You do them in your head from diagrams in a book.

However, I have to add one more time that concepts come first and then practice exercises.  Computers and websites are fine for the latter but not so good for the former.  I've never seen a computer or website that teaches the tactical elements well.  You should be able to describe in words what you're doing, from decoying to deflecting, from line closing to square clearing, so you begin to think in those terms.  Have you ever seen a computer or website that asks those questions?  I haven't.  It's just another "puzzle" to solve.

I'm glad you mentioned Dan Heisman's Novice Nooks.  I've posted about Dan and his award winning Novice Nook column in multiple threads so it gets the broadest possible exposure.  However, you should add the columns can be downloaded for free through archive.org because ChessCafe is a pay site that has all but rolled up its sidewalk, unfortunately.

I disagree that you need to be able to verbalize all your tactical ideas. 

In fact, it's usually the case that once you're past trivial combos, it's much easier and less complex to just learn the tactic outright than go through a lengthy discussion about the elements that comprise it. 

I saw a review somewhere about a position in Vukovic's Art of Attack that by a GM that made this pretty clear - he excerpted this big paragraph from Vukovic's explanation of a position that was completely opaque, despite being correct, and then showed that it was a lot easier to just play out the position to learn it sans text. 

It doens't matter if you actually can 'name' the theme - in fact, plenty of chessplayers say they can articulate what a 'pin' is, yet put them in a 1800+ level problem with the pin as the major theme, most of them will blow it. 

I've been coming across more named 'themes' that I already know liked decoys, mined squares, corresponding squares, etc., and for sure it's a lot more important to have SOLVED many of these problems than to actually be able to name it.