Study To Playing Ratio

For maximum progress and absorption, what would you say is the ideal ratio between how much time you spend studying and how much you spend playing. I know about the 80/20 rule (playing 80) but I also know that the higher you progress in ratings, typically the more amount of time you'll want to put into study.

I have a 1360's standard here, a 1550 25+10 on ICC, and you can see where my tactics are at. For someone at my level, I should be increasingly starting to spend more and more time studying, correct?

FYI: I study obsessively as it is. I play a lot, too lol. I do tactics daily on CT, I watch tons of videos, use books and play out games OTB, analyze my games and master games with and without an engine, etc. Just wondering if I should be shooting for a 50/50 split at this point or continue to play more than study until...when?

Thanks in advance...

Wanna study 1.d4 with me? I am ok at chess. ^.^

I don't think there is a simple answer to this.  What I can tell you is that 0/100 doesn't work very well, no matter how much study you do.  (I learned this the hard way this past year.)  I can also tell you that particulars about the ratio seem to change as you get stronger.  For example, I never played 1 long practice game before this year, I only played endless hours of blitz, but I didn't get the same improvement out of blitz games.  I had to play lots more tournament (long) games and long practice games.  I trained about 8 hours per day for three-quarters of a year for the World Open, and my performance was typical for when I last played tournament chess.  Then, I halted study (because I had university obligations), and played all of the tournaments offered at the Boylston Chess Club, and I saw my rating increase.  This could partly be due to the fact that the World Open's U1600 is a bear of a tournament, but my standard chess rating continues to rise as a result of continued active play, especially OTB play.  (Not sure what the deal is, but there seems to be some kind of adjustment in the brain that needs to be made between online slow games [and in-book study] to OTB play, so it is good to keep in OTB practice.)

Since I've studied so much up to this point, and since I am scoring so high on assessments, I've shifted to a pace of 200+ slow games per year.  Despite the drastic increase in study, I'm seeing higher and higher quality play in my USCF tournament games.  Despite a couple of odd results, I expect to peak significantly higher than my current best rating.  Like I said, the online results are already visible, particularly in terms of consistency recently.  Even at this break-neck pace, I think 80/20, in favor of play, might be a bit high, but I don't know.  My ratio has always been in the range of 60/40 and 40/60.

My real piece of advice is this: take stock of every metric you have available to you, including USCF/FIDE ratings, online ratings at various controls (and which website it is on), all of the tactics servers' ratings (CT-ART, Chess Tempo, Tactics Trainer, chess.emrald.net, etc.), and watch what happens in a given month, provided a particular ratio of play to study (and note the hours at each control and what you studied).  If you do 80/20 of all blitz play and tactics, and it gives impressive results in one month, do it again.  If the increase diminishes, switch it up to a different time control and a different topic of study.  If the first ratio doesn't work, alter it, and study the same thing to see how that changes things over a month's period.  It's sort of a scientific method of controling certain variables while holding other considerations constant. 

What Milliern said sounds like good advice.

There's a thread on this (a thread about the study/play ratio I mean, not a thread about Milliern) here:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/study-more-or-play-more

Conceivable, so thanks for the clarification.  

Thanks for the write up ...I really appreciate it.

60/40 seems really good for me, too. Of course, I've experienced the same thing you have in that long online and OTB games with extensive review, seem to provide the most benefit. That along with extensive tactics training.

I think I may have fallen into a little bit of a routine of studying too much the last couple of weeks. I've heard before that study builds tension and play releases that tension. I've found this to be the case, too. The more games you play the more comfortable you are playing them. When you slow down the amount of games you play and study more, there's tension built again and even a degree of performance anxiety. This is why I think regular play is so crucial. I did note that I study obsessively but I also do play daily.

Once again, I appreciate the input and welcome any further advice from anyone.

I think if you want to improve over time, the most important thing is to make time for OTB long games (whether club games, quads, league games or tournament games), then organize the rest around this.

On the Internet, quick games (like 25+10 or 15+10 when you get stronger) + analysis can supplement the OTB long games regimen.

Then, when you have enough time for those games, you can use the remaining time for studying, and you can study as much as you want, if you're motivated.

But the long games are necessary for the mind to learn how to use what you study effectively.

I'm basically doing everything I can physically be doing at the moment then.

It's not very easy to get the long OTB games in. Local clubs like USCF 35/5d's and I'd have to get into Manhattan to play legitimate FIDE matches with long time controls. I'm figuring it out. There is, however, something close enough that runs 60/10d's every weekend that could give me some decent OTB experience.

In the meantime, as I've said - I study a lot. I'm almost finished with a couple of Seirawan's books and am beginning My System and Chess Praxis. I'll continue this. After a good month of primarily blitz tactics on ChessTempo, I'm just spamming standard tactics on there spending as much time as I need on each puzzle to fully understand the position and work on my calculation.

I play 45+45 chess quite a bit on different servers and am joining online 45+45 and 90+30 tournaments to get the long chess in frequently. I also am just about to start playing 45+10 rapids on FIDE Online Arena to start establishing an online rapid rating there. I supplement these with exactly what you mention: The new 25+10 pool on ICC. I've actually stopped playing anything shorter than that. The breakdown of the time controls I'm focusing on is:

90+30
45+45
30+30
60+5
45+10
30+0
25+10

This gives me a nice spread of games and the 25+10's and 30+0's are great for preparing for quads and swiss's with a time control of like 35/5d, as I mention above. It also lets me see a lot of chess by playing several games in a day. Obviously, the long games need no explanation.

I've been considering starting to look around online and at the local club for people who want to meet locally and play long games OTB for practice and then review after the game. Either way, hopefully I'll be able to start getting in more OTB live events as time goes on.

hicetnunc and I have spoken about this a lot, and it is certainly consistent with my experience, which I mentioned.  There is a neuroscientific basis for the emotional element of long OTB games having a particularly potent effect: the hippocampus is involved with both emotions and memory production (and actually neurogenesis, I've recently found), so there's at least one basis.  I think there is more to it than that, even, but all the "why's" are not clear to me.  At any rate, a number of coaches and authors, including Yusupov in his award-winning series, have advocated for setting up positions on a board, which compels me to think that the physical representation holds something of value over 2-D representations.  I don't know why.  I simply followed Yusupov's instructions, and it seems to be paying off.

In sum, being in front of a physical chess board has a number of elements, not all strictly chess related, that prove beneficial.  It is a bit mysterious to me, but I don't doubt the efficacy.

I recently joined the slow chess league group here on chess.com and was planning to play setting up a real board by my computer and doing all my calculation and such on the board as if it were a tournament game.

I suppose it's not as emotional as an OTB tournament game (as Milliern points out this is useful) but what is the opinion on the effectiveness of this type of practice? I'm thinking any time I work hard on a position without moving the pieces (and then review it later) is probably time well spent.

(I quoted hicetnunc, but asking the general audience)

As hicetnunc mentioned, I think it is a good supplement.  I think I have 40 OTB games since I've restarted playing tournament chess, and I have an additional 50 in slow online games.  I'm feeling as though the amount of effort I can exert and mental pressure I can put toward the game is increasing a lot with such frequent practice.  That is to say, even if slow online chess is not as effective for learning, it still has some benefit AND it has practical elements that help, such as training our focus, training our ability to think with great exertion for longer periods (i.e., sport aspects of brain performance of long durations), etc.  The thing is that exerting oneself, completely relaxing, then exerting again, as one might do in an online game or with puzzles (and other study material), is very different from OTB tournament play, in which you are giving maximum effort constantly.  In OTB tournament play, you may find that your ability to perform diminishes over time, as you maximally exert yourself.  All of this is to say that there are theoretical (i.e., knowledge factors), application (i.e., ability to apply knowledge), and practical (e.g., time management and mental endurance) considerations that online can still help with, even if not to the same extent as OTB casual or OTB tournament games.

Right now my play to study ration is 100:0.

I don't study at all... I did when I was a child, but sub-Class A play seems to be all about understanding how to not muck up. 

This is really interesting stuff. I agree totally. There is truly something about the kinetic nature of OTB play and physically touching/seeing the 3D pieces that can't be recreated online. No question about this.

I've actually just decided to throw one more, faster time control into my repertoire: 15-minute pool on ICC again. Reason? There's just no avoiding the fact that if I am to play a lot of USCF and FIDE events here in the NY area, I'm going to be playing a lot of rapid chess. 15/0 is perfect for this and as usual, the pairing pools on ICC are fantastic.

There's just a lot of 40/5's and 25/10's for players @ my level in rated, OTB events here in the States. I don't think playing anything faster than 15/0 would serve me much benefit at this point considering where I'm going with this. If anyone has any opinions or thoughts on that specific matter they would also be more than welcome.

Related: I'll be going to the local chess club to play 2 games of a 4 game swiss on November 25th. Time control is G35/5d. Additionally, I'm going to begin playing in Saturday Quads at a Jersey location any weekend here. Time control there is 60/5d. In addition, I'll be playing in tournaments and leagues online with 45+45 and 90+30 time controls and look for the occasional long game like that OTB whenever/wherever I can. After scouring the tournament schedule in the entire area, I see that as my rating increases, so do the number of events with truly classical time controls.