Where to start.... again.

Hi all, this is my first post here, and hopefully not my last.

About 12 years ago i was a fairly strong chess player, winning regional chess tournaments, captaining the schools chess team, playing online chess all the time.

I, unfortunately gave all that up due to one bad decission, drugs and it has taken pretty much since then to clean my self up. Now that i am clean again, i want to atleast attempt to reignite that spark in me. To play chess on a relatively strong level, but i find myself in this weird in-between position. Knowing that my chess is real bad, but not knowing why my chess is real bad. I never studied chess when i was playing, just went off my instincts, now i am trying to study chess but have no idea how, or what i am doing (subscribe to a chess lecture website)

Can anyone offer me any suggestions on how to get back atleast a glimmer of my previous ability, i realise i may have destroyed most of it with my marijuanna habbit, but i really want to see if i can atleast become a classed player once again.

 Thank you for your time and thank you in advance for any advise offered.
Nasica

Hi Nasica,

Congratulations on your conviction to become a classed player again. If you like you can take one step at a time to get closer to that goal.

You say that you never studied chess earlier. That is not necessarily a bad thing. In chess it is more about skills and training than about knowledge and studying, if you get the difference. Of course some studying will be necessary, but first of all you need to get into some kind of training routine and start doing chess. Are you a member of a chess club?

One last question for now: You say that you don't know why your chess is bad but that you do know that it is bad. Can you tell me how you know that your chess is bad? What observations are you making about your chess? And remember: bad is always relative.

Cheers,

Waldemar 

At the moment, im just trying to play online chess, while looking for a chess club in my area. Seemingly blitz/lightnig games are far more popular online than standard games, and i am unsure if this is good chess experience for me at this stage, i think i need long games to train my brain to see combinations again, not short games, would you agree ?

What sort of training routine would you recommend. Ive read suggestions of opening study as paramount, and others who suggest 'learning backwards' and studying K + P v K style end games and the likes before even touching openings or midgame tactics/strategy.

The answer to your last question however is a lot more difficult to answer than i origninally thought it would be. I think my main fustration at the moment is that i have no ability to see attacks, nor any ability to quanitfy/qualify a position as being good for a particular player. I seem to get about ten moves into a game and just scratch my head, having developed my pieces but not knowing what to do with them from there. Then when forcing an attack i seemed to end up with very uncoordinated pieces in the late midgame and endgames.

To be honest i think i remember how i used to play, but not the way i used to play... and i want it all to come back at once. Impatiences most probably. Plus a deep fear that i have done some serious irreversable damage with my past.

Thank you for your quick reply

Nasica

Hi Nasica,

Getting into a chessclub and/or playing games with longer time-control is a must. Playing blitz/lightning is mainly playing on impulse and is indeed not what you need right now. Of course you can do it for fun, but trainingwise you need to be more serious.  

Where do you play online? Here at chess.com? I know that at Playchess.com they sometimes challenge you to a standard game, which has a rapid time control. That would be a decent thing to try.

Do not devote the bulk of your time to studying openings. Working backwards as is suggested is a good thing to do. Study tactics mainly: they are the bread and butter of chess! That will also help you to see attacks and develop the ability to quanitfy/qualify a position as being good for a particular player. Then study the endgames. Beginning with the standard ones is good. If you get around to playing a game in a club, analyze it and write down your findings. After that you might consider posting your analysis on the forums here to get feedback and learn. Also consider keeping a chess diary.

You might want to read some other tips that I posted in response to someone else's inquiry at this location:

http://www.chessedelic.com/2008/06/13/my-youtube-channel-switch-announcement-and-some-exciting-stuff-from-of-vladjas-games/

It is the second comment.

As for your fear: analyze it and wonder how real it is. Is your fear based on real medical findings, have you got any observations? Consider also that your fear is possibly based on thoughts connected to the future while you are reading this comment now

Waldemar

hey...

nice to hear that you are picking up the pawns and knights again....

I got one additional piece of advise; can u get your hands on chessmaster 10 software?? (cost $20 )

I find it has an excellent training section and dare I say is a formidable opponent..

then try and read whatever chess books you can get..

plus I dont think blitz is sucha bad idea... (in addition to standard length games)

You say that you are an instinctive player, blitz=instincts.. 

good luck 

Ok some tips to get you back on track:

1. Try not to be impatient. If you study and practice for, say, a couple months, you'll definitely improve over that time.

2. Read, in this order, a) Logical Chess Move by Move  http://www.chess.com/eq/chess+books/logical-chess-move-by-move2

b) Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess http://www.chess.com/eq/chess+books/bobby-fischer-teaches-chess2

c) Winning Chess Tactics http://www.chess.com/eq/chess+books/winning-chess-tactics-revised2

3. Read this article: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman23.pdf, and also any other article at chesscafe.com by Dan Heisman (you can do this now, even before or while you read the other books)

 4. Practice! Blitz games are ok, but longer games are better.

If you do all of this, not only will you regain your former playing strength - you will likely be better than you were before! 

Hope this helps. 

Thank you all for you kind advice. It gave me some real inspiration to continue on my journey to a semi-decent rating, atleast.

After work today i visited a local chess club/shop, asked for the books you guys mentioned, but none of those titles were available. After an exchange of questions between me and the store-owner i was promptly paired up with one of the students in the shop attending a chess lesson for a quick ratings assessment. Yes, i got beaten pretty bad and im pretty sure i tossed out a winning position in the midgame (i didnt take notes sorry, it was very impromptu), but i was quite happy with an assessment of my rating at 950-960.
Really low, i know, but it gives me some great goals to strive for.... first of all, the magic 1000 barrier.

After this assessment, the store owner suggested i buy a copy of Jeremy Silman's "How to Reassess your chess". Has anyone heard of this book, read this book and have any opinions on it they would like to share. I also picked up a tournament sized chess board and pieces, as i prefer the real pieces to a computer screen.

Im not to worried if it isnt the best book, as i trust the advice i have been given here and am now awaiting an amazon delivery of logic chess and bobby fisher teaches chess. I just basically wanted to touch base with a club and get something to start off on (its my day off work tomorrow).

One last question though, if you would have to attribute percentages to it. What would you say the percentage of natural talent vs  learnt skill in a titled player would be ?

Thanks again for your inspiration.
Nasica

Hi Nasica,

Jeremy Silman's "How to Reassess your chess" is very good but I would not recommend it to you at this stage. It elaborates too much on strategy and focusses on a playing strength of around 1900 ELO and up. First you need a good command of tactics, basic endings and basic openings, in that order.

The Bobby Fischer teaches chess book is better (I have this version where at the end of the book you are supposed to turn it upside down and start reading backward). It trains your tactical skills and pattern recognition.

As for your percentage question: for me that division is impossible to make beacuse it varies so much from player to player. One thing I know for sure though: playing decent chess takes about 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent transpiration, and that applies to Grandmasters as well!

Good luck and keep us posted! 

Waldemar 

 Sounds confusing but you'll see what he means when you get the book, lol. 

I agree that Reassess Your Chess is not the right book for you at this stage.

And please do keep us posted! We'd like to help you improve and we're interested to see how it goes! 

nasica> After this assessment, the store owner suggested i buy a copy of Jeremy Silman's "How to Reassess your chess". Has anyone heard of this book, read this book and have any opinions on it they would like to share.

It's a good book, but a terrible suggestion for you. First, middlegame strategy is not too important at the 1000 level. Second and more important, this book is intended for a USCF 1600+ player. Even Silman would recommend his other strategy book, "The Amateur Mind", which is targetted at your playing level. I have books on my shelf. :)

Hi again,

Just thought i would give you guys a bit of an update.
I entered my first tournament since being a  junior, on the weekend.
I went in the <1000 division as an unrated player. And i won the unrated division outright (by 0.5 points). And came equal second in the u1000 division (probably about 4th on countback).
Im very proud of my efforts and am equally happy with my results, i spent the last couple of days going over my games and discoved that in round 6 i missed a really obvious mate in 2, this would have made me outright second, by a full point, of the u1000 division, not just that but i threw away a clearly winning game (i was playing black and Chessmaster scored the position at -11)  This was disapointing, but i have been slowly discovering that the games i lose are infintatly more easy to learn lessons off than the games i win. I have also since joined a chess club which i have been warmly welcomed into.

Has anyone here missed any mates in X because of final round pressure?
(I also aparentyl missed a mate in 12, but at my level, i dont think it counts :P) What was the most 'winning' position you have lost, what was the most  'losing' position you have one (i managed to pull a win with black from a really bad position earlier in the day, that i was quite proud of).

Nasica, congratulations on everything.  I wouldn't worry about any permanent brain damage from smoking pot.  Alcohol will kill your brain cells but pot won't.

You'll get better at playing chess by playing chess.  Keep at it and your old skills will come back.  Yes, it will be learning it all over again but you'll be able to learn much quicker than initially.

As for chess books.  If there is a used book store in your area, pay it a visit.  Some reviews I've read of Silman's Reasses Your Chess (I've enver read it) say that Silman has another way of saying the same thing Znosko-Borovsky said in The Middlegame in Chess.  In that Z-B concerns himself with how to asess a position as the game moves from the opening into the middle game.

Most of the old classics are just as relevant now as they ever were, and are available used at pretty low prices.

But the best way to rebuild your chess is simply to play strong players.  You're right that you'll learn a lot more from games you lose than those you win.  I know I do.  It's because by studyingthem you can see where your game DID fall apart, not where it Could have fallen apart (which is harder to spot).

"Weapons of Chess" by Pandolfini is a good easy read of a chess book.  i liked it because it was my first book and the only book that i haven't needed a chess set in front of me to read it.  Had i randomly selected a different book, i might be posting on a backgammon forum right now. 

Peoples bodies and body chemistries change. as a 27 year old you should be fine, maybe you just need some time to recoup. Sports, eating well, sleep, and a little time may be just what your chess game needs.  there is a long line of superior (and elite)  chess players that have abused their bodies way more than you could possibly have done during your life with that drug. i do fear the worse for you though.  you might be developing symptons of a terminal illness that i call "getting older".  let me know if you find a cure.

if you kept it up you might have been able to study with GM Bongcloud

http://www.chess.com/echess/profile/Lenny_Bongcloud

In your place i would just start to play again not study so much in books but just get the feel of it again, take time to play your games and study your wins and loses and draws  to look for ways u might play it better and use the notes to keep track of the thoughts u had and learn from trial and error most for now and allow yourself the time. U took afair time off the game so naturaly it will take time to get most of it back. Once the cobb webs are cleared abit then i would sudjest u study through books and so on.....

P.S. Well done of quiting drugs its not easy to do im sure most of your friends u knew probebly did some so well done...

Hi Nasica,

Well done and congratulations on everything!

Analyzing your own games, especially the lost ones, is a great way to improve. See if you can categorize your mistakes (f.i. "missing checkmates", "getting surprised", "feeling confused in an endgame" etc.) and in that way learn where you can improve. I remember blundering half or whole points constantly some 15 years back. I was missing one-movers all the time. I decided to do an investigation and found out that it happened in 33% of my games! Since that statistical discovery I hardly ever blundered for a good portion of years.

You ask something about "losing positions that were completely winning". One of my games now comes to mind. You can find it here:

http://www.chessedelic.com/2008/06/08/%e2%80%9chimmelhoch-jauchzend-zum-tode-betrubt%e2%80%9d-part-ii/

But hey... don't tell anybody else ;-)

I realise that u1000 is a REALLY low rating (im hoping that i will perhaps be +1000 by the time october ratings are released :) )
Is chess the type of game that rewards hard work with more rating points, or is good chess the realm of Magnus like prodigies ?
I am under no delusion that i will ever make it to GM strength play, or even titled based play at all... I dont know if it will happen or not, im just not concerned with it.
But i would atleast like to play relatively strong chess, to be able to enter into <2000 or even open tournaments and not lose 0-6 routinely, is this possible ?

Where do you think hard work ends and pure talent begins ?