some suggestions from a weak adult improver who didnt play for twenty years 1. a guide to chess improvement by dan heisman 2. chess for zebras by jonathon rowson it is going to be a long road if I ever learn how to play, but these are the best two books ive come across for an adult who is struggling to improve. good luck.
Why I'm not getting better...
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Sep 12, 2015
0
#4
You yourself answered your own question. You do not improve because you don't do much chess study. Just playing a lot is not enought. You also need to study chess from books or videos. I prefer books. Skip bullet for years. Play more games at longer time control. You can still play blitz, but play more games at longer time control.
Playing bullet will teach you many bad habits and it will not really improve your calculation/game ang pattern recognition..
I firmly recommend you to play online chess. One to ten days per move, which rivals will seldom use to the limit. It's just a way to play when you have the chance or half an hour off during the day. Of course one single game can be desperately slow, so people use to play ten or so. I've seen people with over one hundred simultaneous games going on! The point is that online chess let's you think over positions, tactics and strategies calmly, waiting for an inspiration that ends up somehow coming sooner or later. You learn unaware of it, while amusing yourself or getting upset over losses, blunders, missing opportunities... All that learning is what you apply to blitz or bullet, which bases on automatisms, not analysis or creativity. You can analyse long variations on the analysis board, without forcing your imagination, just seeing. And on top of all that, you are allowed to consult openings during the game. Just click the menu icon and consult possible continuations, their frequency and win/loss/draw rates. Forget 1, 3, 5 or 10 minutes games for a while and you'll be much stronger when you come back.
I think you should stop playing blitz and bullet.. you should play 30 minutes standard so that you have enough thinking time and you can improve your technique..you said that you are a passive player.. so you should learn the basics of positional play,study books to improve your understanding of theory,and watch the games of positional players like Magnus Carlsen or Vishy Anand.And,most importantly,you have to improve your tactics. To do that,you can solve tactics puzzles here on chess.com,or in chesstempo. You should also learn the basic mates you can apply in your games. You should not study openings so deeply. You should simply learn a couple of openings to play as white and black,and study it slightly deep,but not too much,i play the queen's gambit as white and the sicilian or caro kann as white.And if you are really passionate about chess,try to get a good coach with a reasonable price.Good luck!
Another advice:After every game you lose,you should analyse the game. You have to find where everything went wrong,and how you could have prevented it.with this,you will understand the reason behind every move,which will help your positional play.And learn from your mistakes,and try not to make them again in the future.practice to anticipate your opponent's plan,and what would be his possible reply after your move.Learn to calculate more accurately.
Daybreak57 wrote:
I started playing chess regulary probably around 10 years ago and my rating is still 1200. I think part of the reason why I improved so slowly was because I didn't do much chess reading or study I just played games, and lost all the time, because I was playing a guy that was a lot better than I was. I actually started playing him with a time advantage. He had 2 minutes, and I had 10 minutes. Dispite this time advantage, he won every game.
Over the months I gradually needed less and less extra time. I still rarely win, but it came to the point where if I had that big of a time advantage it just wouldn't be fair anymore. I still never beat him, but I get close. I think if I had a minute more than him I could beat him a bit, but over the years he stopped wanting to give me a time advantage. Maybe because he likes to win all the time :D.
Anyway I've noticed over the years that when I play against other people I notice flaws in their ideas. then I remember back in the good ol'e days where I started playing my friend at chess regulary how I made similar mistakes, although I have never done some of the crazy bad moves I've seen others make on chess.com, the ones around my rating that is, which isn't very high... Funny thing is I noticed I can play a kings gambit and have a very good chance of winning on bullet (I am rated 800 on bullet) and not do so hot in blitz (I am rated 1200 in blitz). Also my rating is better in standard. (1600 rating) So, I have come to the conclusion, that I have been working all these years improving my weakness, which is blitz chess, and never really focusing on my strengh, long games.
Of course I have other hang ups. Playing blitz I obtained the bad habit of moving pawns just to have a gain in time, and do that in long games sometimes... Also people have said I'm a very passive player, and need to endevour to grow a pair while playing chess... Not put in quite that way :D.
So part of it is playing people so much higher rated then me where the learning process becomes slow because I don't really understand what is going on. Don't get me wrong I learned a lot over the years, but I am still only 1200 (I know my standard rating is 1600 but that is inflated). But I can look at other players, and see myself making better moves than they do when given the same situation. 5 years ago I already was a lot better than I was when I started playing. So I wonder what rating I was back then? Was I 1000? If so, what was I when I started playing? 900? I'm telling you right now I was better than a beginner when I first started playing my opponent 10 years ago because I didn't just start playing at that point...
So I'm confused because all this time I was already better than beginner and yet after 10 years my rating is still only 1200? I know part of it is I need to grow a pair. Stop doing unnessisary pawn moves. Stop playing hope chess. Stop playing hopeful chess (I don't do that all the time, but sometimes...). Start playing more long games to help with my chess vision. Get better visualzation skills because part of the problem is I can't think far enough ahead in positions where tactics reign. I know slow chess will help with that, but also just doing chess puzzles and trying to visualize games in your head by just looking at the moves. I've done that before and got a headache.
I just wonder if I just do what I just said will my rating go up 400 points or so? It sounds like I have the chess knowledge already I just have to increase my skill. What do you guys think?
I'm not going to stop playing blitz, or bullet. I want to one day be good at both. But for now I just need to improve on my over all chess skill because I think it's lagging due to playing people way so much better than me, and playing against someone that uses unsound tactics at times. He has good principles he follows, but there are times where he goes overboard and weakens his position by doing those things like checking pieces like the queen just to gain time for example. I mean sometimes he does that with pawns, and a grand master told me that you shouldn't move a pawn to solve a problem unless you cannot find any other way to deal with the threat, because pawn moves are forever. Also, you shouldn't push pawns on a side you do not have a majority of pawns. These little things I know, but he doesn't... I just have to watch out for the times where the position favors those types of tactics. I have to be able to discern which types of occasions where those tactics become very strong, like they did in one of the games I played against him tonight.
Anyway, in a nutshell. I think I could get a lot better if I just do those things I just said. Is there anything else I can be doing? I've been going over some openings. Just the ones I encountered that I did not know how to respond to. Havn't really gone over them entirely as they are a big topic, and I know I often make mistakes in the opening, but I don't really want to focus too much on openings right now. Your thoughts...
I have my own ideas on how to improve on my opening game and keep adding to my own opening rhepoitore, but a deep opening study or grind will come later after I pass this hump I seem to be at right now as I've been playing for 10 years regulary (I think it's 12 now I'm just ballparking) and still have a low rating of 1200. Right now I am just glancing at the first couple moves or so and just winging it from there. There are other openings I am studying more deeply, but I only do that when I come across the opening quite frequently and do not know how to deal with it just by using my general chess intuition.
I mean I just seen a game that is rated about the same as me in standard, and I can tell he makes poor moves compared to me. My rating is a little higher than his actually but it appears to me that I am a lot better than he is, and wonder if all I need to do to gain like 200 rating points on chess.com standard is to do what I wrote earlier, and maybe some other stuff... Any ideas?
Online chess is not an accurate measure for chess playing ability, in general. You should use USCF ratings as a gauge for improvement. I know a number of players on chess.com who have online ratings that improve, but who see no improvement in USCF rating, while others see no online rating change but make gains in USCF rating. Additionally, I've played at least three people I know from chess.com at OTB USCF tournaments, and, despite rather impressive ratings on here, I took them out rather easily. It must that have been a strange series of miracles.
I've read some of the studies posted around the forums, which suggest the rating associations between online chess (particularly chess.com) and USCF is non-linear, which is really odd, but the upshot is that it suggests improving much beyond a certain rating, X to X+100, in (say) cc requires vastly more knowledge than that same rating spread in USCF rating; and that's already a tremendous amount of knowledge. I'd say that the way to interpret that is that, if you play honestly on chess.com, you may not see much improvement at all, in you rating, unless you have a rather serious training regimen.
Sep 12, 2015
0
#9
Okay I will look into books by Dan Heisman. I've been studying his website, and now a member of his group. It seems that I could probably glen more knowledge by reading his novice nook columns. I've watched a Q&A by Dan Heisman around 3 times already actually, and there is a book he mentioned. Chess for zebras is one of them, which was mentioned here, but another... Something about "The most instructive Amateur Games" or something like that... Anyone know the correct name for that book? I'll also check out chess improvement as well might as well. I play against people that got good by just playing good people I just thought I could get better by just playing. Apparently I was wrong.
I already have a lot of chess books though! :D... I'll add these. I use them more as reference books though, but I have started reading the Amateurs Mind by Jeremy Silman from cover to cover but when I get bored of this book I'll put it down and read something from Dan Heisman. I've been told that some of my books require me to have a higher rating to really appreaciate so i won't delve into those until I read the ones mentioned here and the Amateurs mind. That's a lot of books though! :O
I already know that chess.com rating isn't really comparable to USCF but I wasn't aware that people who don't play in tournaments tend to do poorly in tournaments when they do try and play in them dispite their high chess.com rating. I guess I have to start playing in tournaments, regardless of how low my rating is right now! There is a local chess club I could talk to the director there and find out about some good local tournaments.
I'll read those books, Do daily tactics on chesstempo, focus more on long games rather than blitz, and do actual tournaments. Hopefully after a year my rating will go up!
I understand what you mean about bullet hurting your game. I've seen countless people who use poor opening choices just to have a gain on time and win only because their opponent was spending time figuring out this strange new opening. I'll stop playing bullet, and just play 5 minute blitz, and 10 minute rapid, to warm up for my long 30 minute games.
I have to play more over the board slow games too. I will try and make it a point to go to my local chess club every friday. The problem is I have a group of friends and we play at starbucks together on random days of the week. Sometimes they are fridays, which happens to be the day of the meeting of the chess club in town. My friends don't like playing there because they don't like slow games, think it's boring. I know what they mean, but I wouldn't refrain from playing one or the other, that's just me.
uscftigerprowl, thanks for telling me this. I've given up before so this isn't the first time giving up in a won position for me. I didn't see anything but I guess I should have spent more time as I had like 15 minutes to think LOL. I feel like the guy I know that loses when he had a winning position earlier :D
I'm not stopping blitz, but i'll limit it to warm ups before 30 minute games and just what we do at Starbucks. I don't want to just tell my friends, "I don't play blitz anymore," and then proceed to snuff up my nose. :D
I understand that when you have more time to think you tend to be more imaginative about the position so I get your points fully that the slow game is the perfect breeding grown for good ideas so yeah I'll try and think up of a good number of slow games to play everyday and try and make that quota all the time, and later analyse each game.
If I do all of this, along with what I wrote in my first post, I should get better! Right!?? :D
Daybreak57 wrote:
"... Something about 'The most instructive Amateur Games' or something like that... Anyone know the correct name for that book? ..."
The World's Most Instructive Amateur Game Book by Dan Heisman
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092834/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review872.pdf
Jun 1, 2022
0
#11
I started playing chess years ago and my rating is still 500. I am convinced some people just cannot improve no matter how much they study / try / practice.
Experience and "knowing things" mean zero if your brain is just configured so you can't see threats and constantly blunder. But you're already 1200, so you're light years beyond whatever I'll ever play. It's all relative.
RIP OP
I started playing chess regulary probably around 10 years ago and my rating is still 1200. I think part of the reason why I improved so slowly was because I didn't do much chess reading or study I just played games, and lost all the time, because I was playing a guy that was a lot better than I was. I actually started playing him with a time advantage. He had 2 minutes, and I had 10 minutes. Dispite this time advantage, he won every game.
Over the months I gradually needed less and less extra time. I still rarely win, but it came to the point where if I had that big of a time advantage it just wouldn't be fair anymore. I still never beat him, but I get close. I think if I had a minute more than him I could beat him a bit, but over the years he stopped wanting to give me a time advantage. Maybe because he likes to win all the time :D.
Anyway I've noticed over the years that when I play against other people I notice flaws in their ideas. then I remember back in the good ol'e days where I started playing my friend at chess regulary how I made similar mistakes, although I have never done some of the crazy bad moves I've seen others make on chess.com, the ones around my rating that is, which isn't very high... Funny thing is I noticed I can play a kings gambit and have a very good chance of winning on bullet (I am rated 800 on bullet) and not do so hot in blitz (I am rated 1200 in blitz). Also my rating is better in standard. (1600 rating) So, I have come to the conclusion, that I have been working all these years improving my weakness, which is blitz chess, and never really focusing on my strengh, long games.
Of course I have other hang ups. Playing blitz I obtained the bad habit of moving pawns just to have a gain in time, and do that in long games sometimes... Also people have said I'm a very passive player, and need to endevour to grow a pair while playing chess... Not put in quite that way :D.
So part of it is playing people so much higher rated then me where the learning process becomes slow because I don't really understand what is going on. Don't get me wrong I learned a lot over the years, but I am still only 1200 (I know my standard rating is 1600 but that is inflated). But I can look at other players, and see myself making better moves than they do when given the same situation. 5 years ago I already was a lot better than I was when I started playing. So I wonder what rating I was back then? Was I 1000? If so, what was I when I started playing? 900? I'm telling you right now I was better than a beginner when I first started playing my opponent 10 years ago because I didn't just start playing at that point...
So I'm confused because all this time I was already better than beginner and yet after 10 years my rating is still only 1200? I know part of it is I need to grow a pair. Stop doing unnessisary pawn moves. Stop playing hope chess. Stop playing hopeful chess (I don't do that all the time, but sometimes...). Start playing more long games to help with my chess vision. Get better visualzation skills because part of the problem is I can't think far enough ahead in positions where tactics reign. I know slow chess will help with that, but also just doing chess puzzles and trying to visualize games in your head by just looking at the moves. I've done that before and got a headache.
I just wonder if I just do what I just said will my rating go up 400 points or so? It sounds like I have the chess knowledge already I just have to increase my skill. What do you guys think?
I'm not going to stop playing blitz, or bullet. I want to one day be good at both. But for now I just need to improve on my over all chess skill because I think it's lagging due to playing people way so much better than me, and playing against someone that uses unsound tactics at times. He has good principles he follows, but there are times where he goes overboard and weakens his position by doing those things like checking pieces like the queen just to gain time for example. I mean sometimes he does that with pawns, and a grand master told me that you shouldn't move a pawn to solve a problem unless you cannot find any other way to deal with the threat, because pawn moves are forever. Also, you shouldn't push pawns on a side you do not have a majority of pawns. These little things I know, but he doesn't... I just have to watch out for the times where the position favors those types of tactics. I have to be able to discern which types of occasions where those tactics become very strong, like they did in one of the games I played against him tonight.
Anyway, in a nutshell. I think I could get a lot better if I just do those things I just said. Is there anything else I can be doing? I've been going over some openings. Just the ones I encountered that I did not know how to respond to. Havn't really gone over them entirely as they are a big topic, and I know I often make mistakes in the opening, but I don't really want to focus too much on openings right now. Your thoughts...
I have my own ideas on how to improve on my opening game and keep adding to my own opening rhepoitore, but a deep opening study or grind will come later after I pass this hump I seem to be at right now as I've been playing for 10 years regulary (I think it's 12 now I'm just ballparking) and still have a low rating of 1200. Right now I am just glancing at the first couple moves or so and just winging it from there. There are other openings I am studying more deeply, but I only do that when I come across the opening quite frequently and do not know how to deal with it just by using my general chess intuition.
I mean I just seen a game that is rated about the same as me in standard, and I can tell he makes poor moves compared to me. My rating is a little higher than his actually but it appears to me that I am a lot better than he is, and wonder if all I need to do to gain like 200 rating points on chess.com standard is to do what I wrote earlier, and maybe some other stuff... Any ideas?