25 years old & learning chess - my practice blog

I included numbers in your post to make it easier for me to respond on different things.

1. Yes, I miss a lot of tactics. If you want to see some games with a lot of tactics missed, go check my games from 6 months ago. My ability to see combinations in games has increased tenfold in just a few months. I would say it's mostly due to me spending a lot of time doing tactics trainers and going through tactic books. Does that allow me to somehow skip all the necessary knowledge regarding chess principles and strategy in order to become a good player? No. But it has helped me to understand concepts in strategy as well.

2. If you want to see poor judgement, you can go through as many of my games as you'd like. I'm not sure if I understand your point though. Are you expecting that a 1400 rated player, who has played chess for less than 8 months wouldn't make bad decisions in the eyes of 2100 rated player? Even if I had spent these 8 months only playing (no tactics trainer, no studying chess books, no watching lectures or videos), I would still make bad decisions on the board. It's hard to say if I'd do them more or less than now, but I'd be inclined to believe that much more than now.

3, No. Tactics trainer is just one part of my training.

4. I do a lot of different kinds of studying. First and foremost I play mostly rapid time control games, and analyze them afterwards. I do tactics trainer, lessons and drills here on chess.com. I read chess books, watch lectures from grandmasters, as well as watch much better players than me livestreaming their play. 

And yes, I do get your point. You learn chess by playing chess. It's just a bit weird argument to push through, when I have played on average at least 1 slower time control game per day, and if you count the blitz games as well, in total almost 1000 games in 8 months.

Chessable progress:


Almost halfway through with these two. The amount of lines to review increases the closer I get to finishing them, so the progress is going to slow down a bit.

i like that so much on a normal book you never know if you really looked at everything- how is panchenkos middlegame book?

It's tough. I'm currently going on chapter 5 - Prophylaxis. I can write some quick analysis on the chapters.

Chapter 1 - Introduction:

Few pages of stories about the author, players he has coached and forewords from people who he has worked with. Interesting stuff and a nice read, but there are no variations to study there.

Chapter 2 - The Attack on the King:

In this chapter the author goes through various games from players like Mikhail Tal, Emanuel Lasker and Paul Morphy. The focus is on the critical stages of middlegame, just before the player launches a decisive attack. The moves are fairly straightforward, like pushing a pawn to create tension, relocate pieces to more offensive squares, sacrifice material and so on. It's not an easy chapter per say, but it's definitely the easiest chapter on the book so far. The author explains nicely some key ideas about creating a decisive attack, placement of your pieces and how to sacrifice material to your benefit. Very common theme in many of the attacks is to sacrifice material on key squares to either open necessary lines, or to create blockades in order to cut coordination between enemy pieces. One very typical sacrifice I've learned from the chapter is for white to sacrifice a knight on d5 square against Sicilian defense. The purpose is to cut the board in half, open a line on the centre and devoid black from coordinating his pieces. 

Chapter 3 - Defence:

The chapter on defence is much more difficult than the one on attacking, and probably the most difficult chapter so far. It focuses mainly on passive defence and how to draw positions where opponent has an edge. It has some important tips for beginners too regarding king safety, pawn blockades and stuff like that. Most of the chapter is however about defensive trades and pawn sacrifices to kill opponents momentum, leading to theoretically drawn positions. I think this chapter would be very useful for higher rated players, but I personally found many of the ideas way too difficult to understand. Mostly because they usually revolved around turning the game to a drawn endgame. If you don't know what endgames are drawn and what aren't, it's hard to understand (or at least find yourself) the subtle ideas, trades and manouvres in the middle-game aiming towards said position. Instructive, but difficult.

Chapter 4 - Counterplay:

I find this chapter much easier to grasp than the chapter on defence. Most of the ideas are still fairly subtle, but they all focus on the same point: how to get the initiative from opponent and launch a proper counter-attack? In this chapter the author explains how critical the timing and accuracy is to a good counter-attack. Some of the key ideas include sacrificing material (usually pawns) for initiative, taking advantage of badly placed enemy pieces, tempo moves and so on. In a way many of the ideas are similar to the previous chapter on defence, but here the idea is to defend actively by counter-attacking, instead of passively trying to liquidate the position to a theoretically drawn position.

Chapter 5 - Prophylaxis:

This is probably the most interesting chapter on the book (at least on the ones I have gone through). It focuses mainly on players like Aaron Nimzowitsch, Alexander Alekhine and Tigran Petrosian. Generally prophylaxis focuses on making preparation moves that help your own plans and make it more difficult for opponent to complete theirs. Considering how wide subject it is, it's hard to explain it much more thoroughly. This chapter is both intriguing, tricky and hard. Some of the prophylactic moves are absolutely beyond my comprehension (like one example where Tigran Petrosian trades his developed bishop to opponents first rank knight - author describes it as a move of a great master - in order to remove any chance of counterplay for the opponent), and wouldn't even cross my mind during a game. Some of the moves, and the ideas behind them, however are one of the key reasons why I've grown to like chess so much. Some simple maneuvres can have their real effect revealed 10 moves later on the board, and grandmasters know precisely why they were played. I'm still working through this chapter (almost finished), and even though I'm not sure if I've learned all that much from the great moves these grandmasters make, it has sure affected on the way I think. So many outside the box, outright genius moves, make me respect chess even more and if I've grabbed something in my thinking, is that there are resources everywhere on the chessboard.

I'll write more about the remaining chapters once I get through studying them!

wow very indept thx!

https://en.chessbase.com/post/1st-annual-ccscatl-july-classic 

I know some of the people in the photos, which is why it peaked my interest in the first place. But notice what he says about improving: "

DN: Many chess players would like to improve, do you have any advice?

SM: My main advice would be to play as much as you can and analyse the games you played."

 There are also advises by many gms.ims,masters to study chess. So what point you are trying to bring here with this link? There are also many players playing countless games, but not improving. For example chess lover 2.0 has over 9k games here.

It should be pretty clear...Taskinen has polished off 4,000+ tactics and yet when you actually look at his games...he is pretty weak in tactics...pretty weak in many aspects of the game really. As I said, what I say is hopefully to be taken as simple constructive criticism. If I say it in a way that rubs someone wrong...well...I could of course pat him on the back and speak all the platitudes (free advice as Hendricks sort of calls it) and say keep at it and you will 'get there'...'slow and steady wins the race', yadda, yadda, yadda...

But I have been playing tournament chess for about 35 years...some times more serious than other times, but I've seen a LOT of people progress...or not.

My peak rating - OTB 2170. 2399 ICCF (way before computers). Heck, I don't think I've ever studied/solved anywhere close to 4k tactical problems....maybe not 1k. I just took the game seriously (again, sometimes more than others thru the years)...looked at a lot of chess, played a lot.  But, I never really applied myself like I should have.

But...it's all the others I've seen over the years who have either gotten really good...or did not for various reasons that leads me to say what I have. 

Everyone is different...but on balance when I see someone really get good at the game, I can't think of anyone getting there 'slow and steady'...those that do are generally young, have the time and play a lot, apply themselves (often get some coaching from better players who aren't just doing the easy thing for the pay check) and work on the weakness that manifest themselves in their actual games where they have seriously applied themselves. THAT is the surest way to get better before you get burned out at all the studying and solving and just end up thinking 'this game is too big for me'.

Do note...I never said to not study or read books. But that is not where you really succeed.

I've seen it it play out...lots. Just my 2 cents...

As I told you before alot of those games are blitz games and to me those don't really count.  I doubt I have as many "slow games" but I wasn't in disagreement with Cornfed.  I do agree you need to play tons,I was just suggesting to add to your knowledge but if I had a stronger player who were willing to honestly analyze my games with me,that might be better then studying,say for example Master games.  

but you also have over 3k rapid games, so that is plenty. yes playing a lot is important for improvement. but for me studying is more significant for improvement. maybe 60 percent study and 50 percent playing. but as you get stronger(maybe above 2300), you study less. a stronger player analyzing your game is kinda a study itself because he will point out your tactical and positional errors.

But he is only playing chess for 3 months and he is improving. But i do agree that you should not solve too many puzzles in 1 day. For me, maybe 30 minutes or 8 puzzles a day is enough.

You know as funny as this may seem/sound,I'm leaning more and more towards his argument,I just played a game and got frustrated/angry because I didn't know what to do,I'm out of practice,I have been "studying" though,so there may be more truth to what he said then I was willing to give him credit for. 

sorry, but  with your rating range majority of the positions you won't know what to do even if you play a lot. even if i don't play for years, I know what to do. You don't lose your  knowledge once they are in a long term memory. You played over 3k  rapid games of chess, but there is no improvement in your game. What do you study? Do you study tactics,endgames and strategies? If you read/study advance material, that won't help you that much. What books do you have?

Dude,don't JUDGE me k? This is the same thing I told him (Cornfed) I told you like 3 times already that I don't take the games on this site too seriously and I already told you why,so scroll up and read if you're interested.  You do not know what is in my brain and mind,as I told him,I may know more about the damn game then you do.  I don't understand why you guys continue to be rude and disrespectful towards me,why would you judge someone based on what you see here,anyone with half a brain would tell you that online ratings DO NOT COUNT and there are a variety of reasons for this!  

 that is not being rude, i am just telling you reality.  you know more? but it does not reflect on your rapid games here. What things do you study? what is your fide/usa rating?  don't fool me. if you don't take things seriously with rapid games here, you won't play that many.

It was being rude,where I come from it's being rude and like I told you I don't take the games seriously here.  I don't know but I do know alot about Chess and that much I know and not you or anyone can take that away from me!   I've never been in an OTB tournament or anything but I know about the game,I have Chess knowledge,I'm not saying I'm a Grandmaster or anything.  How about yourself there? What do you know about Chess and what's your rating???  

I don't take it too seriously though so I guess that's why my game suffers,I can't devote my entire life to Chess like maybe some of you here can,I have other things going on. 

i am just trying to help you. sorry, don't fool me. if you don't take things seriously with rapid games here, you won't play that many. i have a current rating of 2100 in my country, but i am not active anymore. and if you look here at chess.com, i have higher rating than you. sorry, but again, if you  have more knowledge, you won't be this bad at rapid games here.

and i am asking a simple question. What things have you studied as your source of knowledge? what books or videos?

You say you're trying to help me,apologize and then insult me again? How is that helping me? ....I study mostly tactics if you must know.  Also what's this "I have a higher rating then you", but you say you're not being rude? Wow what is your definition of rude? Honestly I don't care if you have a higher rating then me and I don't take blitz games seriously,I just play them because they are quick and fast,almost like a little test for my tactical knowledge.  A player around my "rating" should be studying tactics.  I appreciate you trying to "help" me but stop insulting me and then maybe I might believe you. 

 now i know why you are not improving. tactical study is important for your level. but you should also study other aspects of the game. also, when you solve a puzzle, you should  try as hard as you can at finding the answer. doing only tactics solving is not great knowledge. there is more to chess than tactical patterns. if you can't see a tactic, you won't know what to do.

and looking  at your stats here, you only did 19 tactics puzzle. so where are these tremendous knowledge that you are talking about?

Okay guys, let's chill for a while, before this thread gets completely out of hand. I understand that this is an interesting debate, but perhaps better suited elsewhere (or through personal messages). :-)