Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Kickstarting New Year's Resolutions



I realized two things that will make it easier to achieve My goals:

1. Starting Early
and
2. Keep it Simple

My Chess goals will be to read three chess books carefully and to play 50+ slow games before 2012.

I could use the extra time to decide on the books to read.

4 comments:

  1. 50 slow games means roughly one per week with some room for holidays, right? Good idea.

    Regarding the three books you want to read - you have already read a lot. Is there something you have in mind? You could pick a chess master from the past and buy an annotated collection. This will keep you busy and improve your understanding of the middlegame and endgame.

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  2. 50 slow games will ba a challenge. No doubt! A collection of Mastergames is clearly on my short list.

    Alekhines "New York 1924" is a top candidate. So is Stean's "Simple Chess" and maybe Howell's endgame book (the title slipped my mind or is it) "Essential Chess Endings"

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  3. Somehow I think that we adults easily fall into the trap that accumulating knowledge is the key to make progress. Read book x, 100 ELO, book y, another 100 ELO.

    I don't know if this is the right way. You need just one, maybe two, books about strategy and study them thoroughly. I find it already difficult to follow the points on my secret 2 page short list. :-)

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  4. Agreed! Chess Books is not the secret sauce. But they are fun to buy. I am the publishers best friend.

    Tactics, Playing and Annotating your own games are probably more reliable routes to knowledge AND skills.

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