Removing the Rust

The Reading list for my upcomming vacation includes two basic chess titles: "Weapons of Chess" and "Simple Attacking Plans". The last several months have not offered many time slots for studying chess. It is time to swallow My pride and take a refresher course. Here is a Little warm-up game:

In Search of a Chess Hero

I think Nigel Davies blog is a must read for anyone interested in chess and chess improvement. A few days ago Nigel posted a very interesting and to the point article on the topic of "Suitable Chess Role Model". Many Chess scholars have suggested that it is wise for improvers to pick a Chess Hero to study but Nigel takes it a few steps further and offers a few criteria for the choice of a Chess Hero. Here is a bullets from Nigels selection criterias:

• Active between 1920 - 1970
• Did not specialize in gambits or king fiachettos
• At some time point among the Top 50 in the world
• Improvers < 1500 should pick a player who played e4/d4 and who responded  "1. e4 e5" or "1. d4 d5"

My first choice for a chess hero (Bent Larsen) did not qualify and my second choice (Ulf Andersson) also missed the mark. Since I am semi-patriotic when it comes to chess, I am in search for a Scandinavian Chess Role Model. I might be forced to include the Baltic states in my search sphere. I encourage all my readers to aid me in my search. My top candidate as I write would be Gösta Stoltz who (at least in the pre-Andersson era) was considered to be Swedens best chess talent ever.

There is a book available occasionally in used book store with a collection of Gösta's finest games. Bonus points are awarded for a suggested chess hero who is available in one or more books.

Tactics Muscle

IM David Pruess had some really interesting things to say in the www.chess.com forum:

"or when i give players in the 1000-1800 range advice on improving their tactics, viz: 10-15 min per day of solving simple tactical puzzles. the goal is to increase your store of basic patterns, not to work on your visualization, deep calculation. remember that is your goal. you are not trying to prove that you can solve every problem. if you don't solve a problem within 1 minute, stop. it's probably a new pattern or you would have gotten it by now. (with private students i'll take the time to demonstrate this to them: show them through examples that they can find a 3-4 move problem in 10 seconds if they know the pattern, and that they can fail to find a mate in 2 for 10 minutes if they don't know the pattern). look at the answer, and now go over the answer 3 more times in your head to help the pattern take hold. your brain can probably take on 2-3 new patterns between sleeping, so you should stop once you've been stumped by 2 or 3 problems (usually will take about 10-15 min). there is no point in doing more than that in one day. and any day you miss, you can't make up for. a semi-random estimate on my part is that you need about 2000 of these patterns to become a master. so you need to do this for 2 years or more."

Long Term Condensed Simplicity

A friend shared a nice little story:




"Thanks farbror, I appreciate the kind words. Yea I agree. Big difference between learning and having practical knowledge. I'm a martial artist and my master taught me a lesson. He stated now that your advanced what is the greatest lesson I've taught you. I stood there for about 3 minutes thinking (scared in front of a huge crowd) and then said a black belt knows that simplicity is best which comes from the mind. He stated exactly. The 4-5 th degree black belts used to beat me with the simplest of moves. Mastering the basics is so important. He said right, you can know a thousand moves and not know how to use one in a real life situation or have one technique that you can always use to great effect. Thats why we see in cage fighting usually same moves over and over because they are practical. In chess same applies. My trainer now finds small little things in my game and adjust them and it's like wow! I notice the improvement right away." (My Boldface)



This very clear example of the importance the basics and not rushing things is very much in tune with solid instructions posted at www.chessville.com "The Path to Improvement"

So, here is my New Single(!) Long Term Plan. No more Meta Pseudo Training wasting a lot of time and energy.

The (Re-)Reading Project
A list of books to read or re-read. I strongly consider to write short reviews of all the books along the road.

1. Everyone's Second Chess Book (Heisman)
2. Learn Chess Tactics (Nunn)
3. Silman's Complete Endgame Course (Silman)
4. Chess Openings (Basman)
5. Best Lessons of a Chess Coach (Weeramantry & Eusebi)
6. Lasker's Manual of Chess (Lasker)
7. New Ideas In Chess (Evans)
8. Logical Chess Move By Move (Chernev)

The "Guess-the-Move" Project

In parallell with the reading project I plan to replay all the games in the excellent collection "The Mammoth Book of The World's Greatest Chess Games" in chronologic order.


Daily Tactics -- Three Strikes and You're Out!

Solving problems at chess.com until I have failed three problems. Each failed problem should be carefully studied and understood.
(An idea suggested by IM Pruess massaged in to a post by yours truly )

The Openingphobia Remedy

Opening Worries or Openingphobia is another energy drainer. No more reconsidering opening choices for at least a ......long time. I think Dan Heisman has a solid point when he suggests that playing openings that suits your style might slow down your development. Playing stuff outside of my comfort zone will force me to work on my weak areas. I will use the recommendations from: 

"An Opening Repertoire for the Attacking Player" (Gufeld)

Chess Goals Galore

It is about time to evaluate the progress towards to the Fall Seaon Start-Up Goals. I am on par with everything but my reading and book review. Still, I am confident that I will finish it in time.

How about my Chess Buddies? On Target?


I could use a few more cc games. Any takers? There are a silly amount of rating points on my accounts to be won.

Concrete

Inspired by the commitment and efforts by two of my Online Chess Buddies (AndreaCoda and ScotchYeti), I have decided to try a few online chess lessons with a professional chess trainer. I will never be able to reach their heights in chess skills but I might be able to follow suit in efforts.

In order to make room for bi-weekly chess sessions in an already cramped fun time quota budget, I will have to make changes to the planned training activities before even finding out in what ways the training plan would fail.

Concrete is the new buzzword. Minimal time invested in planning, preparations and book keeping:

• Bi-weekly coaching sessions
• 30+ Chesstempo problems per week
• 50+ Slow games this year
• 3+ Chess books to (re-)read

The Team4545 League at ICC will be my main source for slow games. Hopefully spiced up with training games with online friends (Drop me a challenge! I love shorter match series in Europe friendly time slots). The planned reading list would be:

Alexander Alekhine's Best Games: Algebraic Edition

Simple Chess: New Algebraic Edition

Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained

Essential Chess Endings: The Tournament Player's Guide (using Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master should GM Howell's book turn out to be too advanced.)


Support your Local Bookdealer!!!

Interesting reading for exra credentials: Ziatdinov training tips "PART THREE: CONCRETE CHESS"

The Twenty Minute Exercise

The Stoyko Exercise or The Twenty Minute Exercise as Heisman calls it is interesting and useful. The idea is simply to deeply analyze any foggy position for twenty minutes. The inventor himself claims to have gained 100 points every time he did the exercise. Should that be 10% true, then I am a happy patzer!

So, I picked a Capablanca game almost at random and started at a random move. The position looked "obvious" and Mr Fritz agreed that I indeed found the best move. Mr Capablanca did not(!) but he on the other hand found the proper continuation.

Ergo: I suggest that you try the exercise for yourself. Al you need is a print-out which can be half hidden at your messy office desk allowing you to practice chess while pretending to be productive (from your boss' perspective)

I will take advantage of the sad fact that I have not studied the Classic games very well. So, I will probably pick the games/positions from the New York 1924 Tournament and hopefully learn something from Mr Alekhine's annotations.

The Curse of Memorizing?

Some Chess Trainers have a sweet tooth for memorizing games while other view it as a total waste of time. Some argue that the number of games memorized is a good substitut measure for playing strength.

When reading Frisco Del Rosario's excellent book "A First Book on Morphy", I decided to give memorizing a try. What could be a better party trick than replaying a Morphy game from memory?

It was a somewhat strange experience. Memorizing the moves was somewhat easier than I first expected. However, The move order was more or less forgotten in a day or two.

I gave it another try but this time I spent more energy on the "whys" of each move and that was the magic trick! Yeah, the game still didn't get stored properly in my gold fish memory but I was convinced that I got a somewhat deeper understanding of the game itself. My conclusion is that trying to memorize canonical chess games is indeed a nice way to spice up your DIY chess training. I honestly thing that trying the mixture of "whys" and pretending to memorize the moves did give me a deeper understanding of the game studied.

Del Rosario has another book out and it looks very promising. The introduction in "Capablanca: A Primer of Checkmate" should be required reading for all DIY chess improvers. I will get summarize my full impressions of the book as soon as I have worked myself through the text.

This time I will do it more carefully. The clear annotations in the Morphy book ofter lured me into the lazy "Learning by nodding mode". This time I will replay the games from the book in Old Fashioned "Guess the Move Style" before enjoying the notes.

A Complete mini course for the first step towards Chess Greatness?

In the folklore of Chess Improvement you often hear about the 300 positions you need to master in order to become a really strong player. GM Alburt has written a nice book
presenting a selection of 300 problems to help you on your path to Greatness. Another book along those lines are IM(?) Ziyatdiniov's "GM-RAM: Essential Grandmaster Chess Knowledge".

I like the approach as it can help the Do-it-yourself improver to find some structure is the search for improvement. Still, the improving player might need some guidance. Dan Heisman has suggested which problems from Alburt's book to study for someone aiming for a rating around 1400.

That is solid advice! This is a first step towards transforming the great material in the book into a stellar pedagogical tool mimicking the novel approach in Silman's "Complete Endgame Course".

Any idea what positions to study to take the next step, say, reaching ELO 1600?

PS. Here is Heisman's suggested problems for the 1400ish target:

5, 15, 18, 26, 27, 39, 63, 68, 75, 80, 82, 105, 109, 118, 125, 128, 129, 133, 163, 203, 206, 238, 242, 247, 265, 280.

To Set Goals or Not to Set Goals

There is a lot of tools, ideas and dogmas about how to reach your goals. Does it work to your advantage to make your goals public or does it work the other way around? I have no strong opinion and if I have to guess then "whatever makes you happy" gets my vote.

One huge advantage with public goals is that they might help you to find you some company on your way to Greatness. There are a number of wonderful chess blogger who have helped me a great deal and in all sorts of ways.

My Long Term Goal is to reach approximately 1750ELO before turning into an even grumpier 50yo. Is it doable? Well, it will be a struggle but I think that I am just a slight underdog to reach my goal. I try to find comfort in IM Andrew Martin's statement that fifteen minutes of quality training per day is enough for a gain of one ELO-point per week.

Approximately fifteen to thirty minutes of tactics training is part of my daily routine. The huge challenge is to make room for more slow games in the calender.

The Short Term Goal will be to play and analyze ten slow games before the Holiday Season. That does not sound like much but ad two lovely kids into the equation and you realize you will have to rescale 24/7 into 48/7 or worse.

I am very optimistic about the Smart Chess iPhone application soon to be released. I just sound sweet to have quality chess study material available in your cell phone.

Next Book to be Reviewed

This book looks really interesting and I will "soon" publish a review. It might be as interesting as Soltis recent book on chess training.

Chess Training Update

Tactics: 86/136 63%, 12.1 hours
Slow Games: None
Chess Book reading: A little


It is roughly what I can fit in during January but I would love to play more games.

The Year of the Books and High Expectations

We enter a new year with high hopes and hopefully great expectations. I have decided to make this the Year of the Books. A betting buddy made a friendly wager with his loved one about the number of books to read in the year to come. Reading has always been a passion of mine but after the arrival of the small dear ones, the reading hours have been few and far in between. Passive Reading has been my cup of tea (i.e. “Have you been reading any good books lately?”)!

The third leg in me personal makeover will be linked to personal health: Less of me and more exercise!

The health goals will be reached with the help of the “6 Changes approach” which is based on the simple idea that a new habit is best established by a series of small steps. A few weeks from now, I hope to start each day with a 20-30 minute “Power Walk”.

The Year of the Books will of course influence my chess training. The first item on the agenda will be to study an appropriate chunk of Silman’s: “Complete Endgame Course” aiming at an Endgame IQ slightly higher than my goal ICC rating (1400+ by the end of the year).

Generic Chess Training Regime:

Monday: Chesstempo for 15+ minutes (CT), One problem from Chess Exam: You vs. Bobby Fischer (CE)
Tuesday: CT, CE, ICC Monthly Standard Tournament
Wednesday: CT, CE, Annotating tournament game
Thursday: CT, CE
Friday: CT, CE, Reading Silman
Saturday: CT, CE, Reading Silman, Chess Books Reading Group
Sunday: CT, CE

After brushing up my endgame IQ, I plan to start working on something like Stean’s “Simple Chess” and some collection of annotated games.

Chess Books -- A Waste of Time?

Here is a copy of an email I sent to a handful of skilled chess players and chess coaches:

"Hi Coach, I just discovered some interesting reading on Chess Improvement:

Rose's Rants at Chessville (http://www.chessville.com/editorials/RosesRants/index.htm)

The following statement was interesting and amusing: "Kevin Spragget recommends that until you achieve master strength you need only about 25 books."

I am, as you know, on a limited quest for chess perfection. My Long Term Goal is to reach an ICC rating of 1700 within five years. I would like to ask for your "guesstimate" of the number of books needed to reach such a goal. Furthermore, if I may, I would like to have your input on which books to read for a geezer on his way to 1700.

To create a book load list might help me to be focused so I thought I shopuld give it a go!"

I was kind of surprised by the answers. Almost all of them responded that books might not be the best way to improve. One GM responded that almost any book would do the trick as the important thing was to read it in a proper way.

Anyhow, since I am addicted to buying books I would like to post the questions:

1. How would you like to design the required reading (ten book or less) for a 1700-player-to-be?
(i.e. One book on openings, three on strategy...)

2. What titles would you recommend?

note: Extra credits for a suggested list of three books for the 1400-player-to be (which happens to be my goal for next year )

Required Reading

Mr Silman posted a Great Article on how to design a Chess Study Program. It is time to spend a little more time on reading Chess Books.

Learn Basic Tactical Patterns: The Art of Attack in Chess


Create an Basic Opening Repertoire: FCO (pretty, almost done!)


Positional Play: Weapons of Chess, Simple Chess (waiting for the revised/rewritten Reassess Your Chess due in April 2010)


The Endgame: Silman's Complete Endgame Course (to a suitable level)

Time Frame? This reading package will probably take forever but I am OK with that. I will still do my Chesstempo sessions etc.

The challenge will be to find a suitable "Chess Hero". I think I have falsely been under the impression that tactics is my main skill (relatively speaking!) since I have done tons of tactics problems. A dear friend pointed out that my best games might have been more of positional chess. OTB I do not mind grinding out a win but I somehow do not feel comfortable assuming any degree of positional chess skills. I just don't have any training in playing positional chess. Furthermore, it is so much more fun to look at master games filled with fireworks.

My understanding of Silman's article is that the areas suggested above should be covered before starting the heavy work with master games. That will give me some time to find and accept a Chess Hero.

All input are most appreciated. Both suggestions on what hero to choose but also which annotated game collection to study.

I do think that "Best Game Collection for Improving Players" has higher priorities that "Most Appropriate Chess Hero". "Learning" as compared to "Pretending to be", if you get my drift?

A New Beginning

Here is my new draft training regime:

• 15-30 minutes of Daily Tactics Training using Chesstempo
• 1-2 slow games per week (ICC Team4545-league)
• 2-4 Master Games per week (The Immortal Games of Capablanca)
• Reading "wordy" chess books (Heisman's "The Improving Chess Thinker" just arrived)
  

The Noble Art of Evaluation

This is not rocket science but I think it is a short and sweet summary of a neglected area in my Chess: Evaluation


A: Evaluation:
1. Material
2. Activity/Effectiveness
3. Weaknesses

B: Opponents threats -- preventing

C: Identify Opponents most Advanced/Active piece(s)

D: Activate your own pieces -- increase pressure


This nice little scheme has helped me to pinpoint some leaks in my game. Basically it has provided some clues to a better understanding of both the pace of an attack and what a weakness/target could look like.

Furthermore the scheme will help me to annotate my own games in a more systematic way.

Yummi!

Nimzowitsch Revisited!

It is time to have a serious look at Nimzo'z Classic Book. Yeah, Tactics is Meat and Potatoes but you need some other nutriments as well!

Measures of improvement

To review your own games is excellent training. I like to look back at old games to get a better understanding of my improvement. Recently, I started to create a “Top 5 list” of all my OTB (“Over-the-Board”) games. I think such a list might be useful as a measure of your improvement. How? Well, one idea is to set goals such as: “At least one of my next ten games should make it into my Top 5 List”

Rating Improvement is of course a simply measure of improvement but the thing is that you can play the best chess of your life without winning a single game! The Top 5 List does not necessarily consist of won games.

Please note that making in into the Top 5 List is quite demanding if you have played a lot of games. A simple but crude estimate of the chance for a single game to make it into the list is “5/N”, where N = the total number of your games from where the Top 5 is created

Training Diary: May 20, 2009

Tactics: daily doses of problems at chesstempo (CT)

Endgames: almost daily problems at CT

Openings: Reading about Grand Prix Attack (GPA), collecting GPA master games for review

Strategy: almost none, started reading Euwe's "Developement of Chess Style"

Analysis: analyzing my league game


Slow league game, won, all time high ICC rating (1258?)

reaching 1670 at chesstempo



Wish list:

- to have a draft opening repertoire

- create "my five best games" list