It is hard to make the "right"/"wrong" move if you've never seen an example of one. I advocate strongly for the tactics training, so you can see what is considered right/wrong in situations where there is an exact, well-defined right/wrong. It's like a soldier learning to shoot at a range, before going into live combat. It will help you to firmly feel confident on fundamental building blocks, before treading the murkier ambiguous nebulous waters of live play.
@Sarg0n FWIW, I understood and appreciated your [relatively obscure] use of BASIC labels, if that's how you meant it :)
I know I'm not theoretically as high rated as other players on classical format, but since I'm also dedicating my schedule to improving at chess, my brief experience in training may be of some utility for you, some things might be a little obvious but are worth to have in mind after all.
I think it's important to know what to avoid when training: obsession with the game –because it somehow sets a superficial mentality that sort of makes one think always in terms of winning and nothing else when it's better to have objectivity at the results if one's opponent plays decent enough to get a drawn game, it's good to be optimistic about one's own dexterity in certain type of strategical positions and such, but it shouldn't be something that takes over your emotions and makes you risk more than necessary, if you see a match between strong engines it's no surprise that most games are drawn because of the perfect technique. Furthermore, overestimating your chances can lead to stressful situations when it’s not possible to force anything and nonetheless by obsession with “winning” one gives away the chance to sustain a balanced position and mess it up. An example of this is this game Karpov-Miles from 1980 (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068157), where Miles played the least expected starting move against the then world champion 1.e4 a6!?, and after a reasonable development the game was equalized, but Karpov yearning to punish the ‘ridiculous’ opening strategy of his opponent led him to minimize the opponent position’s strengths and played some over-optimistic moves which got outplayed and what could have been a drawn game or even a win for Karpov if he improved the positional factors wasn’t because of a misinterpretation of the position’s nuances. Now, I’m not saying Karpov had an unhealthy obsession with chess, but I think the idea explains itself, there is a famous quote on this whose author I don’t recall at the moment, but it was something like “playing to win, also known as playing to lose”. – So objectivity should be the goal of a good study and the practical application designed with this in mind is something to consider to also avoid accumulation of unnecessary knowledge –don’t memorize opening variations, understand strategical factors–, overestimation of the quantity of knowledge above its quality –Steinitz said ‘it is much better to devote to chess one hour per day for six consecutive days than six hours one day in the week’–, lack of basic chess principles –tempo, space and harmony of your pieces– and expectation of quick results for “rating purposes” or “checkmate for the sake of checkmate” which doesn’t allow an enjoyment of the game for what it is, a game, so it’s way more important to focus on quality oriented study.
With that said, such quality oriented study must avoid the mentioned paradigms in pursuit of getting the maximum potential of a training session, for this I refer to Jacob Aagaard’s concept from Excelling at Chess when he explains in chapter three that chess is a matter of intuition, preparation and calculation, so your study should be directed to improve these elements. For intuition, positional planification and pattern recognition from checkmate/simplified positions should work good. This is why Capablanca recommended to learn endgames, because it allows you to understand the range of ability from the pieces and how to maneuver them correctly, since one can’t always win from the opening but it’s possible to compose a simplified position where you can actually get a feel for clear maneuvers, for someone whose second language was the game of chess this argument shouldn’t be much questionable in my opinion. Alexei Shirov said ‘I think I’m better at endgames because with less pieces is easier to calculate’ so that kind of illustrates the intuition idea. For preparation, getting a system of thought that applies the principles of piece development, attack and defense, which allows an accurate positional evaluation is enough to play decently good from the first move, since one can’t expect to play opening moves mechanically from memory without an understanding of what are the principles applied, the preparation should be mainly for strategical purposes. And for calculation, the classic method of tactical motif exercises is the best that there is, the training feature here on lichess is enough for it, but for variety other tools like chessable digital books or old-school printed puzzle books are great as well. In solving the exercises you shouldn’t count the amount of puzzles you solve but instead within one or two hours try to solve them calculating the critical variations and don’t play a move until being sure it’s the best you have whether it’s takes you five, ten or even more minutes, and whether you solve only three exercises, five or ten don’t advance to the next puzzle until understanding the nuances in the position and get the correct answer, but even if you don’t, let the engine teach you the move if you missed it or look up in the solutions from the puzzle book after the while you were processing it and couldn’t figure out a clear answer, it’s a matter of understanding and enjoying the game, not a quest for rating, but in the process one improves and increases it while developing a style. Playing against an engine and analyzing masters’ and own games also is a good complement to this but here I’m talking of pure independent training. I even composed a system of auto-didactic learning for myself that follows this way of improvement along with some philosophy that you can check here: cardiganchesseng.wordpress.com/2019/03/29/the-autonomous-chess-player/ not trying to spread unwanted publicity but since you asked for some advice this is my best approach at it. Have a great day.
I think it's important to know what to avoid when training: obsession with the game –because it somehow sets a superficial mentality that sort of makes one think always in terms of winning and nothing else when it's better to have objectivity at the results if one's opponent plays decent enough to get a drawn game, it's good to be optimistic about one's own dexterity in certain type of strategical positions and such, but it shouldn't be something that takes over your emotions and makes you risk more than necessary, if you see a match between strong engines it's no surprise that most games are drawn because of the perfect technique. Furthermore, overestimating your chances can lead to stressful situations when it’s not possible to force anything and nonetheless by obsession with “winning” one gives away the chance to sustain a balanced position and mess it up. An example of this is this game Karpov-Miles from 1980 (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068157), where Miles played the least expected starting move against the then world champion 1.e4 a6!?, and after a reasonable development the game was equalized, but Karpov yearning to punish the ‘ridiculous’ opening strategy of his opponent led him to minimize the opponent position’s strengths and played some over-optimistic moves which got outplayed and what could have been a drawn game or even a win for Karpov if he improved the positional factors wasn’t because of a misinterpretation of the position’s nuances. Now, I’m not saying Karpov had an unhealthy obsession with chess, but I think the idea explains itself, there is a famous quote on this whose author I don’t recall at the moment, but it was something like “playing to win, also known as playing to lose”. – So objectivity should be the goal of a good study and the practical application designed with this in mind is something to consider to also avoid accumulation of unnecessary knowledge –don’t memorize opening variations, understand strategical factors–, overestimation of the quantity of knowledge above its quality –Steinitz said ‘it is much better to devote to chess one hour per day for six consecutive days than six hours one day in the week’–, lack of basic chess principles –tempo, space and harmony of your pieces– and expectation of quick results for “rating purposes” or “checkmate for the sake of checkmate” which doesn’t allow an enjoyment of the game for what it is, a game, so it’s way more important to focus on quality oriented study.
With that said, such quality oriented study must avoid the mentioned paradigms in pursuit of getting the maximum potential of a training session, for this I refer to Jacob Aagaard’s concept from Excelling at Chess when he explains in chapter three that chess is a matter of intuition, preparation and calculation, so your study should be directed to improve these elements. For intuition, positional planification and pattern recognition from checkmate/simplified positions should work good. This is why Capablanca recommended to learn endgames, because it allows you to understand the range of ability from the pieces and how to maneuver them correctly, since one can’t always win from the opening but it’s possible to compose a simplified position where you can actually get a feel for clear maneuvers, for someone whose second language was the game of chess this argument shouldn’t be much questionable in my opinion. Alexei Shirov said ‘I think I’m better at endgames because with less pieces is easier to calculate’ so that kind of illustrates the intuition idea. For preparation, getting a system of thought that applies the principles of piece development, attack and defense, which allows an accurate positional evaluation is enough to play decently good from the first move, since one can’t expect to play opening moves mechanically from memory without an understanding of what are the principles applied, the preparation should be mainly for strategical purposes. And for calculation, the classic method of tactical motif exercises is the best that there is, the training feature here on lichess is enough for it, but for variety other tools like chessable digital books or old-school printed puzzle books are great as well. In solving the exercises you shouldn’t count the amount of puzzles you solve but instead within one or two hours try to solve them calculating the critical variations and don’t play a move until being sure it’s the best you have whether it’s takes you five, ten or even more minutes, and whether you solve only three exercises, five or ten don’t advance to the next puzzle until understanding the nuances in the position and get the correct answer, but even if you don’t, let the engine teach you the move if you missed it or look up in the solutions from the puzzle book after the while you were processing it and couldn’t figure out a clear answer, it’s a matter of understanding and enjoying the game, not a quest for rating, but in the process one improves and increases it while developing a style. Playing against an engine and analyzing masters’ and own games also is a good complement to this but here I’m talking of pure independent training. I even composed a system of auto-didactic learning for myself that follows this way of improvement along with some philosophy that you can check here: cardiganchesseng.wordpress.com/2019/03/29/the-autonomous-chess-player/ not trying to spread unwanted publicity but since you asked for some advice this is my best approach at it. Have a great day.
Wow! I didn't expect to get such detailed replies! I never really focused on improving my tactical prowess that much. I may be focusing too much on improving my positional play and strategy while at the same time working on my opening and middle game a lot while tending to neglect the endgame. This advice makes a lot of sense for me considering every one of my games I make a lot of good moves and my opponent makes a lot of bad moves, then I blunder a completely winning position. If I focus more on tactics, then I can blunder less.
CM Pawn structures made a great comment on how to think through a game properly:
"Both won and lost games should be analyzed regardless. How did you handle the critical moments, how was your time management? What kind of mistakes did i do. Did i loose any tempos in the opening and why? Creating this kind of checklists gives more structure to the hard work you put in. There is nothing wrong with hard work but efficient work is more important, quality beats volume. Regards Richard"
I've been teaching myself chess for about 8 years now and I started to notice details while looking back on my games I should pay attention for in the future, but I didn't really have any rhyme or rhythm to it, I just looked over my notes and typed up a 'What I learned category'.
- Opening Tempo Loss
- Time Management
- Types of Mistakes
I've definitely been focusing a lot on tempo loss in my studies, but I haven't critically thought about how I was using my time in games much other than the overall thinking of 'Use more time', advice I had been given before on Lichess and I've been trying to follow. It hadn't even occurred to me to look and pay attention to the types of mistakes I've been making! Quick question for Pawn structures about the comment, are you referring to tactical mistakes, positional mistakes, strategic mistakes, or all of the above? Another question too, you mentioned the lichess tactics trainer isn't the best to train, which I have heard before. Should I go on chesss.com or the LiChess Learn Tab to focus on and look for specific ideas?
Kaos also mentioned that I may be too aggressive with my play style, trying to press for an advantage that isn't there and I completely agree! I tend to like going for big attacks in my games and win about a third of them, but when I choose not to attack and instead improve my pieces and strictly follow a strategy I based off of knowledge from similar middle games, that is when I play good chess.
TPR, I also like your comment about thinking about strategy while it is my opponents turn. It saves me a few lines of calculation unless they are taking a long time on the only move. I should develop the strategy during that time I need to follow, the one mentioned in the Kaos response.
Thank you all for the great advice! I read everyone's comments, some people said the same thing though so I only talked about that idea once. I am left with more questions though, specifically for CM Pawn structures. I mentioned those in one of the responses above. If you just stopped on this forum, I still get notifications so feel free to leave a comment!
CM Pawn structures made a great comment on how to think through a game properly:
"Both won and lost games should be analyzed regardless. How did you handle the critical moments, how was your time management? What kind of mistakes did i do. Did i loose any tempos in the opening and why? Creating this kind of checklists gives more structure to the hard work you put in. There is nothing wrong with hard work but efficient work is more important, quality beats volume. Regards Richard"
I've been teaching myself chess for about 8 years now and I started to notice details while looking back on my games I should pay attention for in the future, but I didn't really have any rhyme or rhythm to it, I just looked over my notes and typed up a 'What I learned category'.
- Opening Tempo Loss
- Time Management
- Types of Mistakes
I've definitely been focusing a lot on tempo loss in my studies, but I haven't critically thought about how I was using my time in games much other than the overall thinking of 'Use more time', advice I had been given before on Lichess and I've been trying to follow. It hadn't even occurred to me to look and pay attention to the types of mistakes I've been making! Quick question for Pawn structures about the comment, are you referring to tactical mistakes, positional mistakes, strategic mistakes, or all of the above? Another question too, you mentioned the lichess tactics trainer isn't the best to train, which I have heard before. Should I go on chesss.com or the LiChess Learn Tab to focus on and look for specific ideas?
Kaos also mentioned that I may be too aggressive with my play style, trying to press for an advantage that isn't there and I completely agree! I tend to like going for big attacks in my games and win about a third of them, but when I choose not to attack and instead improve my pieces and strictly follow a strategy I based off of knowledge from similar middle games, that is when I play good chess.
TPR, I also like your comment about thinking about strategy while it is my opponents turn. It saves me a few lines of calculation unless they are taking a long time on the only move. I should develop the strategy during that time I need to follow, the one mentioned in the Kaos response.
Thank you all for the great advice! I read everyone's comments, some people said the same thing though so I only talked about that idea once. I am left with more questions though, specifically for CM Pawn structures. I mentioned those in one of the responses above. If you just stopped on this forum, I still get notifications so feel free to leave a comment!
@TheSunBurnsMyEyes
I can't believe this 40-60 hours schedule is to keep up in the long run. But maybe that's my problem.
A hint for your studies. The best book of bologan is the one with his best games. He advises to note three points you learned from a game. Your studies over games have no summary at the end, which is important for human learning. We forget and keep better in mind if we organize knowledge in a way fitting to us.
Here you find good hints from an approved trainer. http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/category/jacob-aagaards-training-tips Start with the oldest posts and take what fits to you personally.
I can't believe this 40-60 hours schedule is to keep up in the long run. But maybe that's my problem.
A hint for your studies. The best book of bologan is the one with his best games. He advises to note three points you learned from a game. Your studies over games have no summary at the end, which is important for human learning. We forget and keep better in mind if we organize knowledge in a way fitting to us.
Here you find good hints from an approved trainer. http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/category/jacob-aagaards-training-tips Start with the oldest posts and take what fits to you personally.
Thank you for the tip at the end jupp53! I recently learned this myself actually. I have been going back in my studies and writing all of the ideas I think were prevalent in the game. They are always at the end of a study, but I am working backwards from the most recent games to my first study, so this will be a little tedious digging back in my notes and writing the 'what I learned' categories out.
Also, I'm going back to college in a month, so 100% this 40-60 hours a week will not last. Remember, I'm trying to learn as much as possible in a short period of time.
Also, I'm going back to college in a month, so 100% this 40-60 hours a week will not last. Remember, I'm trying to learn as much as possible in a short period of time.
I like that you're actually put a ton of effort into studying your games and actually look to improve (unlike the 924 others "I want to get better, HELP" threads).
I think, your method isn't bad and should lead to significant improvement. I like that you're posting very detailed comments.
Some minor issues:
- your analysis is somewhat filled with backward-thinking. You're basically look at the SF line, comparing it with your move and deducing.."Oh SF played this, so it's because of an open file" or something like that.
Nothing wrong with that approach, it's quite efficient and used by most of us (I assume). But since you aren't very strong/experienced yet, your guesses aren't as correct as those of very good players.
This leads to some wrong (strategical) conclusions and overaccentuating very minor things. Minor things matter, but it's unreasonable to criticize a move which is 0.1-0.2 paws worse than the SF 1 . line ;-)
Letting some stronger player look over your games from time to time should minimize those weaknesses and give you somewhat of a second opinion. Maybe you could write a summary of 2-3 most important mistakes to improve on.
Just an example - I've briefly looked at your 2nd game (just clicked through, haven't really taken to time to properly understand it)
4. Bc4 --- yeah OK, I'm not a fan of opening theory at your level, but maybe take a half an hour or so to look at some basic lines for 1.e4 e5. Not really more, just some BASIC lines
4...h6 --- ok, it does prevent 5. Bg5 and COULD enable ..g5 at some weird occasion, but otherwise it's just one of those semi-useful trash moves
5. d4 rather "!?" than "?!" . Strong reaction in the center after a non-move from black
8. Qe5 is "?!" ish, because you can exploit your lead in development + the d5 square better in the middlegame (or maybe there's a better explanation)
...your opponent did some strange things
12. Be3 ? --- is pretty bad not only for the reasons you outlined, but b/c of your opponents BAD bishop on e7. You overlooked/underestimate 12..Ng4 13...Bg5 which is a strong exchanging maneuvre equalising the game.
same for 13....Nxd5 -- it's all about the bishop trade.
16. Rhf1?? --- pretty inexplicable
17. exd5? --- This is a terrible idea from a positional point of view. You close the d-file where you are pressuring the extremely weak d6 pawn . It's so weak that it's lost after 2-3 more forcing moves.
After exd5 you have removed the weakness on d6 (it can hardly be attacked now) and closed the d-file in addition to that.
17...0-0 is obv. wrong, but let's not focus on the opp. that much
18. Re1 --- no prophylaxis against Bg5 AGAIN - but it's only a minor thing at this stage
19. Re2?? tactical blunder. 19...Bf6 20. Re1 as well...
After the bishop trade your opponent "donated" you the b-file and you won easily ;)
.
-------------------
Main points: -- major tactical 1movers missed ; good bishop/bad bishop trade ignored ; play against the d6-weakness
--------------
Still way too detailed and written down in a hurr, but you get the point about the 2nd opinion.
Another thing I would do from time to time is devoting at least 20% of the time to other things than the analysis of own games. GM-games, tactics, endgames.
I think, your method isn't bad and should lead to significant improvement. I like that you're posting very detailed comments.
Some minor issues:
- your analysis is somewhat filled with backward-thinking. You're basically look at the SF line, comparing it with your move and deducing.."Oh SF played this, so it's because of an open file" or something like that.
Nothing wrong with that approach, it's quite efficient and used by most of us (I assume). But since you aren't very strong/experienced yet, your guesses aren't as correct as those of very good players.
This leads to some wrong (strategical) conclusions and overaccentuating very minor things. Minor things matter, but it's unreasonable to criticize a move which is 0.1-0.2 paws worse than the SF 1 . line ;-)
Letting some stronger player look over your games from time to time should minimize those weaknesses and give you somewhat of a second opinion. Maybe you could write a summary of 2-3 most important mistakes to improve on.
Just an example - I've briefly looked at your 2nd game (just clicked through, haven't really taken to time to properly understand it)
4. Bc4 --- yeah OK, I'm not a fan of opening theory at your level, but maybe take a half an hour or so to look at some basic lines for 1.e4 e5. Not really more, just some BASIC lines
4...h6 --- ok, it does prevent 5. Bg5 and COULD enable ..g5 at some weird occasion, but otherwise it's just one of those semi-useful trash moves
5. d4 rather "!?" than "?!" . Strong reaction in the center after a non-move from black
8. Qe5 is "?!" ish, because you can exploit your lead in development + the d5 square better in the middlegame (or maybe there's a better explanation)
...your opponent did some strange things
12. Be3 ? --- is pretty bad not only for the reasons you outlined, but b/c of your opponents BAD bishop on e7. You overlooked/underestimate 12..Ng4 13...Bg5 which is a strong exchanging maneuvre equalising the game.
same for 13....Nxd5 -- it's all about the bishop trade.
16. Rhf1?? --- pretty inexplicable
17. exd5? --- This is a terrible idea from a positional point of view. You close the d-file where you are pressuring the extremely weak d6 pawn . It's so weak that it's lost after 2-3 more forcing moves.
After exd5 you have removed the weakness on d6 (it can hardly be attacked now) and closed the d-file in addition to that.
17...0-0 is obv. wrong, but let's not focus on the opp. that much
18. Re1 --- no prophylaxis against Bg5 AGAIN - but it's only a minor thing at this stage
19. Re2?? tactical blunder. 19...Bf6 20. Re1 as well...
After the bishop trade your opponent "donated" you the b-file and you won easily ;)
.
-------------------
Main points: -- major tactical 1movers missed ; good bishop/bad bishop trade ignored ; play against the d6-weakness
--------------
Still way too detailed and written down in a hurr, but you get the point about the 2nd opinion.
Another thing I would do from time to time is devoting at least 20% of the time to other things than the analysis of own games. GM-games, tactics, endgames.
@TheSunBurnsMyEyes You are on the right track. Tactics are important, but don't focus too much on the tactics trainer. Those positions are "fixed". You know there is a tactic and you need to find it. But in a normal game, you don't know if there's a tactic in the position. You may spend a lot of time trying to find something which is not there, or you may miss the tactic completely. Also, analyze both the won and lost games and play longer time controls such as rapid/classical. Cheers!
@SnackYourPawn I like your advice on game two and I just finished looking over chapter 2 with it in mind. It comes at no surprise my strategic ideas are inaccurate because I only really started to see games in the big picture recently. Would you recommend to me reading some books on chess for Ideas on how grand masters strategize, or would you reccomend oneline lectures, like the ones from Saint Louis Chess Club? I have Petrosians book and Fischers book right next to me. For the first half of the summer I was doing kind of a memorization challenge memorizing books from the 60 most memorable, which did wonders helping my opening and middle game theory, bug I don't think it helped at all with understanding positions I had never seen before.
Also I had trouble solving the checkmate in one CAPTCHA, so asking questions is helping me in more ways than one.
Follow up question, I have no idea what you meant on the advice you gave at move 12, Ng4? Neither knight is near that square, can you clarify what you mean?
Also I had trouble solving the checkmate in one CAPTCHA, so asking questions is helping me in more ways than one.
Follow up question, I have no idea what you meant on the advice you gave at move 12, Ng4? Neither knight is near that square, can you clarify what you mean?
LastMedjay, I think what I need to do is do a ton of checkmate in one puzzles so I can start to naturally see moves like that in a position. After I am able to see the mates in 1 without trying, then I will be able to start incorporating that into how I develop strategy. I'm only suggesting checkmates in one with the idea of working up to seeing longer sequences. Of course, every time I post a comment, I have to solve a checkmate in one capcha, so I shouldn't have to take time to do it.
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