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| Posted by tonguetide play-chess-online.com 8/01/2008 19:43:13 play online chess |  Subject: How to improveMessage: I'm 54 years old, and this is just a hobby for me. I have no plans to play in OTB tournaments or anything like that. I love the web-based correspondence format, and it has given me new enthusiasm for the game. Like everybody else, I'd like to try to get better. I know there are hundreds of books about chess, written by masters, telling patzers like myself how to improve. But what I'd really like is to hear from someone who has started out at something like my level, decided to improve, and did so! That is, I'd like to hear from people who are now, say, playing at 1700 or higher, but who can remember playing at the 1500 level not so long ago. I'd like to know what things you see and do now, that you didn't see and do before. And what did you do to bring about the improvement? Let me give an example from my own vantage point. I am familiar with the common tactics, the fork, the discovered attack, the pin, the skewer, and so on. I use them when I can. I try to see them coming. I can remember back when I was only vaguely aware of these things, and they seemed like magic when used against me. So I guess I'm wondering what principles I'm probably oblivious to *now* that might help me to make it to the next level. I recently found this interesting web page, home.comcast.net, which is a bit overwhelming. But maybe some of the better players here can identify the ideas that have been most helpful to them. I only recently heard of the "worst piece principle," for example. Even though it's somewhat obvious, it had never really occurred to me before as something to think about in quiet positions. I've been trying to do so, but it's too soon to say whether it is helping my play. I'm very interested to hear how the better players got better. |
| Posted by cascadejames play-chess-online.com 8/01/2008 20:37:51 play online chess | tactics Message: time. I don't quite meet your rating requirement of 1700; but I got close, 1680, until recently when I started playing mostly against players at 1700+ and started losing pretty often. But FWIW, my advice is -- study tactics, tactics, tactics. OK, you already know the basics, but recognizing a pin, skewer, fork, etc. is not the same as really understanding their use and how to create them. I suggest paging through the book, "Winning Chess Tactics" by Seirawan and Silman. If it looks too basic, and it may; then move directly on to the book "Understanding Chess Tactics" by Martin Weteschnik. The first was a good review and base for me. The second was an eye opener that moved me from the low 1500s to the mid-1600s |
| Posted by cascadejames play-chess-online.com 8/01/2008 20:39:29 play online chess | Also Dan Heisman Message: |
| Posted by cascadejames play-chess-online.com 8/01/2008 21:04:18 play online chess | link Message: |
| Posted by lighttotheright play-chess-online.com 8/01/2008 23:32:53 play online chess | Message: Just take it one step at a time and at your own leisure. Learning principles and learning from your mistakes is the best thing you can do. Analyse every game and find mistakes that you can avoid, including those made by your opponent. Get someone higher rated to help you with positions that you do not understand. Asking someones opinion is a form of flattery. Just don't abuse the privilege. |
| Posted by gamlet play-chess-online.com 8/02/2008 07:29:13 play online chess | try studying endgame Message: |
| Posted by cascadejames play-chess-online.com 8/02/2008 08:16:25 play online chess | About endgame study Message: game. My personal experience is that I don't have to wait that long. :-) I lose against them in the middle game. Your mileage may vary! |
| Posted by spurtus play-chess-online.com 8/02/2008 14:08:40 play online chess | Message: 1700 is largely defined by the level above 1800, where players rarely drop pieces play consistently well and miss very few primary tactical tricks and 'cheapos'. The game is often moreso attritional & strategically positional, don't expect any game to be easy, every game will require good speculative judgement calls. Experience is something too which will in time help guide you, one important tip is when you eventually find your ceiling this is the time to try new things out. hope that helps. |
| Posted by bhidragon play-chess-online.com 8/02/2008 14:45:26 play online chess | Play one at a time ... Message: It may not work for you, but play a couple of singles (and seriously study the positions before you move) and see what happens. |
| Posted by apastpawn play-chess-online.com 8/02/2008 15:46:08 play online chess | Web help Message: I would like to give you a few links to some of my favorites that will help you improve I hope. The first is an opening site that has thousands of openings and there main lines. If you surf around the site a bit you'll find help info also. You can use this site to learn new openings or to find best responces to unformilar openings. id=www.eudesign.com The second is a site for tactics training. I strongly believe that tactics are what seperate the ratings. In other words the more tactics you know the higher your rating will be. If you practice these often you should improve. The site has a timer for each problem to solve. I recommend that you just sign in as guest and not worry about the timer or the score it gives you. What is important is to get the problem right or to understand it if you don't. id=chess.emrald.net May these two sites help you or anyone else who reads this. Wayne |
| Posted by tonguetide play-chess-online.com 8/03/2008 15:42:57 play online chess | Good stuff Message: I'm on vacation in LA (having a beer at a Pink Taco at the moment). Although I can can in principle play my games on my Blackberry (i.e. It works), I've learned that trying to analyze positions on the tiny screen is a short route to blindness...and even worse play. But no problem reading the forums! After looking at all the replies, and some of the sources recommended, I'm beginning to understand that I need to pay more attention to positional things. I think that in a lot of games I find myself putting out fires that probably could have been avoided. But probably the biggest fault is this: infatuation with my own attacks. That is, I spend a lot more time trying to understand my attacks than my opponent's. So I fail to see threats until they are immediate and hard to deflect without damage. |
| Posted by doctor_knight play-chess-online.com 8/04/2008 21:53:00 play online chess | one little thing Message: (by the way, this advice is actually from C.J.S. Purdy, the first World Champion of Correspondence Chess. He's got a lot of really good advice that I'm just now starting to follow) |
| Posted by gamlet play-chess-online.com 8/06/2008 02:41:15 play online chess | About Endgame study Message: |
| Posted by cutawhant play-chess-online.com 9/27/2008 07:56:31 play online chess | Polgar Message: |
| Posted by steverand67 play-chess-online.com 9/27/2008 08:38:01 play online chess | My take... Message: Hope this helps... |
| Posted by ionadowman play-chess-online.com 9/29/2008 00:15:35 play online chess | There's a lot of good advice here... Message: It's my firm belief that a good feel for the endgame will actually help your feel for the rest of your game, not only positionally, but tactically as well. Quite a few noted tacticians like Em. Lasker, Frank Marshall, and Savielly Tartakover were very strong endgame players. So is/was Harry Kasparov. Endgame studies often have a tactical component that, in a relatively empty board, crystallises out into something quite beautiful to see. Consider this: w White to play and draw. The thing looks pretty unlikely: WR 'en prise', the d-pawn about to promote. Even a check doesn't seem to get the rook into a position to snaffle the pawn: 1.Re5+ Kf6 Has White's position improved in the slightest? 2.Kxd2 Kxe4 Now White is a whole rook down, and the BN is protected. Surely White can't hold! 3.Kd3 - Big deal, Black can protect the pinned knight by ...Rh4 or ...Rd7. Try 3...Rh4 4.Kc4! - Um... Black can do no more (bearing in mind that the R vs B endgame is a "book" draw - something one might have to practise a little, though it's not difficult for the B to draw), Black can do no more than shuffle his rook along the 4th rank, and the bishop does the same along the long diagonal. A whole rook up in a 5-man endgame, and Black can't win! Could he have improved earlier - at move 2, say? 1.Re5+ Kf6 2.Kxd2 Nf6+ - Oo - a fork. Gotta be good. 3.Ke3 Nxe5 4.Ke4 ... Not again! Same scheme, different place! Try defending the knight from the file, then, instead of a rank: 4...Rd7 5.Kf4! ... Same thing: the BK and BN are locked in place; the rook may not leave the file. White's bishop moves back and forth on the long diagonal unless and until he can take the knight for nothing. Just 5 pieces illustrates the power that a pin can develop. Cheers, Ion |
| Posted by heinzkat play-chess-online.com 9/29/2008 04:40:18 play online chess | Nice example... Message: w White to play and draw. The thing looks pretty unlikely: WR 'en prise', the d-pawn about to promote. Even a check doesn't seem to get the rook into a position to snaffle the pawn: 1.Re5+ Kf6 Has White's position improved in the slightest? 2.Kxd2 Kxe5 Now White is a whole rook down, and the BN is protected. Surely White can't hold! 3.Kd3 - Big deal, Black can protect the pinned knight by ...Rh4 or ...Rd7. Try 3...Rh4 4.Kc4! - Um... Black can do no more (bearing in mind that the R vs B endgame is a "book" draw - something one might have to practise a little, though it's not difficult for the B to draw), Black can do no more than shuffle his rook along the 4th rank, and the bishop does the same along the long diagonal. A whole rook up in a 5-man endgame, and Black can't win! Could he have improved earlier - at move 2, say? 1.Re5+ Kf6 2.Kxd2 Nf3+ - Oo - a fork. Gotta be good. 3.Ke3 Nxe5 4.Ke4 ... Not again! Same scheme, different place! Try defending the knight from the file, then, instead of a rank: 4...Re7 5.Kf4! ... Same thing: the BK and BN are locked in place; the rook may not leave the file. White's bishop moves back and forth on the long diagonal unless and until he can take the knight for nothing. Just 5 pieces illustrates the power that a pin can develop. Cheers, Heinzkat |
| Posted by blake78613 play-chess-online.com 11/08/2008 10:01:05 play online chess | Message: |
| Posted by wschmidt play-chess-online.com 11/12/2008 14:27:06 play online chess | tonguetied, Message: I pretty much meet that criteria, having inched my way up over a period of a few years from the 1400's to the 1700's. So, I'll take a stab at answering the questions. First, as to what I see now that I didn't see before, I think it boils down to four things: 1. I see more tactical possibilities than I used to. 2. I see the potential for favorable endgame transitions that I didn't see before. 3. I see opportunities to make threats that, while not turning out to be tactical wins, force responses that work to my advantage positionally. (As a corallary to this, I'm more successful in my responses to tactical threats so I don't end up being positionaly disadvantages. 4. I understand my openings better than I did before. Please understand, I don't consider myself really good in any of these areas, but I have improved in each of them in the last 3 years and if I, a 58 year old with only modest chess talent, can do it, I think most people can as well. (By the way, this improvement also extended to my OTB play which has gone up by a couple of hundred points since returning to the board two years ago.) So the second part of the question was, how? When I decided to come back to chess about 4 years ago, I decided that I needed to start all over with the basics. Like many players, I had a smattering of chess knowledge, but I really felt there was a lot of basic knowledge I simply didn't have. Maybe I had been exposed to it, but didn't really "know" it. For me that meant methodically working through Chernev's "Winning Chess" tactical drills several times along with other chess tactics books (before, like you, I was "familiar" with the patterns but there is a world of difference between that and doing drills repeatedly - think of it as the difference between one who has spent a few hours on the basketball court dribbling and doing a few layups and one who has spent hours practicing.) Similarly, I methodically gone over the positions in "Pandolfini's Endgame Course" three or four times in the last few years. I'm not convinced it's the best endgame book available, but it moved me from A to B and has pointed the way to C. I also read through some well annotated games aimed at players on my level: "Best Lessons of a Chess Coach" by Weeramantry. Two famous books by Chernev - "Logical Chess" and "The Most Instructive Chess Games" . "Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking" by McDonald. These have all been excellent for that murky middle game positional thinking that seems so challenging at my level. I'm also a big believer in the value of the Dan Heisman columns called "Novice Nook" at Chesscafe.com. I've read all of them a couple of times and for quite awhile was heading up a discussion group to talk about them in this forum. I've improved my opening play by selecting a narrow repertoire and sticking to it, figuring out where I go wrong in the opening or if I could have responded better when my opponent leaves book. Related to that, I've tried to do a better job of analyzing my own games overall. (It's really so much easier just to do a drill or read through someone else's annotated game.) For a while I was doing well at annotating my game and then running it through Fritz, sometimes I just have Fritz do the work. Sometimes I just don't have the time or energy. My New Year resolution for chess is to do my own analysis of every game I complete in 2009 (GK and OTB) and then have Fritz do the same. If I've got something really interesting, I may even ask Craig or Ion to add their thoughts, something I'm always hesitant to do. So there you have it, one patzer to another. I'm living proof that, even with limited chess skill, improvement can occur over time. There are setbacks (I've just lost 5 in a row OTB) and at times I ask myself why am I putting myself through this drudgery? On the other hand, the slowly increasing sense of mastery is a real pleasure when you see a path to a winning endgame or a threat that leads to a positional advantage. And, for the most part, I actually enjoy the studying (except for rook vs. rook and pawn endgames, which are the product of the devil.) Have fun. ws |
| Posted by ccmcacollister play-chess-online.com 11/12/2008 17:28:19 play online chess | Something very useful .... Message: It seems to me that would be quite a good read for you tonguetide , since it would be many things like the "worst piece" advice you mentioned. Let me just toss out another here and see if you know it? (I actually never thought about this one myself until after being a CCM~! But read it from Pandofini or Silman. I was following it, but not knowing I was :) "Attack in the direction your pawns point". EG if you had your WT pawns on c3,d4,e5 they would be "pointing" at the Kingside of black and so that would be the "natural" wing upon which to initiate an attack, generally. (There are exceptions, expecially in the french. But generally) One major reason this will be the natural attacking field is that you would most likely have SPACE ADVANTAGE there, which probably also translates into greater freedom of movement there for your pieces ... whereas BL would have less space there and so find it harder to respond to your attack or probing. }8-) |
| Posted by ccmcacollister play-chess-online.com 11/12/2008 18:05:38 play online chess | oops ... Message: I believe that undertaking to learn and understand the material there would be a very good project for your Chess. Other than that, it seems to me that when one is at a rating plateau, the way to improve would be to try to better certain portions of your game modestly. It is most often said to try bettering your Strengths, rather than attempt to eliminate all your weaknesses. But no reason not to improve your strongest area(s) and work to reduce several weak ones at the same time. Do you Know what you are Strongest at, and least Strong at? If not, then that would be a good place to start by taking inventory of your game as it exists now. A baseline to work from. Do you understand each of These Skills? If not, learning them may bring dramatic increase to your game: 1) How to use forced line opening, and what that requires. THE primary attacking skill, IMO. 2) How to play the most common endings well? K+P, R+P are by far the most common. Also chose another ending to have expertise in. Mine was Knight & Pawns. Fischer's most notable was Bishop vs Knight endings. 3)"TENSION"~! Do you REALLY understand it ... Do you know what it is; how to create it; why it is useful To create it; and how to use it to gains Wins or Advantage? If you do not understand the use of TENSION in the Opening & Middle GAme .... JUMP on this skill Now to learn FIRST THING. And it will serve you VERY well, especially because most players at your rating (and often ones Much higher) will NOT understand it. I should have put this as #1 ! Once someone learns Tension handling, it is then good to review their handling of the Center for improvement there, viewed in the light of this new knowlege. 4) Can you defend against a Pawn storming attack, or "Roller" as it is often called? Most often 1500's players cannot do this well, and may find the prospect intimidating. So you would be ahead by learning how from review of related games & annotations. Also the flipside ... You should know how to Attack in such a manner. 5) If you do not know "Stock Attacks", for EG's sac's of Bxh7+, or opening a Rook file to the opposing King, or attacking vs a fianchetto, attacks vs f7 or f2, f-file attack, etc., then that is a very good matter to study. It not only saves thinking time, since once you know such attacks you need only look for Exceptions to the position that might interfere with yours ... but also makes you much more aware of the attacking potentials that exist at a given moment. ****** Hope some of these thoughts might be helpful. I worked up from being 777 at age 12 to finally make OTB Expert about 15 years later, and CCM about that time too. And Not a natural Chess player at all. Like Walt suggests ... if not a Natural Player then we have to do a bit more work. But the rewards are commensurate (Except for CASH, that is~!! haha For CASH rewards you must Golf or play Poker ... }8-) |
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