Dan Smith: Afraid of free money?

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  • #46
    Out of curiosity, what odds would all of you give me to reach 2200 in the next 10 years ? 41 years old. On chess.com, rapid = 998, slow = 1466, from rather infrequent play.

    Not trolling, and no disrespect to much-stronger players like Aris.

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    • #47
      Originally posted by Amit R View Post
      Out of curiosity, what odds would all of you give me to reach 2200 in the next 10 years ? 41 years old. On chess.com, rapid = 998, slow = 1466, from rather infrequent play.
      In general - low. Then go all kind of ifs.

      Just for the start of this journey, start a new thread :)

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      • #48
        Several years ago a prodigy - Jeff Sarwer - surfaced back. He was a poker player too. In several interviews he mentioned about a GM title - several years for him with a serious intention. His FIDE page shows that he was indeed active and peaked ~2350, though dropped later to 2200, again started to climb 2260, and then stopped playing three years ago.

        In principle, chess requires a lot of dedication and concentration. A talent will give you a start at a higher height or acceleration.

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        • #49
          Thank you for your kind replies, Egidijus ; it really does set reasonable expectations on what this would be like.

          I'll start a new thread.

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          • #50
            Hey Aris, I believe you can do it. Why not???

            I could recommend a ton of bits of books ... such as how Rashid Nezhmetdinov deals with the d4 square when meeting the French highlighted in the book Super Nezh: Rashid Nezhmetdinov, Chess Assassin. But the book I learnt a ton from was Elements of Positional Chess by Dan Heisman. I have a well worn 1990 edition but checking online it now seems that the book is well into its 4th edition!

            And if I could be a little bolder ... I recommend playing as much blitz as you possibly can online and look for pattern recognition ... especially pawn structure. See why and how they fail ... I think there's a few books on that too.

            As for a playing/study partner ... David Gordon.

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            • #51
              There is not one single way to chess improvement. A balanced approach is probably the best way.

              Play and analyze your games.
              Study the games of strong players especially those with annotations by strong players
              Endings
              Tactics
              Openings for a long time I would not have included this but now that I have been using chessable, I see that there is some benefit to training this as well. Tools like chess opening wizard, chessable, chess position trainer and chessbase along with some databases of high level annotated games can really help patch over any gaps and leaks in your understanding.

              Blitz is good for learning openings. Practice games are good for learning openings. Study an opening, look at some games, play some blitz games, look at your games and figure out where you went wrong. Make adjustments.

              You do have to analyze every one of your games and understand why you lost that particular game. In understanding the why, you need to know the tactical, strategic, psychological errors that led to your result. Often you play well and lose and play poorly and win so you need to deeply understand what happened in each game. In the end, it is a search for truth and understanding. In the last few years I have played a game each week with a youngster who was an A class player when we started. We would often practice a particular opening to help him to prepare for various tournaments. There are some openings that we have played over 100 times over the years. In one of my last tournaments I played a nominally higher rated player who played that same opening. We were both looking at the same position. She thought she was better in the position. The position was actually difficult for her. Not realizing the danger and without the experience of playing and analyzing the positions that arose hundreds of times she floundered and ultimately lost. In the analysis, she admitted that she had misevaluated the situation and only truly understood that she was slightly worse and not much better as she had mistakenly believed.

              As a chess coach you can tailor your lessons to teach the kids what you want to learn yourself. Obviously you have to learn it before you can teach it.

              You are competing with yourself of yesterday. If each day you can improve a little these improvements add up.

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              • #52
                Originally posted by Vlad Drkulec View Post
                There is not one single way to chess improvement. A balanced approach is probably the best way.

                Play and analyze your games.
                Study the games of strong players especially those with annotations by strong players
                Endings
                Tactics
                Openings for a long time I would not have included this but now that I have been using chessable, I see that there is some benefit to training this as well. Tools like chess opening wizard, chessable, chess position trainer and chessbase along with some databases of high level annotated games can really help patch over any gaps and leaks in your understanding.

                Blitz is good for learning openings. Practice games are good for learning openings. Study an opening, look at some games, play some blitz games, look at your games and figure out where you went wrong. Make adjustments.

                You do have to analyze every one of your games and understand why you lost that particular game. In understanding the why, you need to know the tactical, strategic, psychological errors that led to your result. Often you play well and lose and play poorly and win so you need to deeply understand what happened in each game. In the end, it is a search for truth and understanding. In the last few years I have played a game each week with a youngster who was an A class player when we started. We would often practice a particular opening to help him to prepare for various tournaments. There are some openings that we have played over 100 times over the years. In one of my last tournaments I played a nominally higher rated player who played that same opening. We were both looking at the same position. She thought she was better in the position. The position was actually difficult for her. Not realizing the danger and without the experience of playing and analyzing the positions that arose hundreds of times she floundered and ultimately lost. In the analysis, she admitted that she had misevaluated the situation and only truly understood that she was slightly worse and not much better as she had mistakenly believed.

                As a chess coach you can tailor your lessons to teach the kids what you want to learn yourself. Obviously you have to learn it before you can teach it.

                You are competing with yourself of yesterday. If each day you can improve a little these improvements add up.
                Thank you Vlad, a lot of good ideas that I'm already trying. I must admit though that I don't "feel good" w/blitz?!

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by Aris Marghetis View Post

                  Thank you Vlad, a lot of good ideas that I'm already trying. I must admit though that I don't "feel good" w/blitz?!
                  Use blitz to practice openings and get used to making the opening moves and the positions that you get out of your openings. You can play six games in an hour. Get all the losing out of your system in those blitz games. Blitz is good when you have limited time. Longer games are preferable but it doesn't mean you can't include blitz in your practice. Also these days faster time controls are used in playoff games so it is good to get used to playing quickly when it is required. Blitz cannot be the only games you are playing.

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                  • #54
                    Originally posted by Aris Marghetis View Post

                    Thanks Tony. I don't really get why you get that impression (I'm already inspired and devoting work), I just put a great value on learning from people who have actually achieved something.

                    Thanks for the recommendations: I absolutely loved #1, and I really agree that #3 can help improvement. However, I've never actually checked out #2, so thanks for adding that to my list.

                    I understand you are looking for a precedent - but you do have favourable conditions. Your physical energy, unprecedented access to health care, and your profession should give you an advantage over most in their 50s.

                    I am currently working through the orange Yusupov books and find it encouraging. Their market audience is way too low - I am finding there are a ton of basic things I don't know that would allow me to go on "autopilot". Saving some energy for the endgame wouldn't be a bad thing for us adults.

                    Did you want to become endgame sparring buddies?



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