How to Improve?

[Oscar Garcia]

Hi, do you have any advice for a player that's around the 1600 CFC rating range?

[Fred Harvey]

Hi, do you have any advice for a player that's around the 1600 CFC rating range?

Find another hobby!

[Hans Jung]

https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...3-2200-assault Maybe follow this thread.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Hi, do you have any advice for a player that's around the 1600 CFC rating range?

At the 1600 level, you are already a reasonable player. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

Your goal is simply to be better today than you were yesterday and better tomorrow than you were today.

You should play as much as you can, preferably at longer time controls. You should analyze every game that you play and see where you could have improved your performance and also where exactly you went wrong - the point of no return. If you can afford a coach they might help you with this. If you can't use an engine to understand your play. Often there are many inflection points in a game and you need to be able to determine when you lost the game. If you can push back that point later into the game, your play will improve because sometimes your opponent will make the mistake before you would have.

Study annotated grandmaster games, especially classical games from before computers were king. The idea is you want annotations that tell you the thinking and ideas without going too deeply into variations. You probably won't remember the variations. You will remember ideas.

On openings, you need to learn enough to get out of the opening with a playable position.

I usually give new students the following as their main opening training:

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ten-rules-opening

Later you can go into more depth but if you follow those rules you will be fine nine times out of ten. I had one student who was faced with the Albin Counter Gambit for the first time and followed this advice and played 16 moves of theory without any other opening knowledge about this opening. She went on to win the game.

One of the best strategies for tactics is to become familiar with checkmate patterns. I love the appendices from Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now. They have a series of mating patterns which are only missing the Greek Gift Sacrifice and the double bishop sacrifice.

A program like CT-Art can help you practice tactics but there are other options like books and websites.

You should definitely study endgames. A book like Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual is a must and you should spend some time working through it. One of the early books that I read was Paul Keres, "Practical Chess Endgames" and it really helped improve my results. It is somewhat less intimidating than the Dvoretsky book. A more recent book that I like is De Silva's 100 Endgames You Must Know.

You should also study pawn structures like the isolated pawn and open pawn centre and closed pawn centre in the context of games.

Hertan's Hierarchy which was published in Chess Instructor 2009 published by New in Chess is also a pretty good framework for analyzing a position.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/gen...rtan-hierarchy

Good luck! I will write more later but I have an interview with the Globe and Mail coming up in a few minutes.

[Frank Dixon]

I will explain what I did. I was rated 1436, at age 19, in university, having played a lot (probably 200 games) of G/30 tournament chess in high school leagues and high school club play, but not very much at longer time controls. At that stage, I didn't have the requisite 25 games at the longer time controls for a fully established CFC rating. I had grown up in a rural area, with very little tournament chess close by. And, because of my university studies, I didn't have a lot of time to study chess, and didn't know what to study. I had studied bits and pieces; no organized program. I met an older gentleman, a veteran player who was pretty strong, a great fellow as well, who liked my style and potential, and he offered to coach me, for no charge!! How good is that!! He was rated 1900+, in his late 60s. We had about a dozen two-hour training sessions together, working mainly on openings, typical middle-game positions, and tactics; very little on endings; he told me to study those myself. We also worked on my game style; that is, he had to get me to slow down in longer time control situations; my pace was geared to the G/30 style in which I had played so many games; when to use thinking time, and how much to use, in different situations; he told me to record my elapsed times. Then we played a ten-game training match, unrated, at tournament time controls, with me taking Black in every game, using all of that preparation, with analysis after each game. He told me what he was going to play, in the openings, in advance, so I could prepare. All this took place over about a year's time. The next time I played in CFC-rated events, my rating went to 1785, from my next 20 tournament games! My friend and coach also answered my questions on which books to study, and I was able to buy many of those. He saved me at least five years, I believe. It was also very enjoyable!!

Next, I want to compliment and thank CFC President Vlad Drkulec for his great response to your question! Vlad has held a Master's rating, with a lot of knowledge on what it takes.

When I had the chance to coach a 9-year-old talented player named Raja Panjwani, in 2000, along with his father, Dr. Dilip Panjwani, I used essentially the same method as the coach described above had used with me. Certainly, I am not a professional coach, by any means. My rating then was 2090. Dilip, also a good player, and very keen to improve, would sit in on the lessons if he could spare the time from his career; he was usually there. Raja and I would play a game, at G/45. in each session, with analysis to follow. We studied openings, middle games, and tactics; very little on endings. We worked on tournament style -- clock management, recording thinking times, blunder avoidance through talking about thought patterns at critical times of a game. I used GM Soltis' book "The Inner Game of Chess" extensively with Raja and Dilip. Dilip and I discussed how we would proceed with our plans, in the general sense, and I would often play training games with Raja in pre-designated openings, to allow for preparation. I never did anything without Dilip's approval, following discussion. Raja went from 1210 to nearly 2000 in our first year, and is now almost a GM (he has scored his three GM norms, and now just needs to get his FIDE rating to 2500). Dilip raised his rating about 300 points, to the mid 1800s, in the three years we worked together. The Panjwani's played a very busy tournament program, with a lot of travel, even international. Raja drew an IM, Michael Mulyar, in the Canadian Open in 2001, when he was 11 years, three months old.

Good luck and good skill! Have fun with it!

[Aris Marghetis]

At the 1600 level, you are already a reasonable player. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

Your goal is simply to be better today than you were yesterday and better tomorrow than you were today.

You should play as much as you can, preferably at longer time controls. You should analyze every game that you play and see where you could have improved your performance and also where exactly you went wrong - the point of no return. If you can afford a coach they might help you with this. If you can't use an engine to understand your play. Often there are many inflection points in a game and you need to be able to determine when you lost the game. If you can push back that point later into the game, your play will improve because sometimes your opponent will make the mistake before you would have.

Study annotated grandmaster games, especially classical games from before computers were king. The idea is you want annotations that tell you the thinking and ideas without going too deeply into variations. You probably won't remember the variations. You will remember ideas.

On openings, you need to learn enough to get out of the opening with a playable position.

I usually give new students the following as their main opening training:

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ten-rules-opening

Later you can go into more depth but if you follow those rules you will be fine nine times out of ten. I had one student who was faced with the Albin Counter Gambit for the first time and followed this advice and played 16 moves of theory without any other opening knowledge about this opening. She went on to win the game.

One of the best strategies for tactics is to become familiar with checkmate patterns. I love the appendices from Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now. They have a series of mating patterns which are only missing the Greek Gift Sacrifice and the double bishop sacrifice.

A program like CT-Art can help you practice tactics but there are other options like books and websites.

You should definitely study endgames. A book like Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual is a must and you should spend some time working through it. One of the early books that I read was Paul Keres, "Practical Chess Endgames" and it really helped improve my results. It is somewhat less intimidating than the Dvoretsky book. A more recent book that I like is De Silva's 100 Endgames You Must Know.

You should also study pawn structures like the isolated pawn and open pawn centre and closed pawn centre in the context of games.

Hertan's Hierarchy which was published in Chess Instructor 2009 published by New in Chess is also a pretty good framework for analyzing a position.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/gen...rtan-hierarchy

Good luck! I will write more later but I have an interview with the Globe and Mail coming up in a few minutes.

Oscar, I think Vlad's post is very valuable, and he has indeed trained many players to impressive levels. If I may add, one of the greatest challenges will be to figure out what about the way you think might be holding you back. I know that may sound like a weird question, but my impression is that mediocre chess players have "leaks" in their game (poker term), but that they're not even aware of. So therein lies the power of honestly evaluating your own games. I find engines almost useless for that, as they can't explain to me what I'm missing, in human terms I can learn from.

But if you find a genuinely good teacher, they'll recognize your less-than-optimal tendencies, and you can work to improve/eliminate them. I also like Vlad's reference to Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now. For some reason, that book really resonated with me, but I don't know if it would with everyone. I also agree with Vlad that some books can be overwhelming for some. All of which leads me to believe that for most of us, certain books would be better than others. The challenge is to figure out which ones lol. For example, I think that I respond better to authors like Tisdall, Rowson, and Silman (his How to Reassess Your Chess, 3rd edition, was the only book I read decades ago to jump from 1400 to just over 2000). Something about his style was perfect for me.

If I may, a final caveat is to find a teacher who is open to how you really are as a player, and adapts to you. In my opinion, this generally requires someone already much better than yourself. In other words, if I may be blunt, a 1600 like you shouldn't hire an 1800 like me. Yes I'm better than you, but there are reasons I'm only 1800, and you'd accidentally learn some of my "leaks" lol.

Best, Aris.

[Peter McKillop]

At the 1600 level, you are already a reasonable player. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

Your goal is simply to be better today than you were yesterday and better tomorrow than you were today.

You should play as much as you can, preferably at longer time controls. You should analyze every game that you play and see where you could have improved your performance and also where exactly you went wrong - the point of no return. If you can afford a coach they might help you with this. If you can't use an engine to understand your play. Often there are many inflection points in a game and you need to be able to determine when you lost the game. If you can push back that point later into the game, your play will improve because sometimes your opponent will make the mistake before you would have.

Study annotated grandmaster games, especially classical games from before computers were king. The idea is you want annotations that tell you the thinking and ideas without going too deeply into variations. You probably won't remember the variations. You will remember ideas.

On openings, you need to learn enough to get out of the opening with a playable position.

I usually give new students the following as their main opening training:

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ten-rules-opening

Later you can go into more depth but if you follow those rules you will be fine nine times out of ten. I had one student who was faced with the Albin Counter Gambit for the first time and followed this advice and played 16 moves of theory without any other opening knowledge about this opening. She went on to win the game.

One of the best strategies for tactics is to become familiar with checkmate patterns. I love the appendices from Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now. They have a series of mating patterns which are only missing the Greek Gift Sacrifice and the double bishop sacrifice.

A program like CT-Art can help you practice tactics but there are other options like books and websites.

You should definitely study endgames. A book like Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual is a must and you should spend some time working through it. One of the early books that I read was Paul Keres, "Practical Chess Endgames" and it really helped improve my results. It is somewhat less intimidating than the Dvoretsky book. A more recent book that I like is De Silva's 100 Endgames You Must Know.

You should also study pawn structures like the isolated pawn and open pawn centre and closed pawn centre in the context of games.

Hertan's Hierarchy which was published in Chess Instructor 2009 published by New in Chess is also a pretty good framework for analyzing a position.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/gen...rtan-hierarchy

Good luck! I will write more later but I have an interview with the Globe and Mail coming up in a few minutes.

Taking the time to write something like the above for someone you don't know, and the large effort you've put into promoting various aspects of children's chess over the years, and your substantial volunteer work for the CFC, reminds me that somewhere inside that Trump-loving exterior there is a person with a good heart.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Taking the time to write something like the above for someone you don't know, and the large effort you've put into promoting various aspects of children's chess over the years, and your substantial volunteer work for the CFC, reminds me that somewhere inside that Trump-loving exterior there is a person with a good heart.

I have been told that but don't let everyone know. I am trying to play the curmudgeon.

I got into the CFC to bring what was happening in Windsor to everywhere else in Canada. Alas, some of it stopped happening in Windsor because of fragmentation and scattering of what was a good incubator and getting it to happen everywhere else doesn't always work as well and as quickly as we might like. In the long run we have to go there to grow chess. Acting as a guide for those on the road to chess improvement should be an important function of what we are doing.

Hal Bond and I had a Monday Zoom meeting with Ariela Alterman, the daughter of grandmaster Boris Alterman both of whom work in the Chessmatec company which is their family business and platform which is aimed at chess beginners who are children. FIDE is working with them so we are looking to do the same. It has a cool arcade game feel to it. It should be appealing to youngsters. We had lots of discussions with Juniors to Masters this week around their program and their online tournament. They are more the high end of the training spectrum.

I also had a conversation Thursday with a reporter at the Globe and Mail about online chess training during the pandemic. He asked to talk to some of my new students and three of them agreed to talk with him. I did suggest he check out chesstalk but I won't mention his name until he does show up. We talked about the Netflix show Queen's Gambit and the possible impact of that on chess in Canada. I had to confess that the only Queen's Gambit I looked at was the Avrukh repertoire and perhaps the Mesgen Amanov offerings on ImproveMyChess.com and LimitlessChess.com. I did read the book by Tevis many years ago. I had forgotten about the addiction to drugs aspect but started reading it again recently but might not get to the end as I am trying to read too much these days.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Oscar, I think Vlad's post is very valuable, and he has indeed trained many players to impressive levels. If I may add, one of the greatest challenges will be to figure out what about the way you think might be holding you back. I know that may sound like a weird question, but my impression is that mediocre chess players have "leaks" in their game (poker term), but that they're not even aware of. So therein lies the power of honestly evaluating your own games. I find engines almost useless for that, as they can't explain to me what I'm missing, in human terms I can learn from.

But if you find a genuinely good teacher, they'll recognize your less-than-optimal tendencies, and you can work to improve/eliminate them. I also like Vlad's reference to Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now. For some reason, that book really resonated with me, but I don't know if it would with everyone. I also agree with Vlad that some books can be overwhelming for some. All of which leads me to believe that for most of us, certain books would be better than others. The challenge is to figure out which ones lol. For example, I think that I respond better to authors like Tisdall, Rowson, and Silman (his How to Reassess Your Chess, 3rd edition, was the only book I read decades ago to jump from 1400 to just over 2000). Something about his style was perfect for me.

If I may, a final caveat is to find a teacher who is open to how you really are as a player, and adapts to you. In my opinion, this generally requires someone already much better than yourself. In other words, if I may be blunt, a 1600 like you shouldn't hire an 1800 like me. Yes I'm better than you, but there are reasons I'm only 1800, and you'd accidentally learn some of my "leaks" lol.

Best, Aris.

I have used the analogy of patching leaks in a boat though more recently I have been working with something modelled on Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints as outlined in his business classic, "The Goal" and several other business novels and business books. I believe I have almost everyone of his books in a hard copy and also on my Kindle app. You can think of chess improvement or business improvement as a function of a series of bottlenecks which if you can work out of the system you can improve more quickly or increase production until you run up against the next limiting bottleneck..

In a chess game you have to navigate the opening. From the opening arises a pawn structure. Then you have to navigate the middlegame where the pawn structure, tactics and strategy comes to the fore. Finally you have to play the endgame. Throughout you need to be able to be aware of tactics and strategic motifs which can spell the difference between success and failure. If you have weaknesses in any of those areas you can look at them as bottlenecks which need to be overcome. Also you need to add in the very weak link of blunders and lapses which are additional places where the chain can break.

In one of his books he talks about a critical chain which is what we have in every chess game. The Critical Chain book is about project management but it would not be out of place to apply such ideas to chess improvement. Lars Bo Hansen also used a business model framework in his book Foundations of Chess Strategy.

You could also look at your approach to the game as a chain with weak links that need to be strengthened along the way. The chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Once you work on and fix the weakest link, you find that something else in the chain becomes the new weakest link.