I am not sure to what extent it is a good idea to trust the advice of strong players. The problem is that many players improve without having a good sense of why they improved. The result is that you get all sorts of terrible advice about improvement.
For example, it is a common phenomenon that a player will spend time on x, get nowhere, spend time on y, get nowhere, and then spend time on z with great results. The player, being human, will mistakenly believe that only z can have possibly benefited him. In fact, the effects of x and y, lying dormant and waiting to be activated by additional knowledge, may also be important. A simple example is Michael de la Maza. He spent time on traditional things like positional play, endgames etc. and got nowhere. Then he studied tactics and made progress. What he failed to consider was the possibility that a player who skipped the other stuff and went straight to tactics might not get the same results.
So I am less interested in hearing what strong players believe helped them and more interested in finding out exactly what they did, setting aside any of their own judgement as to which parts were important. I see many players make progress without studying endgames at all. Everyone likes to give the advice to study endgames because it sounds good, but I don't see much evidence that learning endgames is very important below a certain level.
Of course, to be clear, studying endgames must have some marginal benefit. If you are deciding whether to study endgames or watch TV you will obviously gain more chess strength from the former activity. Furthermore, my own observations of chess players have lead me to believe that the really important distinction that affects chess strength is not between more and less efficient paths to improvement, but between more and less time and energy invested. Good players love the game and are always finding reasons to study and play. Weak players are armed with endless reasons not to study or play* ("not enough time," "no good local tournaments," "not in good form," "opening theory unimportant," "those endgames won't ever come up in practice anyway," "Capablanca didn't play my opening repertoire so his games won't help me" etc.). Pretty soon they are just reading blogs and not studying anything of much substance. Strong players play a lot and study tons of things, often quite haphazardly and inefficiently, but with a lot of passion, drive, and curiosity. So try to find something you are excited about and start working. Don't worry about endgames unless you enjoy them (okay, maybe KQ vs. K is essential, but I assume anyone here knows that one).
*There is more to life than chess, of course, and some of these excuses may just be healthy attitudes about the relative importance of chess.
|