I'm lower rated, but I do have one comment. You site blitz and bullet ratings online, and state that you don't play in many tournaments. I'd say that playing SLOW games regularly is one of the keys to improvement.

It's a little about learning laws. If you write down everything you thought after a fixed time (aka the tree) and compare it to the solution or analysis in the book you get a better feedback and memory.

So it's a good but awful training method.

Today there are programs with good gui's. So you will learn faster with Aquarium or Fritz.

chezzter wrote on 04/25/10 at 05:19:43:


A local library that has good, recent chess books? I wish I had that... Btw. there's work for a lot more than 2 months in the books I've mentioned; more like 2 years.

chezzter wrote on 04/25/10 at 05:19:43:

Maybe it's better to just set a time limit for the whole session, since then you know when you'll be finished and can maintain maximal focus during that time. 

Another issue is setting a time limit for each problem. When you're working on easy to moderately diffcult tactics you just want to learn or repeat the patterns, and then it doesn't make sense if you get stuck to use more than 5 minutes before looking up the solution and trying to understand it. Learning is more important than self-testing.

With hard tactical problems you are really training calculation, not just pattern recognition. For calculation (and strategy) excercises some people recommend a 20 minutes limit (Khelmnitsky in Chess Exam and Rowson in Chess for Zebras), while another method is to find the best solution you possibly can and write down all lines and evaluations, regardless of how long it takes; the so-called "Stoyko exercise". Personally I prefer to use a time limit (even if a long one) since it forces me to think more clearly and efficiently, and resembles a game situation. 

There's no standard answer to where to set the limit (in terms of difficulty) between pattern training and calculation training. Both should be part of a good training program. For example in the tactics program CT-Art which I use a lot, I (at ~2200 FIDE) think of levels 10-40 as pattern training and levels 50-90 as calculation training, while for a world-class player probably the entire program would be well-known patterns! But it's very easy in practice to think of a mistake as a calculation error or simply a blunder, when in fact maybe you just didn't know that particular pattern well enough.

chezzter wrote on 04/24/10 at 19:20:16:


That's not a bad choice of books you've read. There are of course many ways to get to Carnegie Hall here (though "practice, practice!" has to be part of it!).

I still think books by Aagaard and Dvoretsky (I see you've already started on him) are a logical next step.

On endgames I'm a fan of Soltis' books GM Secrets: Endings and Turning Advantage Into Victory in Chess. Speelman's Endgame Preparation is also a nice overview. But be aware that I really lack talent for endgames, so you might find those books too easy! 

More standard recommendations above 2000 would be Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, LB Hansen: Secrets of Chess Endgame Strategy, Shereshevsky: Endgame Strategy, and Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics (again many more could be mentioned).

On calculation Dvoretsky has a couple of books (Tactical Play and Secrets of Creative Thinking), but they are very difficult. More accessible are Aagaard: Excelling at Chess Calculation and Tisdall: Improve Your Chess Now. I also like Kotov's original Think Like a Grandmaster; many say his method just doesn't work (because noone actually thinks that systematically), but I still find it useful as a theoretical ideal to keep in mind.

Another topic not covered by my list was defence. There are popular books on that by Marin, Polugaevsky, Soltis and Aagaard, but I can't recommend one as I haven't read any of them (I should have...).

I'll see if i can dig up some old threads to link to later.

chezzter wrote on 04/24/10 at 19:20:16:


"Chess exam" by Igor Khmelnitsky is a wonderful book that help you find your strengths and weaknesses and how you should improve. 

For tactics, I really liked "Forcing chess moves" by Hertan. The Chesstempo site is a very nice online training resource: http://chesstempo.com/

kylemeister wrote on 04/24/10 at 17:41:30:


...not to mention, what are your strengths and weaknesses, and which books have you already studied?

There are countless threads with this kind of question already, but if you want generic suggestions for about 2000-2100 FIDE I will mention:

Strategy/Middlegame:
Dvoretsky/Yusupov: Secrets of Chess Training (Olms)
Kotov: Play like a Grandmaster
Aagaard: Attacking Manual 1+2
Dvoretsky/Yusupov: (Secrets of) Positional Play

(I assumed that you've already read a good positional primer like Silman: Reassess Your Chess, or Euwe's Middlegame series, or Davies' Power Chess Program, or Pachman, Carsten Hansen, Marovic etc. (any one of these is really enough) and probably also Nimzowitsch' My System and Vukovic: Art of Attack in Chess or something equivalent)

Tactics:
Killer Moves (Chessbase)
CT-Art 3.0 or 4.0 (Convekta)
Hertan: Forcing Chess Moves
Aagaard: Excelling at Combinational Play

(two computer products, because I believe this is clearly the most efficient way to develop strong tactical pattern recognition nowadays. Repetition is key here, though the infamous "7 circles" are an overkill)

I didn't include any endgame or calculation books since you didn't mention those areas.

It's rather odd, the degree to which such questions are posed and answered "in a vacuum" on this forum.  For example, two books I'd be inclined to recommend are Ivan Sokolov's "Winning Chess Middlegames" and Vlastimil Jansa's "Dynamics of Chess Strategy," but what kind of openings you play might have a strong bearing on how interesting they would be for you.

Tell us something about Your REAL rating because internet rating is irrelevant.