Why don't you just subscribe to improveyourchess.com, much simpler!

Hi Greymattermatters,
Interesting name!!  I am interested.  I don't understand how it will work??  You e-mail us with 20 positions via e-mail and we respond??? my email is thezenbuhda@aol.com.
Thanks,
Zatara

I don't share MNb's concern that this is advertising because there are no commercial interests at stake.  This appears to be a valid chess enterprise (hence, no money   ).

I am interested in a study group, but this particular one leaves me cold because I can go through books with tactics on my own.  

I don't like to count how many I do each day as I don't see it as an end in itself. Many positions could productively be studied for days on end. Rather, I would spend 20 minutes a day working on chess. (Provided I was structured enough to do even that.)

Zatox wrote on 06/09/09 at 13:09:56:


Done, I have sent you an email.

I'm pretty interested. My rating is now 1600, but I win against most 18xx players. (My trainers also say I have 1850+). I'm a youth player, ya can email me anyday, rubenkuijper@live.nl

Does it make any difference that this it not a commercial project in any way? If not then I will ask in any case just to be on the safe side.

Hi everyone,
 
I am looking to get together a group for a one year long chess endeavour where we study tactical middlegame positions as well as endgame positions together on a forum that we have created ourselves. In all it will amount to 10,000 problems, approximately 27/day. I know this sounds like a ridiculous amount but if you want to get good at any thing there is no short cut.

You might have heard of this concept before. Indeed, my role model for this project is Michael De La Maza's book "Rapid chess improvement" which you might have heard of. In it he prescribes learning 1000 tactical problems by heart by going through them altogether seven times (thus 7000 problems). From this he said to have gained 400 points in 400 days. If personally I could improve my chess by that much it would mean I would have reached above IM level.
 
The point with the group would be to make it less tedious and to be able to discuss and reflect on each position we found difficult out of the 27 we are supposed to do each day. Verbally discussing can be a fun thing and it surely helps to improve memorization of certain themes, especially when it comes to the endgame positions. Since all 10,000 positions are in chessbase format this will make it easy for  to copy the FEN and insert a diagram to the forum.
 
Again my goal is to have a group of a dozin or more people and no one rated below 1800. For anyone rated below 1800 they may find things too difficult but for 1800+ people the 27 problems aday should be a realistic task. I expect that one or two will drop out on the journey but those who make it I am sure they will have improved their game substantially.
 
If you are interested please respond with your thoughts. Also, let me say that this is supposed to be a fun and easy going thing. Life is just a play. Problems arise when people start to take themselves seriously. I definately do not want this to be a one man project on my part. The idea is that we all contribute and then we share the common joy of success afterwards. In the end it is up to each one personally to chose how much time they want to devote to this. Personally I am not looking to devote more than 2 hours including solving+posting. From it I hope to at least have improved 200 rating points. That is my personal goal and I think it is realistic... what is your goal?

So let me know what you think.
 
Cheers,
 
greymattermatters