CHESMAYNE
Midi: The Way - Melody: Dean Martin “Memories Are Made Of This”
Memory
01 Mnemosyne: Greek goddess of memory. Mnemonics. She is the daughter of heaven and earth
(Gaea and Uranus).
‘History remembers those who have helped humanity and civilization to march
forward a little’.
‘To see the future, you have to look backwards’.
‘Those who can not remember the past are
condemned to repeat it’.
02 Memories are symbolically relevant to your present situation.
Memories are stored in the unconscious, and may be used by the
unconscious as symbols of the current situation that faces the individual.
‘Our memories are card-indexes consulted, and
then put back in disorder by authorities whom we do not control’.
03 One of the four rivers of the
Underworld (Greek) along with the River of Forgetfulness.
04 Many bards are blind
(ie, Homer) a handicap which improves their powers of memory.
05 Smara (India): ‘Memory’, the god of love, since we love what we remember.
Fragrant Memories: Artist: Josephine Wall.
Pieces:
550. Size: 15.5” X 18”.
06 Mnemon: a unit of memory
(memory is localized in small combinations of brain cells). Memory is formed by changes in the
synapses, the links through which the brain cells communicate with each other.
A pattern of
synaptic change
represents the memory of an experience.
This memory soon disappears unless made permanent by a process called
long-term potentiation. Memory pills
are being developed which lift normal mental performance to super-normal
performance. Cognitive enhancers are
called ampakines. Drugs improve memory
processing at the time the information is acquired, enhancing the transition
from short to long-term memory not by improving recall.
07 Zeigarnik: a tendency to
remember a task or duty that we have not yet completed, or got around to
(psychological term).
Thoughts on
Improving at Chess
by John
Coffey
I thought that it would help if
I would talk about my long chess history of how I got to the skill that I am
now. I am also going to talk about what
I am trying to do to improve my play further.
From this people might be able to determine if the techniques that I use
might be beneficial to them.
If you get bored reading my
life story then skip to my conclusions at the bottom. As I look back at my 25 year history with chess, I realize that
there were times of inactivity and even more times when I did not study chess
at all. Like most people I have lead a
very busy life, and sometimes chess has taken a back seat to other things. It was only during periods of intense chess
activity where I both studied and played that I made the most progress.
Part 1: The Early School Days.
In 1974 I took up chess in
the 7th grade and became instantly addicted. We were still in the Bobby Fischer boom and my home-room
teacher encouraged the whole class to play chess. At first I was really lousy and was easily beaten by most of my
classmates.
As far as I know, I am the
only person in my grade level who made any attempt to study chess. I went to the local library and checked out
some books on chess. From these I learned such concepts as openings, basic checkmates, and primitive tactics. This new
knowledge allowed me to get the upper hand on my classmates and eventually I
started beating the teachers as well.
After 6 months I joined the
USCF and played my first tournament. I
managed to defeat a 1200 player, draw a 1300 player, and lose badly to two C
players. I got my first rating of 1323
which I was quite proud of.
The thing I remember about
chess tournaments from those days is that they were a little more formal and
the time controls were longer. The USCF had only recently allowed 40 moves
in 60 minutes, and some people complained that this time control was too fast
and called it “a fad”.
Between 1974 and 1980 I must
have played several thousand speed
games. I played as much chess as I
possibly could. We started a school
chess club, and I joined the small town city club. I played for chess teams and competed in school tournaments. Every morning we were playing speed chess in
the school library. On the weekends I
would get together with one of the adults from the city club and play. Occasionally we would drive to one of the
big city chess clubs and play speed chess there too.
During this time period I
made some effort to study chess but there were hardly any materials available
to me that were useful. Most chess
books were outside my budget and above my skill level. I managed to find a book on endgames and studied it with great interest. I found a few opening pamphlets but it is
very questionable if these were helpful to me.
However, I did feel that I got some benefit from studying Reinfeld’s “1001
Brilliant Ways to Checkmate”, although too many of the problems in that book
were above my level.
I did manage to play a couple
of chess computers during this time period,
but they were incredibly poor players.
In 1980 my rating peaked at
1598. I was not only the high school
champion but the small town champion as well.
I had studied very little useful stuff to get to that level, so I knew
almost nothing about openings or middle
game strategy. I understood some things about pawn structure and endgames, but my biggest strength was my good tactical
ability. I remember that 20 years ago I
could calculate very quickly over the chessboard, and I probably looked at more
moves per second than I do today. On
the rare occasion that I had a chance to play class A players from the big
city, I thought that I could give them good games but I would usually lose. In the ‘70s I thought that class A players
were like gods.
In 1980 my openings were the English and the Petroff. I probably knew the English about six moves deep and a couple
lines of the Petroff nine moves deep. I
could play one line of the Benko
Gambit to about move twelve. I knew
very little about other openings and it would stay that way for several
years.
While I was still a class C
player I tried to study games played by Grandmasters in “Chess Life and Review”. I felt quite discouraged because the games were all above my
level. In addition the games in these magazines were not very well annotated. Ever since then I have been somewhat biased against the idea of
studying Grandmaster games as a way to improve.
In these early years one very interesting thing happened with my attempts
to study chess that would be of great benefit to me later. Around 1975 I had lost a game that cost me
the school championship. I was not
happy with this loss but I had written down the moves, so I was able to go back
and study the game. I went through the
game so many times that I realized that I could remember the game without the
use of a written score. This was really
beneficial to me because I could then visualize the game without the use of
chessboard. I went around thinking
about the game all the time. This
visualization in my head helped me to get patterns into my long term memory. Eventually
this method helped me to develop the ability to play blindfold chess.
This technique of memorizing games was something that I would
use several times in the 1970’s. I
would show off games from memory to my friends. In those days it
would have been too difficult for me to memorize more than one game at a time, so if I were to learn a
new game then I would have to forget the old one.
Part 2: The College years
From summer 1980 to summer
1984 I played very little chess. I was
mostly busy with college and because my school was a small regional campus,
there were no local chess clubs. I was
also getting more and more involved with computers, so chess had become of secondary importance in my
life.
I didn’t give up chess
completely, but almost. I played in 1
to 2 tournaments a year, and I don’t remember doing very well. But somehow in four years I raised my rating
up to 1710. I think that toward the end
of my college years I had scored just enough upsets in tournaments to boost my
rating.
Part 3: The last half of 1984
What got me back into chess
was chess computers. I was already
involved with computers a great deal and had even started a successful computer
software mail order business. Until
this time I had thought of computers as not being very good opponents, but when
a friend showed me how strong his computer was then I got quite excited about
them.
In the fall 1984 I moved to
Indianapolis to attend Medical School. I tried hard in Medical School, but I
didn’t like it so I got out. However,
moving to Indianapolis gave me much more opportunity to play chess.
I continued my computer
business, and I got a crummy job to supplement my income. I also started playing chess a great
deal. I bought a ‘Novag Super
Constellation’ which I played constantly.
I also met with people that I knew and played speed chess with
them. Finally I played 13 weeks in a
row in quad half-day tournaments that were held weekly in Indianapolis. This intense activity boosted my rating to
just barely over 1800.
I attribute my rise to class A
to my strong tactical ability. This
ability came from playing ten thousand speed chess games, doing tactical
problems, practicing with computers, memorizing games and playing 13
tournaments in a row. I had done
minimal chess study although I knew some things about the endgame and I was
just beginning to learn more about the openings.
Part 4: 1985 to the first half of 1988
Circumstances changed quite a
bit for me during these years. I moved
away from Indianapolis so I was much less active in chess. I did try to play some tournaments, but I became
discouraged after going to a quad tournament where I lost three games to three
1800 level players. I gave up
tournament chess for 18 months after that.
Since then I have been somewhat biased against the quad format because I
know that there is the potential for 1 out of 4 people to lose all their
games.
I eventually got back into
chess and was mostly playing computers.
As I started to get back into chess, I tried memorizing chess games once
again. However, I tried something new
this time. I wanted to memorize more than one game at a
time. At first I memorized three games and reviewed
them every day. This felt a little
cumbersome at first because it was time consuming. I told a friend that if I wanted to memorize a new game then I would have
to deliberately forget one of the old games to make room in my head.
Nevertheless, I wanted to learn more chess games. I began to realize that I did not need to
review every memorized chess game every single day. So I made a list of games that I was going
to review. On this list I grouped the
games by how well I knew them. The
games that I knew the best were reviewed the least often and the games that I
didn’t know as well were reviewed more often.
I still use the list today and I have about a hundred chess items on
it.
As I got to be a better
player I could memorize more chess material and I could do it easier. I also feel strongly that as I practiced memorizing things that I got better at
it.
Part 5: The Purdue Years (Summer 1988 to Summer
1991)
I had the most fun with my
chess during this time period and I also saw my highest rating ever.
I got a new job in Lafayette,
Indiana, so I started playing twice a week at the Purdue Chess Club. Purdue had one of the strongest chess clubs
in the state. When I started going
there I was just barely an 1800 player, which meant that most of the players
respected me, but I also noticed that I didn’t get much respect from the
Expert/Master players.
Usually there wasn’t much of
a club during the summer. By the end of
the 1988/1989 school year attendance in the club had dropped to almost
nothing. I decided to do something
about this, so I advertised in the local paper that I would be offering free
chess lessons at the Purdue Chess Club.
This brought in several weaker players who were not Purdue students and
I discovered that I enjoyed teaching things to people. From that time onward I would be offering my
services to people as a chess tutor.
Eventually I started putting my memorized chess games onto paper and giving them to people to
use as lesson material. I thought that
someday I would turn this material into a chess book that I would write.
I not only played speed chess
twice a week at the Purdue Club, but I sometimes played speed on the weekend
and attended slow tournaments about twice a month.
I also switched openings. The English and the Petroff didn’t really
fit my tactical style of play, so I switched to King Pawn openings for White and the Sicilian Dragon for Black. It was interesting to play the Dragon
because there were several players at the Purdue club who also played it. We were able to share our ideas.
I bought a new chess computer
and played action games with it three times a
week for six months. I also memorized many of the games that I
played with the computer. Eventually I
was beating the computer enough times that I had to buy a better computer. I practiced with the better computer for a
few months and continued to memorize chess games.
At one point I had thirty games memorized.
All this slow game practice
with computers along with memorizing the best games seemed to really pay off. I scored several upsets with chess masters
and my rating rose to an all time high of 2079. I even won a couple of Expert prizes in state tournaments. I noticed that the best players at the
Purdue Chess Club gave me more respect after that.
People would ask me how to
get better at chess and I told them to memorize games. Most
people didn’t follow my advice because they told me that it would be too
difficult. One person told me that if I
was going to memorize stuff then it should be openings instead of chess games, but I didn’t agree with this advice.
During this period I also
spent a great deal more time studying openings and endgames. Overall I felt that I was well on my way to
becoming a chess master.
Part 6: Indianapolis (Summer 1991 to the end of
1992)
It has been said that some
player’s peak in their early thirties, and this was true for me. Soon I would become so preoccupied with work
that I would have less time for chess study and my rating declined.
I changed jobs and cities and
this resulted in different chess habits.
Indianapolis didn’t actually have an official chess club, so I started a
small club on the north west side. Everyone
who attended was much weaker than myself, so I spent much more time teaching
people than playing.
For several months I would
play speed chess against a neighbour kid for a few hours each week. At first I gave him queen odds or even more, but he eventually got better to the point where I gave
him only knight odds and then eventually he didn’t want any odds at all. I am sure that he learned a great deal
although it probably didn’t help me that much.
Today he is nearly an A player.
I had quite a few chess students in Indianapolis. I was spending much more time teaching chess
to people than I was studying. Again I
tried to tell people to memorize games, but again few people seemed interested in this
approach. There were still weekly quad
tournaments in Indianapolis that I participated in whenever I could. However my rating declined to just above
2000.
One master told me that if I
wanted to go from 2000 to 2200 that I should go through 1,000 Grandmaster chess
games. I tried to go through some games
but I felt that I was missing the point.
Part 7: Salt Lake City (1993 to the 1998)
After changing jobs and
moving across the country, my rating went into quick decline. I was very preoccupied with my new job in
which I was working much overtime. I
went to tournaments feeling not really prepared and I was beaten by lower rated
players. My rating plummeted all the
way back to the mid 1900’s. Therefore I
withdrew from tournament chess for a couple of years so that I could better
adjust to my new life.
My first real effort to study
chess again came in 1995. I spent time
most weekends studying openings. I
simply memorized lines. This was more opening
study than I had ever done. At first
this didn’t seem to pay off, but in the long run it became apparent that I had
become pretty strong in a couple of my favorite opening systems.
In 1995 I also discovered the
Internet Chess Server (now called
the Internet Chess Club.) The first
year according to ICS I spent 12% of my life there. I played more games there that first year than I have since.
In 1996 I had the notion to
write that chess book that I had wanted to do.
I spent almost all my spare time in 1996 writing that book. In addition to using all the chess games
that I had memorized, I created a couple thousand tactical problems from games played on the
Internet Chess Club. I figured that no
publisher would be interested in a meager class A player like myself, so I put
the chess book online for the whole world to see. I would continue to spend time updating and improving the book
over the next couple of years and I still spend time updating it. It is an ongoing process.
In 97 and 98 I was still busy
as ever with my work. Occasionally I
would memorize a game or an opening line, but the only real study that I did was to
look at my own tactical problems. I had
felt that my tactical ability was not as sharp as it once was, so the tactical
study was helpful to me. I have gone
through the 1-move problems maybe thirty times, and I know for certain that
this has helped my speed game. I have
also studied the harder problems.
All this time I continued to
play speed chess in the local clubs. I
was one of the few people who played in the clubs all year long because
attendance in the clubs would drop off considerably during the summer. Occasionally I would get together with
friends and play on the weekend as well.
I wasn’t playing computers
anymore and this surprises me considering that I had such good results
practicing with computers years ago. I
think that lack of time was the reason why I did not do this. Recently I did get Fritz 5, but I use it
mostly for analysis. I have yet to play a long game with Fritz, but I should try that
sometime.
Part 8: Salt Lake City (1999)
I changed
jobs again and this has helped since I have just a little more free time with
the new job.
I noticed
that I would turn forty in about 400 days, and I did not want to stay an A
player forever and I was starting to worry that I might be past my prime. I have decided that I will make a 400-day
push to learn as much as I can. The
goal is to get as close to master as possible even through I know that I won’t
make it to master strength in 400 days.
If I can become at least a good Expert then I will have a chance still
to make master someday.
I evaluated my relative
strength and weaknesses. I seemed to be
strong with tactics and endgames, but I often had problems
with certain openings. So I made a goal
to memorize 200 short opening lines in 400 days.
I have worked almost every day on this and I am already up to 71
lines. I think that it is already
helping my play, although only time will tell how well this approach works for
me.
I am aware that I might have
to try another thing to see my way to chess mastery. I could start playing computers again. One other possibility is that I could take openings that I know
and look at the database on the Internet Chess Club to see how masters play
those openings.
It has been suggested to me
by a good player that I should try to play different openings from what I
normally play so as to broaden my horizons.
I might try this, but I feel that my understanding of the openings that
I do play are not sufficient and that I need to work on those a great deal more
first.
Conclusions:
The reader can draw his own
conclusions but I have a few of my own...
1 A person can get to 1800 with strong tactical knowledge and very little
understanding of the other aspects of the game. That is exactly what I
did.
This might not
work for everyone. Some people cannot
calculate as well as others. It is
possible that a few people in order to get to 1800 would need to develop other
areas of their game as well.
2 When people ask me how to get to 1800 then I tell them to study
tactics.
Although a
person could get to 1800 by playing ten thousand speed chess games like I did,
most people don’t want to wait the 10 years that it took me to do it. I believe that studying tactical problems
can shorten the process. I recommend
balancing 5 hours of play per week with 5 hours of tactical study. I think that if C players followed this
program then most would be 1800 strength in 2 years. Who wants to be the first to prove me correct?
3 Chess is entirely about pattern recognition. People think that calculation is the most
important chess skill but it isn’t really so.
The most important skill is memory. People need
to be able to recognize things that they have seen before.
I think that the only
effective method of tactical study requires much repetition. I believe that it is better (and faster) to
study a few hundred problems ten times than it is to study 5,000 unique
problems once each. My personal goal is
to be able to recognize all 2,000 problems in my book on sight, but I recommend
that most people focus only on the 600 1-move problems at first. Once they get good with those then they
should work on the 600 2-move problems.
The reason why repetition is
important is that people are inherently forgetful. It is hard to build pattern recognition if a person doesn’t
remember anything that they have done.
A local A-player once told me that he played 10,000 three-minute games
on the net and afterwards he was still about the same strength as when he
started.
4 Studying simple problems can be helpful to your game. One B-player told me that he sees 3 and 4
move combinations but misses simple combinations. I told him that
if he is missing 1-move tactics that he should study the 1-move combinations in
my book ten times. He thought that
maybe this was beneath his level and wanted to study the three move
combinations instead. Although I am
sure that he can calculate 3 moves ahead, if he is missing simple stuff then I
feel that he needs to work on his basic pattern recognition.
When I do problems from my
online book, I time myself to see how long it takes to do a set of
problems. The 1-movers for white took
me an hour at first, but now I have that down to 15 minutes.
5 Memorizing chess games can be very helpful to building pattern
recognition. If you are going to try to
memorize very much then you need a well-organized list like I have. I have categories on my list from “Every
Day” to “Once a Year”, and I review different items at different intervals
based upon how well I know them.
I have always believed that it
is fairly easy to memorize chess games.
Most players can remember a game after they play it. If they can’t do that then at least they can
remember the game after going through it a couple of times. This has become a little easier for me after
I got to Class-A.
The hard part is to retain
the game by going through it on a regular basis. Even this isn’t so hard.
If I have a chessboard on my screen (such as Blitzn) then it takes me
maybe 5 or 6 minutes to go through most games.
Over the years I have told
people to memorize games and people consistently tell me that they don’t want to do that. Either they think that they don’t have the
ability, in which case they sell themselves short, or they think that it is not
worth the time involved. However, I
have found that memorizing games is very helpful to building my pattern
recognition and therefore is worth every minute I spend on it.
6 It is good to play slow games against computers. Especially if you memorize the most interesting
games. I like playing a level as close
to my ability as possible.
7 Knowledge is power. The better
the player, the more they know. I have
spent much time studying endgames and it has paid off in big ways. I used to be so confused in the
openings. Now when I play speed chess
in the local clubs, I watch what people play against me and then I go home and
study those lines. Finally I know a
little better what I am doing.
I disagree with the notion
that a person should play a generalized system where they don’t have to study
many lines. It can work very well at
first, but to take this approach is to assume that your knowledge base is going
to remain completely unchanged. It
should instead be the goal to expand one’s knowledge even if it is a little at
time.
8 Slow games and tournaments are important. This is where the limits of your ability are tested, and it is
where the best chess games get played.
9 Speed chess is important too. I
like playing speed chess against as near equal opponents as possible because it
keeps my tactics sharp. To be honest, I
think that most people enjoy playing an opponent just slightly weaker than
themselves. They know that they will
likely win, but they have to stay alert because if they make a mistake then
they will surely lose.
10 Balance play with study. Chess is
a social game, so most people will enjoy playing more than they will enjoy
studying. However, if you like chess
for the beautiful game that it is, then studying can be a fun experience too.
If you want to get better
then you have to study. Playing will
help you to improve to a point but playing by itself does not expand your
knowledge of the game. A good rule of
thumb might be 1 hour of study for every 2 hours of play.
11 Work on the area of your game that is the weakest. You might already know some things as well
as Experts or Masters, so focus on the parts that you don’t know and you will
see the most rapid improvement. From my
old introduction ....
12 Rules of study and
play.
A Have a good time. Chess is after
all just a game. If you are not
enjoying your chess study then you need to try a different approach.
B Be a good sport. If a loss makes you upset then it is
time to take up knitting instead. It
can easily hurt your chess results if you let your thought processes be clouded
by emotion.
C Don’t be afraid. Play every
opponent as if you know that you can win.
D If you see an opening move that you don’t know, then try to look it up
later.
E If you get into an endgame that you don’t understand, be sure to study
it later. Eventually you will get to be
very good in the endgame.
F It helps to specialize your openings. You can’t possibly know everything there is
to know in chess, so try to learn a couple of opening systems really well.
13 Book recommendations
1 Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev.
2 Get a book on chess
tactics. It just so happens that I have
written one and have it online.
3 Essential Chess Endings
Explained Move by Move Volume 1. Silman.
4 Nunn’s Chess Openings.
5 How to Reassess Your Chess
by Silman.
6 After mastering my online pages - Chess by Polgar.
I feel that too many chess books is bad.
Most people have two-dozen books that they never read. I think the books that I recommend here are
complete enough for most players.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CHESS
By ROBERT M. SNYDER, Senior Master
The magic formula to improve
your game consists of two components: study and play. Study provides the theory
and play provides the practice.
Together they formulate the most effective way to improve your
game. In this article we will look at
what you should be doing to improve your game as a scholastic player. These
methods and ideas are the same ones used by my most successful national
scholastic champions.
STUDY
(theory)
FIND A CHESS INSTRUCTOR
Finding a good chess teacher in your area should
be your first step. There is nothing better than having an experienced teacher
to guide you and provide you with a well-rounded study plan. Many teachers will also take you to and
coach you at local and national tournaments.
Certainly private lessons are the most efficient way to improve for the
least amount of time spent. However, in
many cases group instruction can be more fun for beginners as well as more
affordable. A good youth chess teacher
should have a good understanding of the game as well as the skill to make
learning fun. Teaching and playing
ability are two different skills.
However, if you are paying an instructor for lessons you should look for
a teacher who has both good teaching skills and playing ability. Just like with any subject a teacher cannot
effectively teach what they don’t know.
A player rated 1600+ would be an acceptable rating for a paid teacher
working with beginning or lower rated (under 1000) students. Once a student gets a rating over 1000 they
should look for a teacher rated at least three classes higher (600+ rating
points) than themselves. For students
rated over 1800 their teacher should be rated at least two classes higher (400+
rating points) than themselves. Once a
student reaches 2100 the teacher will work in more of the capacity of a trainer
and should be rated at least one class higher (200+ rating points). These are only general guidelines for a paid
instructor. Fees charged for lessons
can vary greatly. A lower rated less
experienced teacher might charge $10-$25 an hour for private lessons. A higher rated experienced teacher might
charge $25-$100 an hour for private lessons.
Rates may depend on whether the instructor must travel to the
student. Group lessons should cost
considerably less depending on the size of the group.
A good teacher has prepared
lesson plans and a developed system.
The main format of lessons should not consist of the student playing
games against the teacher. When
students have gained the experience they should record their games against
other players and bring them to their teacher for analysis.
Video taping private lessons
is a very effective tool. In this way
students can build a library of their lessons.
Students can review their lessons at home as often as they want and the
material is never lost! How often you
should take lessons depends on how much time and money you have! Certainly the more lessons you take the
more you will learn. Most of my
students come once a week to a group lesson and can schedule additional private
lessons according to their individual needs.
For a serious student I would consider several hours of lessons each
week as ideal.
By far, the best way to receive instruction is in person. However, if there are no instructors in your
area some teachers give lessons on the Internet using an online chess club to
get an interfacing board and a telephone.
If done properly Internet lessons can be very effective!
The Directory of Chess
Teachers is a good place to start looking for a chess instructor in your
area. Otherwise, you might check with
your local chess club, the yellow pages or with your local recreation
department.
There are some websites that
provide online instruction. An
excellent site to learn the basics is at So You Want to Play Chess
by 14 year old Jeremy Cone.
READ CHESS BOOKS
It has been said that there
are more books written on chess than all other games in the world
combined! Take advantage of this. I personally own well over 1,500 chess
books. Collecting chess books can be
fun, but can become expensive and space consuming! If you are a beginner you should start out with a book on the
basics: "Chess For Juniors"
(Robert M. Snyder, McKay - Random House, 1991). This is the top selling chess book in the United States and is
used as a text book for many school programs.
When you finish your basic book then it is time to expand.
You can develop a
well-rounded basic library with about eight to ten books. I like to suggest as a first follow-up book,
"The Art of the
Checkmate" (Renaud and Kahn, Dover, 1953) which helps develop
basic tactical skills. There are many
good books on tactics available and you might consider getting one of the
following: “Simple Chess Tactics”, by
Gillam, “Combination Challenge” by Hall, “1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and
Combinations”, by Reinfeld.
A good first book on the
openings is "Ideas Behind the
Openings" (Fine, McKay, 1989).
It has a good balance between giving ideas and covering the more
important opening lines.
A good first book on opening traps is "Winning Chess Traps" (Chernev, McKay, 1946). It is certainly an old book, however, this
classic outlines the traps by openings and has excellent instructional value.
A good first book on the
endgame is Pandolfini's Endgame
Course (Pandolfini, Simon Schuster, 1988). It has a very simple outline.
A somewhat more complex endgame book and a possible follow-up is "A Guide to the Chess Endings"
(Euwe and Hooper, Dover, 1959).
The number of books with game collections can seem overwhelming. However, an excellent first game collection
book to get is "Logical Chess,
Move by Move" (Chernev, Simon Schuster, 1959). There is a comment on every move in all of
the games.
Every serious tournament
player or chess teacher should own a copy of "Official Rules of Chess" (U.S. Chess Federation,
McKay, 1994).
Also available for study are
computer programs with instruction and databases and chess videos. They vary greatly in quality and what they
cover.
SOME USEFUL STUDY IDEAS
It is important to study openings, tactics,
positional play, endgames and complete master games.
You should at all levels
develop an opening system which is sound.
If you are a beginner or lower rated player your opening system should be
well rounded for instructive purposes.
An extremely positional opening is usually not something a beginner is
going to understand. Open games (1 e4
e5) tend to contain many instructive tactical themes for beginners and is
therefore what this writer likes to teach to his students. Details of the system are contained in the "Chess For Juniors"
book. As you get more advanced you will
develop a playing style and will certainly make adjustments to and expand on
your opening system. When studying the
opening don’t just memorize moves. A
good player not only knows his lines well, but has an understanding of the
ideas behind the them. A well prepared
player in the opening is hard to beat.
If you don’t survive the opening then your knowledge on the middle game
or endgame is useless!
Pattern recognition is the
key to learning tactics. Study the
tactical patterns in the problems given in the suggested books above. Try and work out each problem by spending no
more than a few minutes on it. Then if
you still haven’t figured it out look up the solution in the book. Mark the ones you missed. Then move on to the next problem in the
book. After you have completed the
book, go back a second time over the problems you missed. This is the most efficient way to learn
tactics!
Learn the most basic endgames first. If you were an absolute beginner I would
start you off with Two Rooks King vs. King (rook roller mate), then King Queen
vs. King, then the basic King Pawn vs. King endgame and then on to King Rook vs.
King. You start off with studying the
most simple endgames and learn the basic winning/drawing positions first. Then you move on to studying more
complicated endgames. In that way you
will know which basic positions you want to achieve from the more complex
endgames. Going over well analyzed
master games from books and data bases is an excellent way of learning all
aspects of the game, including the art of positional play. Going over complete games allows you to see
the entire picture that is often missed when starting from a set position. There is a lot to learn by seeing the moves
made by masters!
PLAY
(practice)
Playing allows you to put the
theories you have learned to a test. As
a general rule you will learn more by playing players who are stronger than
yourself. Losing is a part of the
learning process, and everyone has lost games, including the world
champion!
CASUAL PLAY
Beginners should immediately
start playing casual non-tournament games as soon as they learn the basic rules
and have received pointers on basic strategy.
Casual games against friends and at your local chess club are extremely
helpful for the beginning level player.
TOURNAMENT PLAY
Once a beginner has a solid knowledge
of the rules, knows basic strategy, knows how to record their moves and use a
chess clock s/he is ready to play in their first nationally rated
tournament. Many scholastic tournaments
have a special section for beginning level players. An excellent book to get to learn about tournament rules is the "Official Rules of Chess",
(USCF, McKay, 1993).
Playing in rated tournaments
is the best form of practice. It is
here that both players will take their game most seriously and will be trying
their best to win. Games are
recorded. After the game it is a good
idea to review it with your opponent to find out what their ideas were. It is best to use a score book rather than
individual score sheets. Using a score
book keeps the games together in chronological order and is more difficult to
lose than an individual score sheet. If
possible have your games analyzed by your chess teacher.
CORRESPONDENCE/E-MAIL/INTERNET PLAY
In addition to playing in over-the-board rated
tournaments playing by correspondence is very helpful. There are many correspondence tournaments
available to play in. Because you
usually have about 3 days per move to think, it allows you to play at your very
best! There is no pressure of having to
move quickly.
E-mail play can be similar to
correspondence play. Playing on the
internet allows you to find opponents without having to leave your home. You can join the Internet
Chess Club which I highly recommend.
PLAYING COMPUTERS
Owning a chess-playing
computer allows you to have a playing partner 24 hours a day. Computers are
improving constantly. Dedicated chess
computers can be very strong and portable so that you can take them almost
anywhere. Dedicated chess playing
computers allow you to move actual pieces and is making it more like playing a
real game! However, I encourage my
students to play against humans rather than computers when they have a choice.
Some of the weaker computers
do not vary their openings very much.
If you are a serious player you may want to invest the money in a
dedicated computer that uses a wide range of openings. This will make the computer more enjoyable
and a better learning tool. The key to
selecting the right computer is to get one that is considerably stronger than
its owner. You want it to move quickly
and still be a challenge at the lower levels.
FIVE MINUTE/SPEED CHESS
Five minute/speed chess can
be helpful if kept in moderation.
Besides being a lot of fun it is a great way to test your openings and
sharpen your tactical skills.
You must make quick and sometimes superficial judgements when playing speed
chess. If you are constantly playing
speed chess day after day to excess your mind is likely to become so geared to
speed chess that you may have difficulty in slowing down and thinking deeply in
your regular tournament play. It
requires the student to have good mental discipline to slow down for a
tournament game after playing speed chess.
DISTORTING PATTERN RECOGNITION
Forms of chess that change
some of the rules and/or the way the pieces move can actually be harmful. An example of this is Bughouse chess which
distorts pattern recognition. The
serious chess student wants to train his/her mind to focus on the types of
patterns which will occur in their tournament games. Therefore, the time spent on Bughouse chess is distracting and
gears the mind to analyze many patterns that cannot be used in standard chess. While many students are playing in the
Bughouse tournaments at the nationals my students are either resting or
studying real chess.
TOURNAMENT CONDITIONING
Just as with other sports,
coaches want their players to be in the best possible shape. Here are a few useful guidelines to follow:
1)
Players should get a good nights sleep.
2) Players
should be well rested before rounds.
Excessive physical activity just before a round should be avoided. I don’t allow my players to swim on days
that they have a tournament round - this can also cause blood shot eyes. Playing video games causes eye strain and
fatigue and should be avoided on tournament days.
3) Players
should avoid eating a big meal just before a round. However, a player should never be hungry or thirsty during a
game. Don’t eat/drink too many high
sugar or caffeine products before rounds.
4) Psychology
plays a role in how a player performs.
Wearing a club/team uniform tends to indicate that a player has a coach
which may have a positive impact in some cases. I have seen it work! A cap
can help keep light out of your eyes and block the ability of your opponent to
see your eyes. It is much easier for a
coach to find their players when wearing a team shirt and cap.
When
you make your move don’t have your hand hover near a piece. This shows a lack of confidence in your
play, you may be falsely accused of having touched the piece and your own hand
blocks your view. Keep your hands away
from the board until you know what your move is. Use your head to think, not your hands! Once you have determined what your move is
going to be, make the move without showing any signs of hesitation. Sit up straight in your chair when you play
and don’t sit on your feet!
5) Always
play “touch move” even in friendly games.
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