Chess: want to get better fast

[bugstud]

interesting thread...here's my path, you can decide how much you want to emulate it.

#1 - book learning.
I read and reread MCO-13, Both improve your chess (?) and amateur's mind by silman, and Seirwan's winning tactics.

Once I did that and had a rough idea of the nature of opening theory and tactics I played a lot of chess. FICS, www.freechess.org, is a really good place to start.

On these games you should try playing all these different openings and getting an idea where your strengths lie and what openings cater to these strengths. These also should be quick, 3 0 or 5 0 imo. Volume will help more than depth at this point.

Then, reread silman's books and start learning your intended openings more deeply. Another helpful thing to do now, and before I guess, is to get books that are annotated by grandmasters. Books like the Sorcerer's Apprectice and Yermolinsky's book are pretty good for this.

Now I suggest playing 15 0 or longer games online and playing small tournaments in person and seeing how much different your play and results are.

[Popinjay]

[ QUOTE ]
I read and reread MCO-13

[/ QUOTE ]

The whole thing?

[The Yugoslavian]

NO!

This is a reference book and should not be 'read' in any way resembling the way most people read books. Reading and re-reading is HORRIBLE advice for a beginning to get serious chess player.

At your level you're more than fine picking out an opening at random -- finding an actual book on it from solid authors and learning it that way.

I'd actually recommend *against* getting MCO-13 at this point in your development.

The Amateurs Mind by Silman is just so-so IMHO. I think it's worthwhile to start in with a more advanced book even if you're perhaps in a bit over your head.

In actuality one of the best ways to get better at chess is to look over strong Grandmaster games that are annotated by other strong Grandmasters (Silman is not a GM (not even as close as one would think) and his books suffer but not too much b/c he usually just finds GM games already annotated on and just explains them clearly to the relative notice -- which he is really good at).

[bugstud]

[ QUOTE ]
NO!

This is a reference book and should not be 'read' in any way resembling the way most people read books. Reading and re-reading is HORRIBLE advice for a beginning to get serious chess player.

At your level you're more than fine picking out an opening at random -- finding an actual book on it from solid authors and learning it that way.

I'd actually recommend *against* getting MCO-13 at this point in your development.

The Amateurs Mind by Silman is just so-so IMHO. I think it's worthwhile to start in with a more advanced book even if you're perhaps in a bit over your head.

In actuality one of the best ways to get better at chess is to look over strong Grandmaster games that are annotated by other strong Grandmasters (Silman is not a GM (not even as close as one would think) and his books suffer but not too much b/c he usually just finds GM games already annotated on and just explains them clearly to the relative notice -- which he is really good at).

[/ QUOTE ]

I stated what I did...not what I think is best. Honestly, I felt that knowing the main lines, then getting lots of blitz pratice playing all sorts of lines, then learning the system in depth is better than learning systems at random.

*shrug*

[Jake (The Snake)]

dynasty was right about tactics, tactics, tactics.

however, there really aren't any shortcuts with chess... play, play, play... look over your games and GM games (find a good annotated book).

Great players are great because of
1. tactics
2. ability to recognize situations and the best course of action based on the situation

#2 comes mainly from experience and reading. It is the kind of thing that makes a GM say "This is a good time to hit the hole with my knight and prepare for a queen side pawn storm."

[The Yugoslavian]

You said:

"I read and reread MCO-13"

Some of the rest of your post ranged from okay to somewhat misguided but that advice is what stood out as especially poor. It's (somewhat) like telling someone to read the dictionary over and over again if they want to become a superior writer.

Although, given the poster's desire to get good ASAP, then your advice probably isn't too bad (he'll just hit a wall really quickly nad have a poor structure of chess knowledge/training to build on).

All IMHO. To become truly great at chess is too late for him anyway as he's now too old. Becoming a strong club player may be acheivable but it will require more time and effort than the getting good really quickly tone of his post.

Yugoslav

[bugstud]

well, it all depends on your idea of good. I also had no access whatsoever to capable chess instruction and was more or less entirely self taught. I probably should have used a betterbook than mco-13, but that is the one I started with as far as openings go.

anyway, back to popinjay. Tactics are foremost, then get the silman books so you may improve your planning and positional ideas and processes. Playing a lot of internet chess will help you along the way towards implimenting the book learning.

[TimM]

MCO has a page or two of text on each major opening, explaining the main ideas. Just reading that is not so horrible. But there are better books which do the same kind thing in more detail.

[The Yugoslavian]

Ugh.

This is sorta funny b/c I don't actually want to fight with you despite what this may look like, [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Internet chess is not that great. Almost everyone gets sucked into relatively fast games (anything under G/60 will not increase chess skill nearly as much as a longer game). If you have the discipline to play long games on the internet (which I admit I do not) then it would be a *great* tool. As it is tons of blitz is just going to teach bad chess, period. It will allow familiarity with the openings (to a degree) but will have an adverse effect on your overall skill process.

Tactics are good. I think they're overrated but then again they're not my strong suit. Most of a chess game is about building up subtle advantages until your position allows for tactical maneuvers that allow a decisive advantage (generally material).

Popinjay: ideally you can find a teacher (at least 1800 rating) who can explain principles above your head in a helpful and enlightening way. This person can also almost surely find players around your strength (ideally slightly better but not way better) for you to play. This coupled with a good tactic book and a solid middlegame book will really lay an amazing groundwork.

You can start with tactics, but frankly, I think basic tactics just come with staring at in game chess positions a lot and thinking through move trees (and much more motivation to concentrate on combinations when ur ass is on the line). I'd devote my study time to strategy if I were you and just make sure you aren't lazy while playing games -- make sure you continually push your tactical foresight to its limit.

Bugstud (as an aside): Kudos to you for self-teaching and starting with MCO as a guide -- quite ambitious. However, I really don't think that makes it good advice.

[The Yugoslavian]

[ QUOTE ]
MCO has a page or two of text on each major opening, explaining the main ideas. Just reading that is not so horrible. But there are better books which do the same kind thing in more detail.

[/ QUOTE ]

I certainly agree with the main gist of this, [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

My beef is with the advice to 'read and reread MCO' when:

1. It's very far from ideal as far as general opening concepts go
AND
2. It's very very very far from ideal as far as spending one's time efficiently getting better at chess.

It's simply a very poor +EV decision to get better at chess.

It's certainly better for your chess than the -EV chess learning decision of lighting your hair on fire and dancing around like a crazy dude. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]