3 ms·
I'm 1950 on chess.com. I know zero opening theory outside the fundamentals. Watching Hikaru and Danya has really helped my board visualization and how I think
by oldstrangers 5y ago
I'm 1950 on chess.com. I know zero opening theory outside the fundamentals.
Watching Hikaru and Danya has really helped my board visualization and how I think about the game. My ideas are a lot more abstract now than they were years ago when I was still a "strong" player. I'm stronger now than ever before and I no longer actively train, and I credit this entirely to players like Hikaru helping me view the board in a drastically different way than I was previously. Something just clicked after awhile.
- albertkawmi 5y agoInteresting. Were you watching streams or YouTube? And were you doing other chess improvement work? I’m at the same chesscom rating as you and have watched a bit of Hikaru content but somehow felt like I was procrastinating on “real chess study”. Your comment has given me an excuse to try again!
- oldstrangers 5y agoStreaming. The big realization for me was how they think through positions and allowing for vague ideas to dictate positional improvements / guide the process. Previously I was just looking for tactics and calculating the best possible moves in a very linear manner. Now I look at the board and visualize ways the position would work better in my favor and kind of work my way back from there. Linear calculation is still required, but getting an idea first and then trying to find the path of least resistance to that idea is just so much more fluid for me. Remove the tunnel vision and treat the entire board as an organic structure that you can reconfigure. This is probably only beneficial after like 1700-1800 because it assumes you have a solid tactical / positional understanding obviously. The only other "training" I do is solving puzzles but that's more out of entertainment than actual training.