13 ms·

How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

326 points by gautamnarula 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
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sethbannon 13y ago
For tactics training, I highly recommend "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" (http://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-Combinations/dp/0879801115/ http://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-Combinat...) and "1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate (http://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Checkmate-Chess-lovers-library/dp/0879801107/ http://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Checkmate-Chess-lovers-libra...). Both books are things you can toss in your bag and pick up when you have a spare minute.
- tomsthumb 13y ago
  chesstempo.com is also quite good for tactics training. Tons of problems (20000+), comments for explanations, thematic tagging, ratings graphs. This is all free. The paid tier lets you construct problem sets from criteria. The list goes on.
peterwwillis 13y ago
> Error establishing a database connection For the love of god people. Please stop requiring a database connection to serve static content.
- nathancahill 13y ago
  It's running on Wordpress. Do you know of static site generator that is similarly easy to use for non-technical people? I use Jekyll, but when I tried teaching it to someone I realized that the learning curve was too steep and switched them to Wordpress.
  - rmrfrmrf 13y ago
    wp-super-cache
    - singlow 13y ago
      yes - this or w3tc - either of them have an enhanced disk cache that keeps the generated html for each page on disk and apache/nginx will bypass php if you have the rewrite rules in place.
  - peterwwillis 13y ago
    Existing platforms suck. Some of them have plugins or hacks for this, but mostly it's the fault of the developers for not making their tools more robust. So my comment is partly to blog users, partly to blog developers.
  - notacoward 13y ago
    What about http://scriptogr.am/ http://scriptogr.am/ or http://calepin.co/ http://calepin.co/ ? Also, I think the problem is needing a database to serve content, not to generate or store it. Many people would be happy with a system where the database is needed only by the author, generating static pages from the database content and then serving those even if the database is down. I even wrote a bunch of scripts to use Wordpress as a static site generator, before I switched to Pelican. With a little more work I probably could have turned that into a turn-key solution that would still insulate readers from database problems.
- milhous 13y ago
  Too lazy to move off tumblr, but heard good things about blogofile.
kimonos 13y ago
Wow! Cool! Thanks for sharing!
GraffitiTim 13y ago
This is similar to how I learned and how I teach beginning chess players. Good set of recommendations.
birken 13y ago
And for those that are interested in building their interest in chess in a way that is more entertainment than education, I highly recommend watching "live commentaries", IE chess players playing against other people online while commentating it live. My personal favorite is IM Greg Shahade (aka curtains), who has hundreds of these videos online [1]. There are also a bunch on youtube from other sources, but in my opinion curtains is the most entertaining (he is also quite good, the 49th ranked player in the US). [1]: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-video-search.php?q=curtains+Live+Commentary&s=topic_id http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-video-search.php?q=curtains+...
- hsuresh 13y ago
  I really like Daniel King's game reviews. You can find them here: http://www.youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess http://www.youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess
- grosen 13y ago
  IM Jerry who runs Chess Network is my favorite. Check him out if you haven't here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork
- ximeng 13y ago
  I like Mato Jelic's videos - short and regularly released with his own style.
  - izietto 13y ago
    I strongly recommend Mato: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxK1FKAbmj2N-faTWLwNig http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxK1FKAbmj2N-faTWLwNig
- kriro 13y ago
  Not as exciting as watching the brown trouts swim but close enough.
- dfan 13y ago
  Greg Shahade's videos are great. I particularly enjoy his solitaire chess games, where he attempts to guess the moves of existing games by great players of the past and present.
EdwigePelagia 13y ago
who is this guy and why should i take him seriously? he doesn't explain why his advice is worth a damn
- NathanthePie 13y ago
  Well, as you are someone who has found their way onto this forum, I must assume you: 1. Are competent at reading. 2. Have visited, and used, the internet before. Thus, the answer to your question, "Who is this guy" can be found on his WP site under the tab, 'About'. There, it states that he is: 1. Narula is a 19 year old sophomore at the University of Georgia studying Computer Science and Political Science and 2. Gautam has also written a book on chess and a few Android apps.
  - EdwigePelagia 13y ago
    When someone asks an obvious question, the interpreter of the question has two paths to choose. (a) Assume the author is very stupid and then tell him the very stupid and obvious answer. (b) Interpret the question as rhetorical. People who take (a) are the type of people who think they're smarter than everyone else, but who are actually, in fact, dumber. Usually they lack empathy, are undersocialized, and probably show on the autism spectrum. People who take (b) are the type of people who correctly interpret the statement. The correct interpretation of my rhetorical question is to read it as a commentary on authority. Is this 1800 rated 19 year old really the proper authority to learn how to play chess? Wouldn't a professional chess teacher with decades of experience and a higher rating than 1800 be the correct authority to instruct us on the best methods to learn chess? Yes. They would be. There are thousands of these teachers. Instead of pushing blogspam by amateurs onto the frontpage, if HN really wants to know how to learn chess, HN should just link one of the dozens of much more reputable books on this topic. As a chess player all I can do is roll my eyes when a 19 year old with an 1800 rating and very few (none?) years of chess teaching experience proclaims himself an expert and gets upvoted for it. It's just absurd.
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      > When someone asks an obvious question, the interpreter of the question has two paths to choose. > (a) Assume the author is very stupid and then tell him the very stupid and obvious answer. > (b) Interpret the question as rhetorical. > People who take (a) are the type of people who think they're smarter than everyone else, but who are actually, in fact, dumber. Usually they lack empathy, are undersocialized, and probably show on the autism spectrum. > People who take (b) are the type of people who correctly interpret the statement. It's funny; people have been telling me my whole life that observing when other people ask obvious questions makes me a huge jerk, and I should patiently give them the obvious answers they ask for.
Tloewald 13y ago
Anyone care to provide similarly practical tips for Go?
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I'm not good to give quick Go learning tips but I think it's interesting that the general consensus is that Go and Chess quire significantly different "mindsets". Both are games of perfect information but it seems that the greater complexity of Go yields quantitatively different requirements for good play - in Go, people teaching generally talk about having the right attitude, avoid "greed" and similar "fuzzy" criteria.
  - e12e 13y ago
    I wonder if it is still the case that Japanese Chess (shogi) is also considered "too hard" for AI. I'm by no means a proficient shogi player -- but found it a refreshing "variant" of chess. The main difference from chess, is that the board is 9x9, and crucially, that you get to play captured pieces. I like the idea of Go, but I'm afraid it's a little too simple for my tastes...
    - joe_the_user 13y ago
      If you begin playing Go, you will find that strategic complexity go well beyond most people's ability to calculate so simple mostly applies only to the rules. Anyway, I think games wind-up being hard to program when one is allowed many moves each turn. Go allows hundreds of potential moves and it is not easy to prune the tree or estimate the relative situations. I remember Shogi being described as similarly hard - I think the re-played captured pieces might be what makes the tree explode.
      - e12e 13y ago
        Oh, I absolutely know go is a complex game, I was talking about the "surface simplicity". It does appeal to me, but at the same time it strikes me as being too bare bones to really be enjoyable -- for me. Maybe it's just that I think board games should be played on a proper board, with tactile feel of the pieces -- and I don't know anyone that play go (or shogi, for that matter) where I live. Also the main reason I don't play chess -- I can't really say I enjoy any of these games as computer games/internet games. When a computer is involved, I fell I might as well play something with complex rules that leverages the computer, like Planetside ;-)
wyclif 13y ago
Those are good book recommendations, but I'd add "Pawn Power in Chess" by Hans Kmoch. Reading this book will improve your pawn manipulation and overall game. Excellent illustrations from real games, too. http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Power-Chess-Dover/dp/0486264866/ http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Power-Chess-Dover/dp/0486264866/
tmallen 13y ago
Read Nimzowitsch's "My System": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System Everything you need is in that book. It's not too long, and very readable. It has a very common-sense approach. Look for the 21st century edition at used book stores or your chess club: http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century-Edition/dp/1880673851 http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century-Edition/dp/1880... chesstempo.com is good for practicing tactics between games.
- adamconroy 13y ago
  Umm. 'My system' is worth reading but only so you have an understanding of what you are unlearning as you get stronger. In this day and age it is a long way from all you need to know, chess is much less dogmatic and more objective. The demands of the position trumps nimzowitsch's rules.
netvarun 13y ago
If you are looking for a systematic learning program, I would like to suggest Artur Yusupov's training program (9 books that gradually increase in difficulty). http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/ http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwi...
- Scarblac 13y ago
  Truly great books, but not for beginners. If you're ambitious rated 1700 or so, these are the best. Beginners should look at the workbooks from "Chess Steps". Cheap and very good too. After Step 5 you can switch to Yusupov.
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
> "One big mistake is to rely heavily on computers for chess analysis. Computer analysis should be done only after you analyze the game on your own." This isn't correct information anymore, in my opinion. Chess engines have improved tenfold over the last four years (when the author says he stopped playing). The increase in the strength of chess engines has subsequently caused an increase in the "humanity" of chess engines, meaning that, instead of playing bizarre moves that are strong yet incomprehensible to humans, they play principled, sound moves that are strong tactically and strategically. The main thing that you will miss as a sub-2000 player (or ever, really) is tactics, which is exactly where computers excel. A computer will be able to tell you tactics you missed and will allow you to experiment to see how different moves would have improved your game. I agree that you should analyze games with your opponent after the game (and also with stronger players), but keep in mind that, if you're both sub-2000, you'll both miss obvious tactics even as you review the game, which doesn't really improve your chess thought. One last thing: the 400 points in 400 days training comes from the book Rapid Chess Improvement, which I do not recommend for the beginning player (the knight exercise is good, though). In it, Michael De La Maza wastes time blasting Jeremy Silman and the strategic approach to chess games. Some people like the book for the mild drama it started, but the tl;dr is "tactics, tactics, tactics," which pretty much everyone will tell you.
- Scarblac 13y ago
  The point is that having the missed tactics pointed out to you by the computer doesn't do much to improve your chess. It won't help you find a tactic the next time an opportunity comes up. Whereas analyzing seriously and finding tactics yourself (albeit fewer than the computer will point out), _will_ improve your ability to find them over the board.
  - rmrfrmrf 13y ago
    I differ from you in that regard. I learn tactics by seeing them played out. Once I see the pattern, it gets burned into my memory a bit, especially if I missed a tactic that led to my defeat.
- danielbarla 13y ago
jacobkg 13y ago
Any recommendations for a good place to play chess online?
- cven714 13y ago
  chess.com is OK, ICC (chessclub.com) is where its at, but has a subscription fee.
  - hobbes 13y ago
    It depends what you're after. (I have memberships on both) Bear in mind that chess.com regularly has 10 times the number of players online at any one time, so it's much easier to find a game of your desired time controls and ability level. Also, chess.com has much better material and functions to improve your rating for lower and intermediate rated players. For this reason alone I would recommend chess.com to lower ability players (although these features require a premium membership). chessclub.com (ICC) has a greater number of GM's, etc. There are GM's and IM's on chess.com, but not as many as far as I can tell. Finally, chess.com has outstanding "social" features, like teams and forums, etc, trolls notwithstanding. So, I would without hesitation recommend chess.com for learners and intermediate players, and ICC for those who want to play against higher-rated players. I spend most of my time on chess.com and don't intend to extend my ICC membership. UPDATE: chessclub.com: 897 players currently online. chess.com: 22,235 players currently online. There was a time when chess.com didn't exist, and chessclub.com was the place to go. ICC's website now is a dog's breakfast and has been lacking in development for a long time. IMO, ICC had relied too much on the number of GM members at attract players. Chess.com, although more expensive, is a much more vibrant and educational place to be.
    - adamconroy 13y ago
      ICC pissed me off when I let my subscription lapse for 9 months and wouldn't reactivate my account that I had for 15 years. I had ~ 15000 blitz games under my handle and dozens of contacts. All gone and they couldn't care less.
  - skrause 13y ago
tzs 13y ago
Speaking of getting better at chess, someone on Reddit pointed out that Shredder for iPhone/iPod and iPad went on sale at half price ($3.99 [1]) for the world chess championship. There are stronger chess engines for iOS available for free (Stockfish and Smallfish), and Shredder has some interface annoyances (the move list only shows the last couple of moves, making it annoying if you want to jump around while analyzing a game), but its saving grace is that it seems (both from what I've read and what I've experienced after a few games with it) to be better at playing at a lower level. Many engines, when asked to dumb it down to give the human a chance, play like a grandmaster and then suddenly make a dumb sacrifice or ignore an attack on a piece--and then they go back to playing like a grandmaster. That doesn't give the human a good game. It gives the human an ass kicking, then a brief moment of hope, and then teaches the human that even if the engine gives him rook odds or more it will still destroy him. Shredder's lower levels seem to me to actually play pretty much like humans of that level. It keeps track of how you do against it at various levels, and by default automatically adjusts its level based on your performance. [1] the sale is still on. I have no idea how long until the price goes back to $7.99. Also note that unfortunately Shredder for iPhone and Shredder for iPad are separate apps.
- chendry 13y ago
  I wrote a website (http://nextchessmove.com/ http://nextchessmove.com/, GNUChess-backed) and corresponding iPhone app (Stockfish-backed, $0.99, mostly covers website hosting). Both let you drag pieces around "freestyle" and ask the engine for a move. I've gotten absolutely clobbered with traffic lately, presumably tournament-related. I'd love to hear what you all think about the site's applicability to learning the game.
  - xerophtye 13y ago
    That's a pretty cool idea. will check it in my free time. Btw Does it just give ONE next move? or a series of moves until a significant accomplishment? because sometimes a move is only epic because of the subsequent moves it allows you to make. A sacrifice on its own doesn't seem like a good move. Its only when you see what opening that gave you, that you truly appreciate it.
thewarrior 13y ago
Is there something like this for programming ?
- xerophtye 13y ago
  Here, use this: http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html
  - thewarrior 13y ago
    Well I have read that article. I do understand that true mastery can take a lifetime. The posted article gives specific chess exercises which when practiced for 3 - 5 months can produce a marked improvement. I was asking whether there any such exercises for programming.
    - minopret 13y ago
      I enjoy ProjectEuler.net and I would put it in that category. Within the first few months I was motivated to learn a number of excellent Python performance tips. I can't guess whether you find math puzzles as compelling as I do, but [the popular article about Project Euler in The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/06/how-i-failed-failed-and-finally-succeeded-at-learning-how-to-code/239855/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/06/how-i-fa...) suggests that you don't have to have a history of enjoying math.
    - xerophtye 13y ago
      What about those "Learn code the hard way" tutorials? anyone tried em?
      - clavalle 13y ago
        They are as good as you could hope for a guided tour. They get your feet wet and let you get your bearings. But there is still a large gap between having knowledge of a language and performing synthesis with one. It would be interesting to have a tutorial series for those that get past the syntax stage. I could imagine being given a small problem and asked to craft a solution. Your entry could be graded, perhaps by humans, perhaps by machine analysis -- it shows how you could improve and some of the top level solutions and what make them better. If you don't meet a certain threshold, you are given another problem of the same level, rinse and repeat, until you are truly solving problems with the language of choice at a level and style that is comparable to your top rated peers. Seems like a hard problem, but not impossible.
spot 13y ago
why study chess when you can play go? The rules of go are so elegant, organic and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe they almost certainly play go. -Lasker
- grimgrin 13y ago
  Today I decided to learn about Go. I knew nothing prior. I read a few chapters of Chikun's "Go: A Complete Guide to the Game." I really like how he goes back and forth between introducing a game mechanic, and then some historical element. The chapters look like: http://i.imgur.com/qcnWUng.png http://i.imgur.com/qcnWUng.png I even went so far as to watch the first couple episodes of Hikaru no Go, which is honestly really awesome.
- sanskritabelt 13y ago
  why do either when you can go outside and get some fresh air, maybe talk to a cute girl and/or guy.
ibagrak 13y ago
Good chess player - sign of a great mind. Great chess player - sign of a wasted mind.
- V-2 13y ago
  Wasted in what sense? What do you consider a better use that could have been made of a great chess player's mind?
  - ibagrak 13y ago
    It's just a saying I heard a long time ago from one of my professors. He probably meant it in the academic sense, i.e. the person could otherwise use that mental energy to do great research.
    - V-2 13y ago
      This point of view is understandable coming from a scientist, but essentially he could've said the same about van Beethoven or Dostoyevsky :) Their works please us - not unlike the greatest chess games - but do they broaden our knowledge? And where lies the value of great research anyway? In its practical appliance? Grigori Perelman's research on the Poincaré conjecture is beyond brilliant, but has it improved our life more than the Immortal Game (Anderssen - Kieseritzky)? Or is there innate value in scientific research, which comes solely from the virtue of being scientific? This approach strikes me as para-religious. Refutation of the Evans gambit is some sort of knowledge as well. It's even peer reviewed :) Of course it's not useful, but, for instance, is knowing what god was worshipped by the Khori-Tumed tribe 1200 years ago (fruit of hard and deep historical research work as it might be) more useful?
Matetricks 13y ago
If anyone's interested in how I studied chess, I wrote a few posts on my blog on chess.com about it: http://www.chess.com/blog/Matetricks http://www.chess.com/blog/Matetricks I became a National Master when I was 13 and I played a lot as a kid.
imahboob 13y ago
never take shortcuts... I especially don't like the computer analysis part for beginners...
k_os 13y ago
Is there any evidence that becoming good at chess improves any mental aspects or is it just a hard game that you can brag about being able to play?
- narag 13y ago
  At least for me, it's more than anything a lot of fun. Honestly I don't care if it improves quatitative aspects of my thinking. There are other ways to do that. But there are a couple of lessons that it keeps reminding me: to be very careful in the order I do things and to keep the ego out when analyzing a situation. Of course, YMMV.
- Scarblac 13y ago
  To become good at chess you need to become good at concentration. That helps in other areas. But there's no specific reason that chess is a good way to train it, it's just a way.
- halfcat 13y ago
  In the short term it has the same benefits as learning to do anything else that's non-trivial (grappling with a new topic, concentrating for longer periods of time, improved self confidence maybe, etc). In other words, the reasons that an elementary school would teach students to play chess. In the longer term, there is evidence of many strong players in history who obsessed over chess and went insane. You can train your brain to do many things, whether it's memorizing 100,000 digits of pi, or becoming one of the best players in the world at a FPS video game by playing 12 hours a day, but it can't be good for your mental health.
karpathy 13y ago
I'm part of this "renewed interested in chess", as I've played competitively when I was in high school but then stopped for several years until I came across this year's championship a few weeks ago. I've tried several things to get back into chess but so far I've gotten the most "bang for the buck" on http://chesstempo.com/ http://chesstempo.com/ , go to Training > Chess Tactics. It's fabulous, it feels very useful and it's even highly addictive. And for chess videos I warmly recommend ChessNetwork on YouTube. Lastly, I found a really nice app on iPad just called "Chess", which lets me squeeze in quick games in-between events and it's optionally computer assisted, which can help find interesting moves.
- V-2 13y ago
  Chessmaster - not that great of an app by itself - shipped with video tutorials by Joshua Waitzkin, now these were truly great
V-2 13y ago
http://youtu.be/46CwTDLkHA8 http://youtu.be/46CwTDLkHA8 - very interesting insights into the aesthetics of chess, by a Scottish grandmaster Jonathan Rowson. I think it's inspiring for every chess player, or even those who don't play (yet). Part II: http://youtu.be/f8ErcUCQoUs http://youtu.be/f8ErcUCQoUs
dfan 13y ago
This is a good set of suggestions for improving in chess that obviously worked well for the author. When I saw how great his results were, though, I suspected that he must have been pretty young during his improvement phase, and sure enough, he was a teenager. Rapid chess improvement, like language acquisition, is a lot easier when you're young. So if you're an adult, don't be too disappointed if this regimen doesn't shoot you up to 1800 in a year. I know many adults who have been playing the game seriously for decades who never got there. (Context: I have been an 1800-rated adult myself who recently got up to 2000 with a lot of hard work.)
- TheSOB88 13y ago
  In addition to the whole thing about young people learning faster, there is also the part where they have much, much more free time and less responsibilities they have to take care of. However... Did your friends do the tactics and analysis? I have a feeling that's what really helped. Brains need repetition so that thought patterns can form habits and more complex neural networks can be developed.
scott_s 13y ago
His rules for chess psychology actually apply to any one-on-one competition, including sports: 1. Don’t ever be afraid of your opponent 2. Fight as hard as you can until the game is over
deleted 13y ago
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nsxwolf 13y ago
Will anyone here besides me admit they've never won a game of chess, ever, not once? Even against some random little kid who only knows how the pieces move, at Thanksgiving? I have this suspicion that some part of my brain is damaged and I'll never be able to play chess. I've made many attempts at learning, but have never improved over randomly moving pieces around the board. Any advice on a resource that will help me at least not embarrass myself, even if I still can't win? "Play more chess" doesn't seem to be the answer. I don't think practice helps if you are practicing poor chess.
- colanderman 13y ago
  Hear, hear. I've instead tried to get better at everything but chess. e.g. playing StarCraft helped me learn basics of strategy that I wholly didn't understand the first 20 years of my life. I've "known" how to "play" chess since I was young, so I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Learning strategy via a different vehicle helped me get past those roadblocks. I haven't played a game of chess in probably 10 years but I know that if I came back to it, I could approach it from a much better informed viewpoint, since now I understand the high-level strategic elements that 7-year-old me didn't realize existed.
  - nsxwolf 13y ago
    I started looking at openings, thinking that if I just started out with a well tested, accepted pre-canned opening, I'd be in a better position to start seeing some strategy. It looked promising at first, but I still get creamed. At least it looks like I might know what I'm doing for the first few moves.
    - LanceH 13y ago
      Except for a few traps, the opening is largely irrelevant to beginners. Study endgames first, you learn how the pieces move. Then study middlegame tactics to see how they work together. Lastly you study openings to get to your preferred middlegame.
  - icoder 13y ago
navan 13y ago
I agree with almost everything in that article. I have been playing chess for 20+ years. During that time I have spent several months at a time seriously spending all the free time to improve my chess. I have read numerous chess books, many of them multiple times. I have an expert level rating (USCF) now. I wish someone has told me to concentrate on tactics before going after openings or strategies. Nowadays for any new beginner once they learn the rules I tell them to practice tactics. Learning positional strategies and all the fancy openings from the books was great. But was useless to improve my results when I was beginning. When I analyzed my games with the help of computer, I found 90% of the games were decided because me or the opponent missed a simple tactic which is just 1 or 2 moves deep. If this is the case in your games you should study tactics until you can find all 1-2 move tactics. It sounds easy. But I have seen a number of class A players miss these simple tactics numerous times. Finally you will understand opening and positional strategies only if you can spot tactics in them. Once you do not find any tactical mistakes in your game you start to play positional chess. You will appreciate making good positional moves when you do not make silly mistakes.
mathattack 13y ago
My impression is that Chess is making a comeback in schools. At least in NYC, many schools have competitive programs. Here are two programs: http://www.nychesskids.com http://www.nychesskids.com and http://www.chessintheschools.org http://www.chessintheschools.org.
mrcactu5 13y ago
I’m going to define “good” as the 90th percentile among the player pool you’re competing against. This is a very interesting definition of "good". Appropriate for Chess, but has interesting ramifications elsewhere.
- ams6110 13y ago
  How so? It's the general standard for an "A" grade in any other subject.
  - mrcactu5 13y ago
    When we hire someone for a job, we want someone who is "good" at what they do. By this logic, we pick someone in the top 10% - a notion which will vary from person to person. Now consider a job market, where employers are looking for candidates. Employers what "good" workers, candidates want "good" jobs. All the activity will be concentrated around the top 10% of each side. The situation will be better or worse depending on correlations among everyone's definition of "good". This has nothing to do with chess, sorry!
vijayr 13y ago
Are there similar ways to improve in other games, like Scrabble for instance? I don't enjoy Chess much, but I enjoy Scrabble - plus it's a good way to learn a new language
halfcat 13y ago
Beyond getting good at chess, fast, if you want to get great at chess, slowly, then GM Rashid Ziatdinov has the instructions you seek. GM Ziatdinov is unique in that he gives the blueprint that he claims will get anyone to master level (2200+) [1], and it's dead simple. It's much of the same: 1. Study tactics a ton [2] 2. Memorize 300 key positions and games 3. Now you are a master His definition of "memorize" is that you understand the key position/game instantly and without thinking, the same way you walk or read your native language. 300 doesn't sound like a lot, but to understand each key position to the depth he advises, we're looking at the 10,000 hour rule for all 300 positions. For comparison, either he or another GM claimed that super-GMs know 1000+ key positions/games, and Magnus Carlsen has said he has memorized 10,000+ games. [1] http://www.amazon.com/GM-RAM-Essential-Grandmaster-Chess-Knowledge/dp/0938650726 http://www.amazon.com/GM-RAM-Essential-Grandmaster-Chess-Kno... [2] He used to have a few thousand tactics problems on his website. He said to do 1-10 quickly until you could get through them without a mistake. He emphasizes quickly, it's about getting new patterns in your brain, not figuring it out on your own. After 1-10 are perfect, do 11-20 until perfect, then 1-20 until perfect, and repeat until you can do all 1-4000 (or however many). At that point he said you will have the tactical ability of a GM.

326 points by gautamnarula 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

For tactics training, I highly recommend "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" (http://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-Combinations/dp/0879801115/ http://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-Combinat...) and "1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate (http://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Checkmate-Chess-lovers-library/dp/0879801107/ http://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Checkmate-Chess-lovers-libra...). Both books are things you can toss in your bag and pick up when you have a spare minute.

tomsthumb 13y ago
chesstempo.com is also quite good for tactics training. Tons of problems (20000+), comments for explanations, thematic tagging, ratings graphs. This is all free. The paid tier lets you construct problem sets from criteria. The list goes on.

peterwwillis 13y ago

> Error establishing a database connection For the love of god people. Please stop requiring a database connection to serve static content.

nathancahill 13y ago
It's running on Wordpress. Do you know of static site generator that is similarly easy to use for non-technical people? I use Jekyll, but when I tried teaching it to someone I realized that the learning curve was too steep and switched them to Wordpress.
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago
  wp-super-cache
  - singlow 13y ago
    yes - this or w3tc - either of them have an enhanced disk cache that keeps the generated html for each page on disk and apache/nginx will bypass php if you have the rewrite rules in place.
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  Existing platforms suck. Some of them have plugins or hacks for this, but mostly it's the fault of the developers for not making their tools more robust. So my comment is partly to blog users, partly to blog developers.
- notacoward 13y ago
  What about http://scriptogr.am/ http://scriptogr.am/ or http://calepin.co/ http://calepin.co/ ? Also, I think the problem is needing a database to serve content, not to generate or store it. Many people would be happy with a system where the database is needed only by the author, generating static pages from the database content and then serving those even if the database is down. I even wrote a bunch of scripts to use Wordpress as a static site generator, before I switched to Pelican. With a little more work I probably could have turned that into a turn-key solution that would still insulate readers from database problems.
milhous 13y ago
Too lazy to move off tumblr, but heard good things about blogofile.

kimonos 13y ago

Wow! Cool! Thanks for sharing!

GraffitiTim 13y ago

This is similar to how I learned and how I teach beginning chess players. Good set of recommendations.

birken 13y ago

And for those that are interested in building their interest in chess in a way that is more entertainment than education, I highly recommend watching "live commentaries", IE chess players playing against other people online while commentating it live. My personal favorite is IM Greg Shahade (aka curtains), who has hundreds of these videos online [1]. There are also a bunch on youtube from other sources, but in my opinion curtains is the most entertaining (he is also quite good, the 49th ranked player in the US). [1]: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-video-search.php?q=curtains+Live+Commentary&s=topic_id http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-video-search.php?q=curtains+...

hsuresh 13y ago
I really like Daniel King's game reviews. You can find them here: http://www.youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess http://www.youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess
grosen 13y ago
IM Jerry who runs Chess Network is my favorite. Check him out if you haven't here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork
ximeng 13y ago
I like Mato Jelic's videos - short and regularly released with his own style.
- izietto 13y ago
  I strongly recommend Mato: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxK1FKAbmj2N-faTWLwNig http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxK1FKAbmj2N-faTWLwNig
kriro 13y ago
Not as exciting as watching the brown trouts swim but close enough.
dfan 13y ago
Greg Shahade's videos are great. I particularly enjoy his solitaire chess games, where he attempts to guess the moves of existing games by great players of the past and present.

EdwigePelagia 13y ago

who is this guy and why should i take him seriously? he doesn't explain why his advice is worth a damn

NathanthePie 13y ago
Well, as you are someone who has found their way onto this forum, I must assume you: 1. Are competent at reading. 2. Have visited, and used, the internet before. Thus, the answer to your question, "Who is this guy" can be found on his WP site under the tab, 'About'. There, it states that he is: 1. Narula is a 19 year old sophomore at the University of Georgia studying Computer Science and Political Science and 2. Gautam has also written a book on chess and a few Android apps.
- EdwigePelagia 13y ago
  When someone asks an obvious question, the interpreter of the question has two paths to choose. (a) Assume the author is very stupid and then tell him the very stupid and obvious answer. (b) Interpret the question as rhetorical. People who take (a) are the type of people who think they're smarter than everyone else, but who are actually, in fact, dumber. Usually they lack empathy, are undersocialized, and probably show on the autism spectrum. People who take (b) are the type of people who correctly interpret the statement. The correct interpretation of my rhetorical question is to read it as a commentary on authority. Is this 1800 rated 19 year old really the proper authority to learn how to play chess? Wouldn't a professional chess teacher with decades of experience and a higher rating than 1800 be the correct authority to instruct us on the best methods to learn chess? Yes. They would be. There are thousands of these teachers. Instead of pushing blogspam by amateurs onto the frontpage, if HN really wants to know how to learn chess, HN should just link one of the dozens of much more reputable books on this topic. As a chess player all I can do is roll my eyes when a 19 year old with an 1800 rating and very few (none?) years of chess teaching experience proclaims himself an expert and gets upvoted for it. It's just absurd.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    > When someone asks an obvious question, the interpreter of the question has two paths to choose. > (a) Assume the author is very stupid and then tell him the very stupid and obvious answer. > (b) Interpret the question as rhetorical. > People who take (a) are the type of people who think they're smarter than everyone else, but who are actually, in fact, dumber. Usually they lack empathy, are undersocialized, and probably show on the autism spectrum. > People who take (b) are the type of people who correctly interpret the statement. It's funny; people have been telling me my whole life that observing when other people ask obvious questions makes me a huge jerk, and I should patiently give them the obvious answers they ask for.

Tloewald 13y ago

Anyone care to provide similarly practical tips for Go?

joe_the_user 13y ago
I'm not good to give quick Go learning tips but I think it's interesting that the general consensus is that Go and Chess quire significantly different "mindsets". Both are games of perfect information but it seems that the greater complexity of Go yields quantitatively different requirements for good play - in Go, people teaching generally talk about having the right attitude, avoid "greed" and similar "fuzzy" criteria.
- e12e 13y ago
  I wonder if it is still the case that Japanese Chess (shogi) is also considered "too hard" for AI. I'm by no means a proficient shogi player -- but found it a refreshing "variant" of chess. The main difference from chess, is that the board is 9x9, and crucially, that you get to play captured pieces. I like the idea of Go, but I'm afraid it's a little too simple for my tastes...
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    If you begin playing Go, you will find that strategic complexity go well beyond most people's ability to calculate so simple mostly applies only to the rules. Anyway, I think games wind-up being hard to program when one is allowed many moves each turn. Go allows hundreds of potential moves and it is not easy to prune the tree or estimate the relative situations. I remember Shogi being described as similarly hard - I think the re-played captured pieces might be what makes the tree explode.
    - e12e 13y ago
      Oh, I absolutely know go is a complex game, I was talking about the "surface simplicity". It does appeal to me, but at the same time it strikes me as being too bare bones to really be enjoyable -- for me. Maybe it's just that I think board games should be played on a proper board, with tactile feel of the pieces -- and I don't know anyone that play go (or shogi, for that matter) where I live. Also the main reason I don't play chess -- I can't really say I enjoy any of these games as computer games/internet games. When a computer is involved, I fell I might as well play something with complex rules that leverages the computer, like Planetside ;-)

wyclif 13y ago

Those are good book recommendations, but I'd add "Pawn Power in Chess" by Hans Kmoch. Reading this book will improve your pawn manipulation and overall game. Excellent illustrations from real games, too. http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Power-Chess-Dover/dp/0486264866/ http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Power-Chess-Dover/dp/0486264866/

tmallen 13y ago

Read Nimzowitsch's "My System": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System Everything you need is in that book. It's not too long, and very readable. It has a very common-sense approach. Look for the 21st century edition at used book stores or your chess club: http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century-Edition/dp/1880673851 http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century-Edition/dp/1880... chesstempo.com is good for practicing tactics between games.

adamconroy 13y ago
Umm. 'My system' is worth reading but only so you have an understanding of what you are unlearning as you get stronger. In this day and age it is a long way from all you need to know, chess is much less dogmatic and more objective. The demands of the position trumps nimzowitsch's rules.

netvarun 13y ago

If you are looking for a systematic learning program, I would like to suggest Artur Yusupov's training program (9 books that gradually increase in difficulty). http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/ http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwi...

Scarblac 13y ago
Truly great books, but not for beginners. If you're ambitious rated 1700 or so, these are the best. Beginners should look at the workbooks from "Chess Steps". Cheap and very good too. After Step 5 you can switch to Yusupov.

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

> "One big mistake is to rely heavily on computers for chess analysis. Computer analysis should be done only after you analyze the game on your own." This isn't correct information anymore, in my opinion. Chess engines have improved tenfold over the last four years (when the author says he stopped playing). The increase in the strength of chess engines has subsequently caused an increase in the "humanity" of chess engines, meaning that, instead of playing bizarre moves that are strong yet incomprehensible to humans, they play principled, sound moves that are strong tactically and strategically. The main thing that you will miss as a sub-2000 player (or ever, really) is tactics, which is exactly where computers excel. A computer will be able to tell you tactics you missed and will allow you to experiment to see how different moves would have improved your game. I agree that you should analyze games with your opponent after the game (and also with stronger players), but keep in mind that, if you're both sub-2000, you'll both miss obvious tactics even as you review the game, which doesn't really improve your chess thought. One last thing: the 400 points in 400 days training comes from the book Rapid Chess Improvement, which I do not recommend for the beginning player (the knight exercise is good, though). In it, Michael De La Maza wastes time blasting Jeremy Silman and the strategic approach to chess games. Some people like the book for the mild drama it started, but the tl;dr is "tactics, tactics, tactics," which pretty much everyone will tell you.

Scarblac 13y ago
The point is that having the missed tactics pointed out to you by the computer doesn't do much to improve your chess. It won't help you find a tactic the next time an opportunity comes up. Whereas analyzing seriously and finding tactics yourself (albeit fewer than the computer will point out), _will_ improve your ability to find them over the board.
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago
  I differ from you in that regard. I learn tactics by seeing them played out. Once I see the pattern, it gets burned into my memory a bit, especially if I missed a tactic that led to my defeat.
danielbarla 13y ago

jacobkg 13y ago

Any recommendations for a good place to play chess online?

cven714 13y ago
chess.com is OK, ICC (chessclub.com) is where its at, but has a subscription fee.
- hobbes 13y ago
  It depends what you're after. (I have memberships on both) Bear in mind that chess.com regularly has 10 times the number of players online at any one time, so it's much easier to find a game of your desired time controls and ability level. Also, chess.com has much better material and functions to improve your rating for lower and intermediate rated players. For this reason alone I would recommend chess.com to lower ability players (although these features require a premium membership). chessclub.com (ICC) has a greater number of GM's, etc. There are GM's and IM's on chess.com, but not as many as far as I can tell. Finally, chess.com has outstanding "social" features, like teams and forums, etc, trolls notwithstanding. So, I would without hesitation recommend chess.com for learners and intermediate players, and ICC for those who want to play against higher-rated players. I spend most of my time on chess.com and don't intend to extend my ICC membership. UPDATE: chessclub.com: 897 players currently online. chess.com: 22,235 players currently online. There was a time when chess.com didn't exist, and chessclub.com was the place to go. ICC's website now is a dog's breakfast and has been lacking in development for a long time. IMO, ICC had relied too much on the number of GM members at attract players. Chess.com, although more expensive, is a much more vibrant and educational place to be.
  - adamconroy 13y ago
    ICC pissed me off when I let my subscription lapse for 9 months and wouldn't reactivate my account that I had for 15 years. I had ~ 15000 blitz games under my handle and dozens of contacts. All gone and they couldn't care less.
- skrause 13y ago

tzs 13y ago

Speaking of getting better at chess, someone on Reddit pointed out that Shredder for iPhone/iPod and iPad went on sale at half price ($3.99 [1]) for the world chess championship. There are stronger chess engines for iOS available for free (Stockfish and Smallfish), and Shredder has some interface annoyances (the move list only shows the last couple of moves, making it annoying if you want to jump around while analyzing a game), but its saving grace is that it seems (both from what I've read and what I've experienced after a few games with it) to be better at playing at a lower level. Many engines, when asked to dumb it down to give the human a chance, play like a grandmaster and then suddenly make a dumb sacrifice or ignore an attack on a piece--and then they go back to playing like a grandmaster. That doesn't give the human a good game. It gives the human an ass kicking, then a brief moment of hope, and then teaches the human that even if the engine gives him rook odds or more it will still destroy him. Shredder's lower levels seem to me to actually play pretty much like humans of that level. It keeps track of how you do against it at various levels, and by default automatically adjusts its level based on your performance. [1] the sale is still on. I have no idea how long until the price goes back to $7.99. Also note that unfortunately Shredder for iPhone and Shredder for iPad are separate apps.

chendry 13y ago
I wrote a website (http://nextchessmove.com/ http://nextchessmove.com/, GNUChess-backed) and corresponding iPhone app (Stockfish-backed, $0.99, mostly covers website hosting). Both let you drag pieces around "freestyle" and ask the engine for a move. I've gotten absolutely clobbered with traffic lately, presumably tournament-related. I'd love to hear what you all think about the site's applicability to learning the game.
- xerophtye 13y ago
  That's a pretty cool idea. will check it in my free time. Btw Does it just give ONE next move? or a series of moves until a significant accomplishment? because sometimes a move is only epic because of the subsequent moves it allows you to make. A sacrifice on its own doesn't seem like a good move. Its only when you see what opening that gave you, that you truly appreciate it.

thewarrior 13y ago

Is there something like this for programming ?

xerophtye 13y ago
Here, use this: http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html
- thewarrior 13y ago
  Well I have read that article. I do understand that true mastery can take a lifetime. The posted article gives specific chess exercises which when practiced for 3 - 5 months can produce a marked improvement. I was asking whether there any such exercises for programming.
  - minopret 13y ago
    I enjoy ProjectEuler.net and I would put it in that category. Within the first few months I was motivated to learn a number of excellent Python performance tips. I can't guess whether you find math puzzles as compelling as I do, but [the popular article about Project Euler in The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/06/how-i-failed-failed-and-finally-succeeded-at-learning-how-to-code/239855/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/06/how-i-fa...) suggests that you don't have to have a history of enjoying math.
  - xerophtye 13y ago
    What about those "Learn code the hard way" tutorials? anyone tried em?
    - clavalle 13y ago
      They are as good as you could hope for a guided tour. They get your feet wet and let you get your bearings. But there is still a large gap between having knowledge of a language and performing synthesis with one. It would be interesting to have a tutorial series for those that get past the syntax stage. I could imagine being given a small problem and asked to craft a solution. Your entry could be graded, perhaps by humans, perhaps by machine analysis -- it shows how you could improve and some of the top level solutions and what make them better. If you don't meet a certain threshold, you are given another problem of the same level, rinse and repeat, until you are truly solving problems with the language of choice at a level and style that is comparable to your top rated peers. Seems like a hard problem, but not impossible.

spot 13y ago

why study chess when you can play go? The rules of go are so elegant, organic and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe they almost certainly play go. -Lasker

grimgrin 13y ago
Today I decided to learn about Go. I knew nothing prior. I read a few chapters of Chikun's "Go: A Complete Guide to the Game." I really like how he goes back and forth between introducing a game mechanic, and then some historical element. The chapters look like: http://i.imgur.com/qcnWUng.png http://i.imgur.com/qcnWUng.png I even went so far as to watch the first couple episodes of Hikaru no Go, which is honestly really awesome.
sanskritabelt 13y ago
why do either when you can go outside and get some fresh air, maybe talk to a cute girl and/or guy.

ibagrak 13y ago

Good chess player - sign of a great mind. Great chess player - sign of a wasted mind.

V-2 13y ago
Wasted in what sense? What do you consider a better use that could have been made of a great chess player's mind?
- ibagrak 13y ago
  It's just a saying I heard a long time ago from one of my professors. He probably meant it in the academic sense, i.e. the person could otherwise use that mental energy to do great research.
  - V-2 13y ago
    This point of view is understandable coming from a scientist, but essentially he could've said the same about van Beethoven or Dostoyevsky :) Their works please us - not unlike the greatest chess games - but do they broaden our knowledge? And where lies the value of great research anyway? In its practical appliance? Grigori Perelman's research on the Poincaré conjecture is beyond brilliant, but has it improved our life more than the Immortal Game (Anderssen - Kieseritzky)? Or is there innate value in scientific research, which comes solely from the virtue of being scientific? This approach strikes me as para-religious. Refutation of the Evans gambit is some sort of knowledge as well. It's even peer reviewed :) Of course it's not useful, but, for instance, is knowing what god was worshipped by the Khori-Tumed tribe 1200 years ago (fruit of hard and deep historical research work as it might be) more useful?

Matetricks 13y ago

If anyone's interested in how I studied chess, I wrote a few posts on my blog on chess.com about it: http://www.chess.com/blog/Matetricks http://www.chess.com/blog/Matetricks I became a National Master when I was 13 and I played a lot as a kid.

imahboob 13y ago

never take shortcuts... I especially don't like the computer analysis part for beginners...

k_os 13y ago

Is there any evidence that becoming good at chess improves any mental aspects or is it just a hard game that you can brag about being able to play?

narag 13y ago
At least for me, it's more than anything a lot of fun. Honestly I don't care if it improves quatitative aspects of my thinking. There are other ways to do that. But there are a couple of lessons that it keeps reminding me: to be very careful in the order I do things and to keep the ego out when analyzing a situation. Of course, YMMV.
Scarblac 13y ago
To become good at chess you need to become good at concentration. That helps in other areas. But there's no specific reason that chess is a good way to train it, it's just a way.
halfcat 13y ago
In the short term it has the same benefits as learning to do anything else that's non-trivial (grappling with a new topic, concentrating for longer periods of time, improved self confidence maybe, etc). In other words, the reasons that an elementary school would teach students to play chess. In the longer term, there is evidence of many strong players in history who obsessed over chess and went insane. You can train your brain to do many things, whether it's memorizing 100,000 digits of pi, or becoming one of the best players in the world at a FPS video game by playing 12 hours a day, but it can't be good for your mental health.

karpathy 13y ago

I'm part of this "renewed interested in chess", as I've played competitively when I was in high school but then stopped for several years until I came across this year's championship a few weeks ago. I've tried several things to get back into chess but so far I've gotten the most "bang for the buck" on http://chesstempo.com/ http://chesstempo.com/ , go to Training > Chess Tactics. It's fabulous, it feels very useful and it's even highly addictive. And for chess videos I warmly recommend ChessNetwork on YouTube. Lastly, I found a really nice app on iPad just called "Chess", which lets me squeeze in quick games in-between events and it's optionally computer assisted, which can help find interesting moves.

V-2 13y ago
Chessmaster - not that great of an app by itself - shipped with video tutorials by Joshua Waitzkin, now these were truly great

V-2 13y ago

http://youtu.be/46CwTDLkHA8 http://youtu.be/46CwTDLkHA8 - very interesting insights into the aesthetics of chess, by a Scottish grandmaster Jonathan Rowson. I think it's inspiring for every chess player, or even those who don't play (yet). Part II: http://youtu.be/f8ErcUCQoUs http://youtu.be/f8ErcUCQoUs

dfan 13y ago

This is a good set of suggestions for improving in chess that obviously worked well for the author. When I saw how great his results were, though, I suspected that he must have been pretty young during his improvement phase, and sure enough, he was a teenager. Rapid chess improvement, like language acquisition, is a lot easier when you're young. So if you're an adult, don't be too disappointed if this regimen doesn't shoot you up to 1800 in a year. I know many adults who have been playing the game seriously for decades who never got there. (Context: I have been an 1800-rated adult myself who recently got up to 2000 with a lot of hard work.)

TheSOB88 13y ago
In addition to the whole thing about young people learning faster, there is also the part where they have much, much more free time and less responsibilities they have to take care of. However... Did your friends do the tactics and analysis? I have a feeling that's what really helped. Brains need repetition so that thought patterns can form habits and more complex neural networks can be developed.

scott_s 13y ago

His rules for chess psychology actually apply to any one-on-one competition, including sports: 1. Don’t ever be afraid of your opponent 2. Fight as hard as you can until the game is over

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nsxwolf 13y ago

Will anyone here besides me admit they've never won a game of chess, ever, not once? Even against some random little kid who only knows how the pieces move, at Thanksgiving? I have this suspicion that some part of my brain is damaged and I'll never be able to play chess. I've made many attempts at learning, but have never improved over randomly moving pieces around the board. Any advice on a resource that will help me at least not embarrass myself, even if I still can't win? "Play more chess" doesn't seem to be the answer. I don't think practice helps if you are practicing poor chess.

colanderman 13y ago
Hear, hear. I've instead tried to get better at everything but chess. e.g. playing StarCraft helped me learn basics of strategy that I wholly didn't understand the first 20 years of my life. I've "known" how to "play" chess since I was young, so I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Learning strategy via a different vehicle helped me get past those roadblocks. I haven't played a game of chess in probably 10 years but I know that if I came back to it, I could approach it from a much better informed viewpoint, since now I understand the high-level strategic elements that 7-year-old me didn't realize existed.
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  I started looking at openings, thinking that if I just started out with a well tested, accepted pre-canned opening, I'd be in a better position to start seeing some strategy. It looked promising at first, but I still get creamed. At least it looks like I might know what I'm doing for the first few moves.
  - LanceH 13y ago
    Except for a few traps, the opening is largely irrelevant to beginners. Study endgames first, you learn how the pieces move. Then study middlegame tactics to see how they work together. Lastly you study openings to get to your preferred middlegame.
- icoder 13y ago

navan 13y ago

I agree with almost everything in that article. I have been playing chess for 20+ years. During that time I have spent several months at a time seriously spending all the free time to improve my chess. I have read numerous chess books, many of them multiple times. I have an expert level rating (USCF) now. I wish someone has told me to concentrate on tactics before going after openings or strategies. Nowadays for any new beginner once they learn the rules I tell them to practice tactics. Learning positional strategies and all the fancy openings from the books was great. But was useless to improve my results when I was beginning. When I analyzed my games with the help of computer, I found 90% of the games were decided because me or the opponent missed a simple tactic which is just 1 or 2 moves deep. If this is the case in your games you should study tactics until you can find all 1-2 move tactics. It sounds easy. But I have seen a number of class A players miss these simple tactics numerous times. Finally you will understand opening and positional strategies only if you can spot tactics in them. Once you do not find any tactical mistakes in your game you start to play positional chess. You will appreciate making good positional moves when you do not make silly mistakes.

mathattack 13y ago

My impression is that Chess is making a comeback in schools. At least in NYC, many schools have competitive programs. Here are two programs: http://www.nychesskids.com http://www.nychesskids.com and http://www.chessintheschools.org http://www.chessintheschools.org.

mrcactu5 13y ago

I’m going to define “good” as the 90th percentile among the player pool you’re competing against. This is a very interesting definition of "good". Appropriate for Chess, but has interesting ramifications elsewhere.

ams6110 13y ago
How so? It's the general standard for an "A" grade in any other subject.
- mrcactu5 13y ago
  When we hire someone for a job, we want someone who is "good" at what they do. By this logic, we pick someone in the top 10% - a notion which will vary from person to person. Now consider a job market, where employers are looking for candidates. Employers what "good" workers, candidates want "good" jobs. All the activity will be concentrated around the top 10% of each side. The situation will be better or worse depending on correlations among everyone's definition of "good". This has nothing to do with chess, sorry!

vijayr 13y ago

Are there similar ways to improve in other games, like Scrabble for instance? I don't enjoy Chess much, but I enjoy Scrabble - plus it's a good way to learn a new language

halfcat 13y ago

Beyond getting good at chess, fast, if you want to get great at chess, slowly, then GM Rashid Ziatdinov has the instructions you seek. GM Ziatdinov is unique in that he gives the blueprint that he claims will get anyone to master level (2200+) [1], and it's dead simple. It's much of the same: 1. Study tactics a ton [2] 2. Memorize 300 key positions and games 3. Now you are a master His definition of "memorize" is that you understand the key position/game instantly and without thinking, the same way you walk or read your native language. 300 doesn't sound like a lot, but to understand each key position to the depth he advises, we're looking at the 10,000 hour rule for all 300 positions. For comparison, either he or another GM claimed that super-GMs know 1000+ key positions/games, and Magnus Carlsen has said he has memorized 10,000+ games. [1] http://www.amazon.com/GM-RAM-Essential-Grandmaster-Chess-Knowledge/dp/0938650726 http://www.amazon.com/GM-RAM-Essential-Grandmaster-Chess-Kno... [2] He used to have a few thousand tactics problems on his website. He said to do 1-10 quickly until you could get through them without a mistake. He emphasizes quickly, it's about getting new patterns in your brain, not figuring it out on your own. After 1-10 are perfect, do 11-20 until perfect, then 1-20 until perfect, and repeat until you can do all 1-4000 (or however many). At that point he said you will have the tactical ability of a GM.