One Thousand Positions to Chess Mastery: July 2024

7/31/24

Study Tactics Daily! (When Possible)

If you want to become stronger at chess, then studying tactics consistently is the fastest way to do it.

The average 1800-level player has minimal chess knowledge but is strong at tactics.

Chess skill is mostly pattern recognition. The goal is to improve your pattern recognition so that you rarely miss 1, 2, and 3 move tactics. Even if an 1800-level player doesn't see a tactic immediately, his pattern recognition is good enough that he will realize that a position may contain a tactic, so he will look at the position deeper.

Often people get good at tactics by just playing a ton of speed chess, but studying tactics is a more time-efficient way to build your pattern recognition.

Consistency is the key. I recommend 30 minutes per day. I know a couple of people who improved tremendously by studying tactics 60 to 90 minutes per day, but most people don't have that kind of time. Thirty minutes daily is a good goal, but if this is too much, then 15 to 20 minutes per day if done consistently will still improve your tactics.

Over 20 years ago, I spent a year studying the book 300 Most Important Chess Positions for just ten minutes per night at bedtime, along with some other tactics study. After this, I had my best tournament results.

I recommend repeatedly doing the 1, 2, and 3 move tactics on my website. Don't be afraid of repetition, because it builds pattern recognition. With much practice, a 2000-level player should be able to get through all the 1, 2, and 3 white-to-move problems in just 30 minutes.

White to Move.

Black to Move.

These tactics problems, along with the book Sharpen Your Tactics, helped me go from 1800 to 1900.

The books, 300 Most Important Positions and Practical Chess Exercises, along with the 1,000 problems in the Shredder app, which I love and have gone through 20 to 30 times, helped me go from 1900 to 2000.

Thoughts on Getting Better at Chess

Players need to work on tactical pattern recognition and calculation. These are two sides of the same coin. We can't calculate very well unless we can also recognize the patterns on the chessboard.

My personal goal is to be able to either recognize or calculate 3 move tactics while playing speed chess. I think that there is a difference from 1500 to 2000 where the players go from calculating tactics to recognizing more of them instantly. Starting in the mid-1990s, I spent a great deal of time studying tactics and this took me from 1800 to 2000.

Many people claim that speed chess is bad, but I don't agree. It builds pattern recognition and teaches quick calculation, although it depends upon the person. Speed chess can create bad habits and some people just need more time to calculate.

There is this idea called "The Woodpecker Method" and a book by the same name. The method is to study the same set of a thousand tactical problems repeatedly. Each time you do them you will get faster at doing the entire set. Another author, Michael de La Maza, had the same idea in a book called "Rapid Chess Improvement". Before he wrote his book, he first published it as an article, but first, he sent the article to me to ask what I thought of it because I had already created a website advocating a similar idea.

I inadvertently discovered this method when I created my chess lesson website around 1996. The Internet was still very young and there wasn't much chess content so Chess Life magazine gave me an "award" for my site. After I spent months creating the 1, 2, and 3 move problems on my site, I challenged myself to see how long it would take me to go through each set of the white-to-move and black-to-move problems. It took a long time. However, the second and every subsequent pass was faster. I think that a 2000-level player should be able to get through each set of 1, 2, and 3 move problems in 30 minutes, but only after much practice. I have achieved this many times, but now I fall short so I intend to study the problems more.

I've been accused of just memorizing the answers to all my problems and not doing any actual tactical calculation. This is half right. For some problems, I remember the answers, but for others, I just remember the pattern involved and a few I don't remember at all. Even if the accusation were 100% correct, this would not be a bad thing. Chess skill relies on remembering what we have seen before and recognizing those patterns over the board.

Some people improve just by playing a ton of games, and this can work, but I think that it is less effective than studying tactics. Although most people play a great deal, I don't play many games and prefer to spend my time studying chess.

I also have thoughts on what it takes to become a chess master...

In the late 1970s, I studied basic King and Pawn endgames and became proficient at them. In the mid-1990s I studied more complex king and pawn endgames, all of which were from my games, and became skilled at those. I didn't have to memorize these endgames because I understood why the moves were correct. It is easier to retain information if you understand it, but this is harder to apply to other areas of the game like openings. I think that endgames are easy to learn, except the more difficult ones like the bishop and knight mate or the queen versus rook ending.

I have a full course covering King and Pawn Endings on my website.

My point is that I think that it is possible to take one small area of the game and master it. I have done this with King and Pawn Endgames. Chess is not just one skill, but many, so I think that a person could master chess by just focusing on one aspect of the game until they master it, and then move on to studying a different aspect of the game. For example, I think that it is possible to learn a particular opening as well as a master, although this would require much effort.

Online ratings mean very little to me. I can't control how well the anonymous person on the Internet plays or if they are cheating, which many of them do. What matters to me is how well I play. Likewise, losing games at the chess club doesn't phase me. I see losses as an opportunity to learn something. My goal is to always keep learning. Losing a game doesn't mean that I am a bad player, and I have confidence in my chess skill. I have no problem playing and losing to stronger players because my goal is to play the best that I am able regardless of the result.

7/30/24

Practice This Exercise on a Chess Board!

The purpose of this exercise is to practice seeing more quickly where the knight can move. The black pawns never move in this exercise. The goal is to make legal knight moves to take the knight from square a1 to square b1, however with the limitation that the knight can never land on the black pawns or where the pawns can capture. (For example, the pawn on c3 can capture on b2 and d2, making all three squares off-limits to the knight.)

The knight can get to b1 in three moves by moving Nc2, Na3, and then Nb1. The next goal is to get the knight from square b1 to square c1 following the same rules. One of many ways to do that is to play Na3, and then Nc2, Nd4, Nb3, and then finally Nc1.

After that, the goals are to get to d1, e1, f1, g1, h1, h2, f2, c2, a2, a3, b3, d3, etc. until the entire board is reached in this fashion.

A good class A player with practice should be able to do the entire board in less than 3 minutes. For lower-ranked players, this might take much longer, even with practice.

Doing this exercise will actually help you win more games by making you better with your knights.

Sometimes I practice this exercise in my head without a board.