A long think....
Like most of the bloggers I have followed over the last few years most have been searching for the method(s) to improve their chess that do so in the most effecient manner. Before I put a plan together to work out how to improve I decided to read as much on the subject as possible and then try to create a synthesis of the advice. It may of taken a couple of months of reading but I finally feel able to share where I am with it right now.
Firstly, a number of authors (Ziatidinov, Soltis and Wetzell) talk about memorising (or words to that effect) key patterns. Though only Wetzell offered a system to do so (flashcards) the other two seemed to be alluding to the famous card indexes popularised by the Russian school of chess. I'm not really a great fan of generating huge amounts of cards (according to Soltis Laslo Polgar had 200K) the modern equivalent would be to use Anki and its spaced repetition. Blunderprone seems to have gone down this route to and Chess Position Trainer is built around the same idea.
Secondly, analysing your own games is key. Not the way I had in the past but taking this much further and creating flashcards with key ideas I missed. Also, Grivas advocates analysing them in a quantitative manner to see if where your weakenesses are. I'm going to head down this road since I am always looking for further insight into my weaknesses.
Finally that it is going to be a long process which will require more than obsession to get anywhere. Ziatdinov talked about 15 years, so master by 48 in my case...
What I am intending to do is to take alot of what Wetzell said and add it to the process of analysing my own games. To have a Standard Operating Procedure of what I want to do and to follow it for all of the analysis because the truth is I am sure that in the first three games I have played over the board the key errors have all been about things I already know rather than things I don't. Adding more to the information I know isn't going to get me back to where I was; it is down to the absence of a thought process.
Once I have finished the analyses I will post them here to create a record of the journey.
Firstly, a number of authors (Ziatidinov, Soltis and Wetzell) talk about memorising (or words to that effect) key patterns. Though only Wetzell offered a system to do so (flashcards) the other two seemed to be alluding to the famous card indexes popularised by the Russian school of chess. I'm not really a great fan of generating huge amounts of cards (according to Soltis Laslo Polgar had 200K) the modern equivalent would be to use Anki and its spaced repetition. Blunderprone seems to have gone down this route to and Chess Position Trainer is built around the same idea.
Secondly, analysing your own games is key. Not the way I had in the past but taking this much further and creating flashcards with key ideas I missed. Also, Grivas advocates analysing them in a quantitative manner to see if where your weakenesses are. I'm going to head down this road since I am always looking for further insight into my weaknesses.
Finally that it is going to be a long process which will require more than obsession to get anywhere. Ziatdinov talked about 15 years, so master by 48 in my case...
What I am intending to do is to take alot of what Wetzell said and add it to the process of analysing my own games. To have a Standard Operating Procedure of what I want to do and to follow it for all of the analysis because the truth is I am sure that in the first three games I have played over the board the key errors have all been about things I already know rather than things I don't. Adding more to the information I know isn't going to get me back to where I was; it is down to the absence of a thought process.
Once I have finished the analyses I will post them here to create a record of the journey.
With the same method i learn chess puzzles like HTRYC 4 asf.
But it will take me months to tell if it realy helps