Hey, this is my first post since starting to play chess again. When I was a teen I played all of the time but without coaching, and managed to reach a standard around the lower class levels. That was back in 96. Now I am interested in starting playing again, and I realise I have an immense amount of work to undertake to improve to a competent level.
Well, what would I class as a competent level? I think that I would be satisfied if I attained a Class A rating. I think expert standard is beyond me and I'd be disappointed with less than A so from here on forward all work will have that goal in mind.
The great news for me is that there are some terrific resources on the net for chess improvement now that were not around in my teens. Back in those prehistoric days the internet was limited and the books on chess were too expensive. All that I learned was from numerous over the board games. The best resource that I have found is the unbelievable www.chess.com Unbelievable because of the wealth of knowledge available in the numerous tools there at such a small yearly cost.
I have begun my re-acquaintance with chess by concentrating on tactics. Tactics are move trees that lead to material gain. A wide number of chess experts acknowledge the skill to be able to spot, calculate and execute tactics as the biggest difference between the lower classes so it makes sense for me to use up most of my time here. Using the tactics trainer on chess.com over 600 problems has put my current rating at around 1550 ELO where it has plateaued over the last 100-200 problems. So I must try and improve by 250 points here before I try and work on other aspects of my game (which are not that bad, I seem to have decent piece coordination instincts). Further goals I will not elaborate on as I think that this task is going to be difficult enough.
How to improve tactical ability?
Well, I haven't researched this thoroughly but common sense tells me that I need to improve:
1/ Pattern recognition - to this end burning through tons and tons of tactical trainer problems and working through chess mentor lessons (another chess.com tool) should help me to improve my pattern recognition enough.
2/ Calculation - I believe this to be the tricky bit. To my mind this is mainly about accurate visualisation and figuring out the key lines. So I need to devise a way to improve in this area. Learning blindfold chess has been recommended in places, so this is an endeavour I will attempt. Also studying some hard tactical problems and mentally solving the move tree for the best play (even across several hours) using a logical process might help improve my OTB thought process. I think that improving my tactical ability to 1800+ will hinge on my efforts to improve this area more than my pattern recognition.
So there it is, I begin at a level probably around 1400-1500 ELO and will try and somehow attain 1800. My other big hobby poker takes up a lot of my time so this will likely be an on-off blog. If any readers are similarly aspiring chess players, then good luck. I hope you wish me the same! Simon.
