The big chess training plan

I recently bought the book Chess Exam and Training Guide and I took the whole test in a day (it was a Sunday). The results were eye-opening!

My biggest weaknesses are tactics, sacrifices, calculation and openings.
My other weaknesses are attack, strategy, middlegame and endgame.
What I call weaknesses are the areas where my estimated rating was lower than my overall rating.

My strengths (where I scored higher than the overall rating) are defense, recognizing threats, standard endgame positions and counterattack.


Because of those results, I decided to change my training plan. I want to focus on my biggest weaknesses first. Here is the big plan :

• Year 1 : Focus on tactics and build an opening repertoire.
• Year 2 : Improve my calculation and work on sacrifices
• Year 3 : Learn to attack and improve my positional understanding
• Year 4 : Focus on the middlegame - especially planning
• Year 5 : Improve my endgame
• Retake the test and work on my biggest weaknesses

I decided to focus on one or two weaknesses a year because I want to deeply learn the topics and transform the weaknesses into strengths. However I won't be studying only these topics, I plan on having fun studying whatever I want some of the time!