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.

Review #1 : Chess Exam and Training Guide

Chess Exam And Training Guide: Rate Yourself And Learn How To Improve (Chess Exams) is great to help you build your training plan.


This book helps you identify your weak areas. The areas tested are :

• Attack
• Counterattack
• Defense
• Openings
• Middlegame
• Endgame
• Tactics
• Strategy
• Calculation
• Standard positions
• Recognizing threats
• Sacrifice

My top 5 free chess resources

• Tactics: The ChessTacticsServer .
                                                                                                           
  
  What I like about CTS is that you don't even have to register to enjoy it!
  You can select the difficulty of the problems you want to solve and you can decide to pause after an incorrect answer, a correct answer or both. The advantages of signing up are that you can keep track of your improvement and of the problems you failed to solve.

If you read only one article about chess training, read this one!

Hard truths and helpful tips to help you build your training program : 15 laws of chess training

My training program

     I finished my last tournament with 4/9 and a performance of 1681. Not too bad (my rating is 1580) but there is a LOT of room for improvement.

     First, I still make a lot of blunders (in 5 games out of 9),so I need to work on my thinking system and on my tactics. I also need to improve my stamina, my blunders happened after the 3rd hour of play and my last 2 games were horrible. Lastly, the positions I got out of the opening were equal at best, so I think I need to create an opening repertoire to stick to.

     This season, I mainly trained with the free material by GM Igor Smirnov (https://www.youtube.com/user/GMIgorSmirnov) and I gained 98 points - from 1497 to 1595 (this includes the last tournament, the rating will be official in September). Smirnov's training method works for me, so I intend to continue with his paid courses.

     My plan for this season is :

Chess improvement : the ideal apprenticeship

    In his book Mastery, Robert Greene divide the first step to mastery in three parts:
⦁    deep observation (the passive mode) : in chess, the study of grandmasters' games
⦁    skill acquisition (the practice mode) : the study of different topics, one at a time (10 topics to master)
⦁    experimentation ( the active mode) : playing games

    According to Greene, the most natural learning process is the apprenticeship of the Middle Ages: mentorship. Apprentices committed to following a master for 7 years. "The apprentices would learn the trade by watching Masters and imitating them as closely as possible."

Get rid of blunders once and for all !

     This is how I got over my 1450-plateau. I used the techniques described here:

  

     They are simple and easy to understand techniques, but their implementation is not automatic. I think that building the habits of asking youself "What is the threat?" after the opponent's move and "what are the forcing replies of my opponent?" before making your move is the most important thing to do for low-rated players. 

     It is taking a lot of time for me to automate the threat detection and the anti-blunder technique. I sometimes forget to use them. I'm an old self-taught player and it doesn't come naturally to me.

But even if I'm still not consistent, I gained almost 150 ELO points.