Don't get too excited about your possible rating gain, guys.

I've read somewhere (chesscafe or Watson's book reviews) that that
guys was unemployed for a year when he worked on his tactics. That's
how he had all that time to study--just look at the recommendation
near the end where you go through all 1000 problems in one day!

It's my assertion that if you had a year off and dedicated yourself to
chess tactics study, you will go up, hmmmm, about 400 points in 400
days.

I also think if you had a year off and dedicated yourself to chess
endgame study, you will go up perhaps even more than 400 points in 400
days.

Heck, if you had a year off and dedicated yourself to chess openings,
you will probably go up at least 100 points.

Terry wrote:
400 Points in 400 Days. That would make me a GM.
Sounds like a load of ********.

The 400 points in question were from 1200ish to 1600ish, I think. It's
obviously much easier to get those 400 points than the next 400 and the
next 400 after that.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Natural Unholy Newspaper (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a daily broadsheet but it's also
a crime against nature and completely
natural!

Yeh Right wrote:
...
Stefak
If you have the 2 part web article I really don't think that you need
to purchase the book.
Regards,
Yeh

Oh, I got it. Thanks for this suggestion. I can see that article is very
much instructive. Possibly enough for the beginning.
Regards,
Stefek

"Stefek Borkowski" wrote in message
...
Yeh Right wrote:
...
Stefak
If you have the 2 part web article I really don't think that you need
to purchase the book.
Regards,
Yeh

Oh, I got it. Thanks for this suggestion. I can see that article is very
much instructive. Possibly enough for the beginning.
Regards,
Stefek


Stefak,
Yeh Right is right. The book is just a slightly expanded version of the
article, with "filler" material.
Bob

What took me from a 1600 to an 1800 player was several things. First I
could become better, and I know what it takes to do that, but life, my job,
kids, and other responsibilities come first. In my own life, I am satisfied
with my playing ability, but dream of being able to put everything in my
life outside of chess on hold, and spend my every waking hour in chess
study. That is what I did to go from 1600 to 1800. I started buying books,
took the game much more seriously, studied, played players much stronger
than me, played against computers, but took notes. I also played like this,
I would write down my move, and then see what the computer did. If it was
the same, I knew I had done well, but if it was something completely
different, I would stop right there, and start trying to figure out why.

Chess is just like many of the forms of the martial arts, Kung-Fu, Karate,
and so forth. Many can learn the basic moves, move beyond the white belt,
and do ok, but to become a master, takes full dedication of your entire
life, complete focus, practice, practice, practice, hard work, study, and
competing in tournaments. The ability to study and learn from your
mistakes. The final requirement is often the toughest to obtain, you need a
teacher and mentor. Yes there are a few natural players out there who
taught themselves, but like all things, you need to find yourself a good
teacher or join a very active chess club, and study everybody, and make
friends with the higher players.

Also give your mind rest, take a day or so off from chess, and let things
soak in. Refresh yourself, and come back. One of the things that Kaspy
does, and is famouse for is his very intense study and prep before a big
match. To get better you must obtain understanding of tactics, positional
strengths, not only openings, but middle game EOC study, and end game EOC
study.

Kaspy when he played X3D was so booked, that he commented that during one
game he was able to almost relax 12 or so moves cause he knew exactly what
to do, and what the machine was going to do as well. In spite of X3D
having megs of won games and so forth in its EOC, Kaspy did as well, and
many times players at that level win not from coming up with a better move,
but simply recognizing a move sequence from a won game. Polgar is legendary
for beating people with classic old school moves from the past. So let me
close with this, and wish you much luck, and a friendly game some day if we
should ever meet.

Please Take this best example for instance on what being booked and ready
can do, play this game out, and your eyes will be wide with amazement. You
just gotta love Polgar!!! Here is the classic Lasker played perfectly by
Polgar.

Enjoy!!

Oh is this ever a classic example of how important knowing the classic old
school moves can win a game for a lesser rated player when playing even a
former world champ!!

(1) Polgar,J (2722) - Karpov,A (2693) [C42]
Essent Hoogeveen NED (1), 12.10.2003

1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nf6
3.Nxe5 d6
4.Nf3 Nxe4
5.d4 d5
6.Bd3 Be7
7.0-0 Nc6
8.c4 Nb4
9.Be2 0-0
10.a3 Nc6
11.cxd5 Qxd5
12.Nc3 Nxc3
13.bxc3 Qd6
14.Rb1 b6
15.Re1 Be6
16.Bd3 Rae8
17.Rb5 Na5
18.Rbe5 Nc6
19.R5e2 Bd7
20.d5 Na5
21.Ne5 Bf6
22.Bf4 Bxe5
23.Bxe5 Qxa3
24.Re3 Qc5
25.Bxh7+!!!! Kxh7 -Karpov has no idea, and grabs the bishop.
26.Qh5+ -Karpov recongnizes he's been had by the Lasker & Judith and
resignes!!

Well played by Polgar!!!!!!!






"Stefek Borkowski" wrote in message
...
Hello,
My chess rating is 1800. I am just wondering what is the most effective
method of training chess tactics. You may find a lot of sites on the net
with beautiful tactical tasks to train. I try to use them as much as
possible. But it seems to be a pain to browse the web and look for it
constantly. I would like to build my own tactical positions database with
the help of Fritz8 and use its training module to randomly choose the
positions with tactical shots to find. This is of course a big work. Does
such an approach make any sense? Maybe there are some tactical positions
already gathered into such databases - are they free or not, and where to be
found? BTW what is your training method of sharpening the tactical sense?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Kind regards from Poland,
Stefek

Hello folks,

If you like tactic collections in cbh format you might check this
link:

http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/c/tactic.htm

My favourite is t.zip 3500 positions from real games ranked in
difficulty. It is free. Enjoy

Ingo

On 19 Jan 2004 14:55:38 +0000 (GMT), David Richerby
wrote:

Terry wrote:
400 Points in 400 Days. That would make me a GM.
Sounds like a load of ********.

The 400 points in question were from 1200ish to 1600ish, I think. It's
obviously much easier to get those 400 points than the next 400 and the
next 400 after that.


According to the USCF rating supplements he was rated 1321 in 10/99
and 1756 in 10/00. He also kept improving until he won the under
2000 section at the World Open (I think in 2001). His rating in 10/01
was 2041. Since his rating has not changed since then I assume that
he has not played an tated OTB game since then.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Natural Unholy Newspaper (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a daily broadsheet but it's also
a crime against nature and completely
natural!

Mike Ogush

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 16:51:34 +0100, "Stefek Borkowski"
wrote:

Hello,
My chess rating is 1800. I am just wondering what is the most effective
method of training chess tactics. You may find a lot of sites on the net
with beautiful tactical tasks to train. I try to use them as much as
possible. But it seems to be a pain to browse the web and look for it
constantly. I would like to build my own tactical positions database with
the help of Fritz8 and use its training module to randomly choose the
positions with tactical shots to find. This is of course a big work. Does
such an approach make any sense? Maybe there are some tactical positions
already gathered into such databases - are they free or not, and where to be
found? BTW what is your training method of sharpening the tactical sense?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Kind regards from Poland,
Stefek


Stefak,

Other replies deal with the value in studying tactics and the approach
of Michael de la Maza, so I will deal with your other questions. Yes,
you can build a database of tactical training exercises using Fritz8.
A good location for a tactical problems in chessbase format is G.
Ossimitz's tactics collections:
http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/c/tactic.htm. You can find over
10,000 problems in the databases there. However, there may be
duplicates, composed positions (instead of ones occuring in actual
games.) and the degree of difficulty is not known.

Also, you can find quite a number of databases for tactics books at
the DB Books site: http://www.gambitchess.com/semi/db1.htm. There is
one catch: most of the books are password protected and to get the
password for all the books you need to contribute a database for some
book not already in the collection. See the site for details.

You can also try googling for "chess tactics problems download PGN |
CBH" and find some other problem sets.

Other replies have mention CT-ART from Convektat which has 1200
positions from games, which are organizaed by difficulty and by
tactical theme.

Another piece of software that may interest you: Chess Flashcard
Trainer, which selects problems from a PGN file of positions. The
major plus is that the software scores the difficulty of each problem
by Elo rating.

Mike Ogush
USCF 1961

Mike Ogush wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
The 400 points in question were from 1200ish to 1600ish, I think. It's
obviously much easier to get those 400 points than the next 400 and the
next 400 after that.

According to the USCF rating supplements he was rated 1321 in 10/99
and 1756 in 10/00. He also kept improving until he won the under
2000 section at the World Open (I think in 2001). His rating in 10/01
was 2041.

Oh, OK, so getting the next 300 is just as easy as getting the first
400. :-)


Dave.

--
David Richerby Homicidal Tool (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ screwdriver but it wants to kill you!