Great post Dan. I think a big part of your success has been your ability to 1) do the work 2) play OTB a lot and 3) tune out the noise and focus on the "blocking and tackling" elements of chess improvement.
It takes a while to come to this realisation, it’s something that you spot when you go over your own games properly and ascertain what was the cause of failure etc. Good stuff!
There's a book I read recently called "The Zugzwang Method" which said something very similar. Essentially it was to get better, you need to play better chess. To play better chess you need to stop making mistakes. Every mistake leaves a near permanent advantage for your opponent due to the zero sum nature of chess. Stop making so many mistakes and you'll stop bleeding ELO.
2. Collect all your most embarrassing/obvious/correctable blunders. Hopefully there are a lot.
3. Figure out what you miss the most often, and be specific. For me, it was things like "What does my opponent's move unblock?" which I now try to check on every move. (against the 2175 in the post, I forgot to do this check, and it would've saved me)
I'm going to do some more posts in the future on this topic.
This reminds me of something Jerry from Chess Network said on stream in like 2012 that stuck with me - after every move, ask yourself "what is the opponent's piece no longer doing?" This can apply to tactics, but it's even more important in positional considerations.
Great advice. My problem (I'm in mid-1200's) is that I can't figure out what I miss the most often. (It's like of 20 guys were running for Prez, and each got 2 votes). Certainly, most of it is tactics, but all varied kinds. And when it's not tactics, it's one of a whole bunch of other things (that we all know): putting pieces on bad squares, ill-advised pawn move, ill-advised piece trade, capturing with the wrong pawn, failure to play a break move, etc. In the words of Roseann Roseannadana (am I dating myself?) "it's always something"
Great post Dan. I think a big part of your success has been your ability to 1) do the work 2) play OTB a lot and 3) tune out the noise and focus on the "blocking and tackling" elements of chess improvement.
Inspiring!
It takes a while to come to this realisation, it’s something that you spot when you go over your own games properly and ascertain what was the cause of failure etc. Good stuff!
There's a book I read recently called "The Zugzwang Method" which said something very similar. Essentially it was to get better, you need to play better chess. To play better chess you need to stop making mistakes. Every mistake leaves a near permanent advantage for your opponent due to the zero sum nature of chess. Stop making so many mistakes and you'll stop bleeding ELO.
What is the proper response to this knowledge? Would practicing tactics reduce blunders? How can one reduce the rate of one’s blundering?
Here's my advice.
1. Play a lot of games
2. Collect all your most embarrassing/obvious/correctable blunders. Hopefully there are a lot.
3. Figure out what you miss the most often, and be specific. For me, it was things like "What does my opponent's move unblock?" which I now try to check on every move. (against the 2175 in the post, I forgot to do this check, and it would've saved me)
I'm going to do some more posts in the future on this topic.
This reminds me of something Jerry from Chess Network said on stream in like 2012 that stuck with me - after every move, ask yourself "what is the opponent's piece no longer doing?" This can apply to tactics, but it's even more important in positional considerations.
Great advice. My problem (I'm in mid-1200's) is that I can't figure out what I miss the most often. (It's like of 20 guys were running for Prez, and each got 2 votes). Certainly, most of it is tactics, but all varied kinds. And when it's not tactics, it's one of a whole bunch of other things (that we all know): putting pieces on bad squares, ill-advised pawn move, ill-advised piece trade, capturing with the wrong pawn, failure to play a break move, etc. In the words of Roseann Roseannadana (am I dating myself?) "it's always something"