I've come to the conclusion that tactic books and stuff are okay, but they're not the real way to really learn once you got the common mating patterns and kingside attacking motifs down. What really helps is analyzing openings, middlegames and endgames deeply and then if you don't have a really high level coach turn on the silicon beast to show you what it sees from its eyes.
It reminds me of musics and jazz especially. You need to learn how to rift in chess, and it comes from having a familiar beat (position) to play to. And I honestly think game collection books of masters from the mid 20th century really show you how to play the best since they were analyzing everything without engines.
There are many roads, and that one is what Dan Heisman recommends. He has game collections suggested by rating range and I’ve read a few. My favorite was Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson with Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking by Neil McDonald a close second
As a middle aged dude, there's many roads, but there's some speedier methods. IM Saravanan in his youtube video about his book collection on the ChessBase India channel is the one who clued me in on studying with game collections in particular. I've done tens of thousands of puzzles, and my rating was stagnant for two years. I started to read the game collection of Efim Geller and my rating started to rise after two years. Of course I think puzzles play some roles in keeping tactical eyes fresh, but I don't necessarily think after an elementary education with them that they're the most efficient from my own experience.
And I found patterns while researching the King's Gambit, Modern variation with the Lichess database filtering to my rating level, because I plan on switching from the French to 1.e4-e5 in my quest to get to an expert level online, and wanting to play the Ruy Lopez from both sides. So I am able to study the middle game and endgame deeply rather than doing puzzles and solving exercises of positions I'm unlikely to see.
I honestly think of instead of studying chess like an undergrad student with textbooks, that researching chess more like a grad student is probably the way to go for adults. And I got that idea from reading Lev Alburt, Mikhail Botvinnik and Bent Larsen. In which Alburt and Larsen advocated playing openings that lead to the same positions and mastering those positions (middle games) and endgames, and Botvinnik being the god of openings.
Of the game collections mentioned, which one(s) have relatively more annotation than usual? I prefer a LOT of annotation, and I've looked at game collections before, in which there are 10, 20 moves in a row without annotation, and I end up just getting frustrated at the lack of explanation of why certain moves were made. Even books with the words "Move By Move" in the title have NOT offered games with move-by-move explanations. I guess I'm just stuck at a learning phase at which I need to get inside the head of good players, to adjust my thinking, and if they are assuming I know half of it, I can't really make progress reading about their sparsely annotated games. Anyway, thank y'all for these comments above. Intriguing and helpful and promising.
I've come to the conclusion that tactic books and stuff are okay, but they're not the real way to really learn once you got the common mating patterns and kingside attacking motifs down. What really helps is analyzing openings, middlegames and endgames deeply and then if you don't have a really high level coach turn on the silicon beast to show you what it sees from its eyes.
It reminds me of musics and jazz especially. You need to learn how to rift in chess, and it comes from having a familiar beat (position) to play to. And I honestly think game collection books of masters from the mid 20th century really show you how to play the best since they were analyzing everything without engines.
There are many roads, and that one is what Dan Heisman recommends. He has game collections suggested by rating range and I’ve read a few. My favorite was Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson with Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking by Neil McDonald a close second
As a middle aged dude, there's many roads, but there's some speedier methods. IM Saravanan in his youtube video about his book collection on the ChessBase India channel is the one who clued me in on studying with game collections in particular. I've done tens of thousands of puzzles, and my rating was stagnant for two years. I started to read the game collection of Efim Geller and my rating started to rise after two years. Of course I think puzzles play some roles in keeping tactical eyes fresh, but I don't necessarily think after an elementary education with them that they're the most efficient from my own experience.
And I found patterns while researching the King's Gambit, Modern variation with the Lichess database filtering to my rating level, because I plan on switching from the French to 1.e4-e5 in my quest to get to an expert level online, and wanting to play the Ruy Lopez from both sides. So I am able to study the middle game and endgame deeply rather than doing puzzles and solving exercises of positions I'm unlikely to see.
I honestly think of instead of studying chess like an undergrad student with textbooks, that researching chess more like a grad student is probably the way to go for adults. And I got that idea from reading Lev Alburt, Mikhail Botvinnik and Bent Larsen. In which Alburt and Larsen advocated playing openings that lead to the same positions and mastering those positions (middle games) and endgames, and Botvinnik being the god of openings.
Of the game collections mentioned, which one(s) have relatively more annotation than usual? I prefer a LOT of annotation, and I've looked at game collections before, in which there are 10, 20 moves in a row without annotation, and I end up just getting frustrated at the lack of explanation of why certain moves were made. Even books with the words "Move By Move" in the title have NOT offered games with move-by-move explanations. I guess I'm just stuck at a learning phase at which I need to get inside the head of good players, to adjust my thinking, and if they are assuming I know half of it, I can't really make progress reading about their sparsely annotated games. Anyway, thank y'all for these comments above. Intriguing and helpful and promising.
Hey Audie, I like a lot of explanation too. I can recommend NM Dan Heisman's list of recommended annotated game collection books which can be found here: https://www.danheisman.com/recommended-book-lists.html
Also personally I really enjoyed the books by Neil McDonald
Thank you for this format, I am in a similar position that you were in many years ago. I am a beginner and a practicing physician.
Thanks Doc. I look forward to your article and always find a nugget of knowledge in them.
Thoughtful recommendations. Good advice too. Thanks.