Chess-teacher.com
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grandmaster Igor
Smirnov
Igor Smirnov is a chess Grandmaster, coach, and holder of a Masters
degree in psychology.
Hes the founder of the Remote Chess Academy company that has
helped thousands of students worldwide to improve their results.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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CHAPTER ONE
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First off, a word of warning: this lesson is NOT for everybody! Instead of
giving you answers, Ill keep asking you questions. This isnt some passive
reading stuff. Youll need to keep THINKING all the timeSounds
frightening?
Does chess help you in your common life? Does it develop your mental
skills?
Im pretty sure your non-chess playing friends are asking you these
questions quite often. Perhaps you were thinking about it yourself too.
Its really important to answer that question. Think about it if its just for
having fun and killing time, then perhaps its not worth going through years
of training to get better at it.
BUT if its MORE than that, if it indeed develops your mental and
psychological skills, then you can be confident that all of the time you spent
training and playing chess isnt wasted.
(1) YES Chess helps improve our mental skills the same skills that we
use in everyday life. That said, it should also help us succeed in other
facets of life as well.
(2) NO There are no REAL interactions between chess and other facets of
life. Think about it: will knowing certain lines of the Sicilian Defense help
you in, say, managing your workforce? Well, if the million-dollar
question in a quiz show youre in is chess related, then maybe it could
help. BUT how remote is that?!
These 2 answers seems the most natural, but they are mutually exclusive.
Why this happened?
Let me give you an analogy. By the way, Socrates told it about 2500 years
ago.
How do you understand people as a whole? This is too huge and difficult of
a task. Instead you can understand yourself, which should lead to a better
understanding of people in general since you are a typical representative of
the latter. Deeply knowing yourself will lead to knowing everybody else
around you.
In the same way, we can use chess (model) to understand general rules (in
life).
Thus these are 2 main benefits that chess can give you in common life:
Chess develops your mental skills. Chess gives you deep strategic
understanding. Both of which are VALUABLE in everyday living and decision
making.
Thats why I strongly believe that chess players should be WISE personalities!
All in all, chess players should have a habit of THINKING. This should make
them modern philosophers, successful in chess as well as in any other
area!
This brings us to the final question: Why this usually doesnt happen in
reality? Please, think about it.
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In the first part of this lesson we were talking about a positive influence of
chess on you:
If that sounds logical, then why is it that MOST chess players cant seem to
apply their trained mental skills in reality? Read on!
Tyler Durden: Its a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and
me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-
gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: Consumers?
Thats it! Thats the reason why! We are so accustomed to and reliant on
ready-made solutions, that we forget to think independently.
If you are unsure about something in chess, then what do you do?
Maybe you are thinking: Oh thank you Captain Obvious. You just saved the
day by stating whats so apparent.
Ive had a lot of different pupils. When Ive just started to train someone, I
often was shocked about how MANY obvious mistakes he/she made. By the
way, lots of those obvious mistakes were suggested by their previous
coaches.
Ill mention only a few examples (otherwise this lesson will be endless ).
Chess player spend quite a lot of time getting his openings in shape.
While analyzing his/her games, I see that the evaluation of a position
changes many times during 1 game. That said, the final result has no
relation with his position after an opening!
The conclusion suggests itself: openings are not very important for this
player now; he should eliminate his more significant weaknesses first.
Why didnt he/she understand it by himself?
Chess player wants to change his results. At the same time he/she does
NOT want to change his way of training/thinking/playing. Isnt it obvious
that the 1st thing is a consequence of the 2nd one?
Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting different results. Perhaps its about time we cure
ourselves of that insanity and change the way we approach chess training?
Such mistakes look obvious (especially after I explained them ). BUT then
why do people keep making them? Please, think about it.
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In this lesson I would like to discuss an important aspect of chess, which can
determine ones success or failure in a game. I believe strongly that this will
have a great impact on your chess development.
Let me explain. Chess players often wonder why cant I make any
progress? Lets think about this question. It has great practical value.
This seems obvious, however you should ask yourself: Am I REALLY ready
for change? Am I ready to change my opening repertoire? Am I ready to
change my playing style? What about my thinking habits?
If you honestly answer Yes!, then there is a good chance you have what it
takes to succeed in chess!
Lets go forward. The next logical question is: what exactly should you
change? Of course you should change your weaknesses. You will work on
them and it will bring you the progress you desire.
Now it is time for you to ask yourself Am I really objective? I know that you
will all answer
Let me give you some examples of personal bias in chess. Please, read
carefully, just to ensure that these statements dont describes you
1) Chess players often try to find an excuse of their loss. It usually goes
something like this:
Today I didnt feel well.
I had a winning position, but lost my concentration and played
carelessly.
This list can go on and these factors can have an influence on a chess
player. Let me tell you something though.
I know a lot of titled players, who take part in tournaments not only to
get prizes and to make chess progress, they also go to have a good
time! And they do! These players then show up the next morning for
chessand their condition is well, not so good They almost didnt
sleep and woke up with a hangover. Of course this is not the best
example of a sport routine. HOWEVER, they still find a way to win!
When I ask such person about his rating, he usually answers: It is not
so high now, but I stop reading right after the word but.
Your rating is the most objective indicator of your skill. All other
evaluations of your skills are just your dreams.
Creativity in Chess
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Creativity in Chess
Do you remember Paretos principle? 80% of your efforts bring you 20%
of results. You can spend a lot of time on chess and get a very little
progress. Unfortunately it happens with most of chess players.
At the same time you have a great alternative: you can focus on those
20% of your efforts, which bring you 80% of results. Therefore your
progress will be huge and fast.
Here we come to the 3rd item: How to make your future training
(progress) more effective than it was previously? It is the key point
for your future success/failure. Therefore lets talk about it in more
details.
It is a great mistake to try to find your own way. Ill give you more
specific example. Lets say you want to create a good opening repertoire.
What do you do in such a situation? You start thinking about it (you
start testing different openings and so).
Thats why you do NOT need to think. You need to imitate successful
experience.
Ive told you about an opening repertoire, but the same idea is right for
all other stuff as well.
I can tell you that 95% of players have very similar problems. Therefore
most of your problems in chess are very typical. A lot of players have
experienced these problems; and some of them have found the
solutions!
You dont need to make all the mistakes by yourself. Ill continue the
example with an opening repertoire. Look at the top players. They all
play the same opening lines; while every weak player has his own,
unique, losing openings
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I gained 237 points since starting your course in August. Thank you!!
Michel.
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The result is Melvin won gold in the u/20 team. Breyton won silver in
the u/18 team. It was the South African Junior Chess Championships. It
is a prestiges national event for juniors in South Africa. This is the first
time our children from Greenpoint won medals at the SAJCC.
It was always a dream of mine that we win medals at SAJCC. Can I take
this opportunity of thanking you for sharing your knowledge with us,
without you it would not be possible to have achieved all this success.
Loyd.
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Very often, we see the following situation: a player plays a good game,
gets an advantage, but then appears in a time trouble! Under the time
pressure, he makes an annoying mistake and even loses in the end!
In most cases, a chess player THINKS only during the first few minutes
after the opponent makes his move. After that, he starts to check the
SAME variations again and again. Not contented, he starts to worry
about the consequences, and try to find 100% ideal move, and the cycle
goes on and on.
Guess what? This cycle doesnt help at all! This only creates chaos in
his head and totally mixes things up. Finally, after going through the
same variations, worrying about the consequences, and vainly searching
for the perfect move, he does something ridiculous and you should
know what happens next.
What to do?
Oftentimes, you will find yourself in a situation where you have 2 or 3 logical
moves and theres no way you can calculate the lines until the end or come to a
certain conclusion.
What to do?
Use your intuition! This means you should choose a move, which came to your
mind FIRST (which seemed good for you at first sight on a position) and then do
only the needed calculation to verify that the move is tactically good. This is a very
powerful advice! Check it in your practice, and youll see that it works great!
Even the greatest players like Karpov follow this advice! The former
World Champion, when faced with a branching point in one of his
games, go for the sound, normal, and generally good move the one
that requires the least amount of calculation.
He didnt win ALL of his games, BUT he won MOST of them. Heck! He is
a former World Champion. Youd do great by following his footsteps.
Before getting into the fourth advise, let me tell you one little story.
He answered: Yes, I was thinking about your courses since the last
month, but couldnt decide which one to start with!
I could not hold the smile and laugh a bit. Its not surprising that he has
a time trouble in chess, isnt it? He thought about one simple decision
during more than a month!!!
ANY decision moves you forward! If your decision was wrong, then
you will know that this thing does not work. You learn something from
it, and its going to be useful in the future. Then you will start finding
another solution and you will always keep going forward!
On the other hand, the one who doesnt make a decision (or postpone
it) will be stuck on his current place. Hell have no progress whatsoever!
That person who goes forward (who makes a decision and learns from
it), will easily outrun him!
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When you study the chess material (book, video etc) for the 1st time, you
familiarize yourself with new ideas. You are far away from a real
understanding still! You cant understand something deeply until you have
PRACTICED it for some time.
3. Study the material again. This time, you will understand the material much
better and will notice some new useful ideas. Also, you will find the answers
to your questions (from the 2nd item).
Some of the previous moves may look strange. However, this is a popular
variation and has been played many times by strong Grandmasters. I guess
this is the reason why the Black player decided to implement it.
Now lets pass the opening stage and come to the position where opening
theory ends.
Maybe you think that your chess training is serious enough. Then I can tell
you one thing. I receive quite a lot of questions about my training courses.
95% of these questions were answered in the course already! However,
people overlooked it, because they did NOT study the material SERIOUSLY.
===========================
Hello Igor,
I hope everything is well with you. I really enjoy your Breaking Stereotypes
series. I was happy to see the first one about playing h3, I had asked a
question about it during your recent survey.
I am now going through the 300-spurt stage of your self-taught GM course.
I was a 1300 player for 10 years and now reached 1600 in about 6 months.
My next goal is 1800.
Kind regards,
Michel
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I recommend that you repeat my past lessons (from paid courses or from
this blog). Pay attention to the topics from your problem areas. Perhaps you
have seen these lessons already. Nevertheless, I strongly recommend that
you study them again! It will be useful for sure.
Stages Of Improvement
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Stages Of Improvement
This is especially important for those who train rather on their own
chess players who live in a small city; dont have a chess coach or a lot
of chess friends, etc.
If this is true for you, sometimes you may feel confused. Your chess
progress isnt as great as you hoped for and there are many bumps and
difficulties along the way.
As a chess coach, Ive observed many players progress. I can tell you
that, while you may be unique as an individual and chess player, your
problems are not.
Stage 1: Beginner
You are just a beginner and you are excited about the game. You start
reading tutorial materials, playing games with friends, etc.
At this point, you face some stronger folks, who always give you a spanking.
At this stage people usually start creating some kind of training plans (split
the training to opening/middlegame/endgame study, learn strategy and
tactics).
All in all your training becomes more solid and systematized. This leads to
rather solid progress its not fast but its sure (GRADUALLY).
You play quite a lot of moves rather intuitively (based on rules and what
you understand), but sometimes, it doesnt pan out well.
You already know a lot of rules and principles about chess, but rather
than help, it makes your thinking random (not well systematized).
These two problems lead to unstable results. Sometimes you can enjoy
winning against a significantly stronger player; but on off-days you suffer
from annoying losses.
You can get a dominating position, but have problems with a realization
of your advantage.
Sometimes you make annoying blunders, which spoil a well-played
game.
While facing stronger players, you feel that they play in tougher style.
They exhaust ALL possibilities, they start pressuring you right from the
opening etc.
First, let me bring up some good news: you are not alone!
Most players out there experience similar problems. So dont worry: theres
nothing wrong with you. Quite the contrary, this is a very typical situation.
At this point, you need to make your game TOUGHER and more DYNAMIC.
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First, your goals should be realistic. For example, you may expect 10
points augmentation of your rating per every tournament. Therefore you
may calculate how many tournaments you need to play to gain 100
rating points.
Then you may calculate how many tournaments you play per year
(based on your past experience). Finally, you can calculate how long will
it take for you to reach your goal (to gain 100 points).
Your goals should motivate you to work hard! One of the key ideas
concerning a training is any sport is the principle of a high, but
surmountable difficulty.
Thats why your goals should be a bit higher than you expect normally.
They should thrill and inspire you!
Have you set your chess goals for this year already? If no then do it
now! Here Id like to give you another useful advice: make this work in
written.
When you need to write something, you have to formulate it clearly. This will
help you to clarify everything. Also you will save these goals and will refresh
them sometimes during the next year. Finally, writing your goals is like
giving a self-promise! It becomes a document, an obligation.
Here we come to the most interesting part: How to make your future
training (progress) more effective than it was previously?
Probably youve heard about the 80/20 rule (Paretos principle). 20% of
your efforts give you 80% results . An opposite rule is fair as well: 80% of
your efforts bring you only 20% of your results.
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