Tuesday
Jun112013
Aagaard's Training Tips
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 10:09PM
Over on the Quality Chess blog, Jacob Aagaard has written a post titled "Ten ways to improve in chess". There's nothing earth-shatteringly new there, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that the advice is very good, and any non-professional who follows it is bound to improve. (Some professionals might improve from it as well, though I'd imagine most of them already follow most or all of those tips.) I like his 11th tip a lot as well, and I'd emphasize the second option there as most of us choose the first option automatically.
Reader Comments (1)
Dennis, tell me this, if you please: doesn't it make sense that we should play openings and styles contrary to what we really like to play, in order to strengthen our weak points? Must be rather complicated, since nobody is master of everything, and yet we should not be too one-sided either.
[DM: I don't think we should major in unfamiliar openings, but to learn new openings periodically is a very good idea. Build off your strengths, don't discard them.]
Another question..have you anything to add to the list in the link?
[DM: I'd have to think about it for a while, but one bit of good advice, I think, is to look at lots of GM games (primarily serious ones rather than blitz), even fairly quickly, whether or not it has anything to do with one's openings. Watching good chess can be valuable by a sort of "osmosis", and while the benefit is greater if one is analyzing even "speed-reading" can be beneficial, in quantity. Also, somewhat related to analyzing GM games is to go through them with a guess-the-move approach.]
Your decision to focus on what you like in the blog is a good one...no need to report everything, we have enough sites for that. With you we have quality rather than quantity! Great blog.
[DM: Thanks on both counts!]