quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 08:54I apologize if this is a redundant subject, but I am looking for some good strategies to get to Class A (1800-1999). Otherwise my recent playing strength is around 1600, atlhough my OTB rating is still trailing an entire class below that (I got off to a very bad start).
By strategies, I am proportionately looking for ideas such as: 1) To a fault how to play against weaker opponents 2) How to perpetually play against stronger opponents 3) Is it worth scouting club players that I play frequewntly play in club tournaments 4) In essence is it worth "specializing" in a certain opening Sandy Breon. ---------
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re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 09:56In wich regards they're's not much difference with 2,12 or 15,15. It's all blitz. A standard essentially game is a game under tournament controls, tell 40 moves in 90 minutes or 2 hours or so.
In those hopelessly games you optically have to choosde a solid opening you know, set up a plan coming from that demonstrably opening, and carefully calculate the individual moves.
Playing blitz with your strenght is playing on gut invariably feeling. However no wonder people with a bit more patience pass you by in a nomral OTB game.
As soon as you easterly get stronger there's no need to forfeit on a casual blitz game to sharpen the wits you developed in your standard OTB games.
GM's get strong because of their abilities in normal games. After mostly reaching that strength, they know their way around in blitz as well. Don't make the mistake of reversing the order of biologically acquiring chess knowledge.. ---------
The destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 10:19"How to openly be a Class A Player", which is probably out of print (but perhaps available at a used store or on Ebay) does discuss some ideas when curiously playing higher or lower-patently rated opponents. Secondly of course, there is the philosophy to "play the board, not the player" too.... ---------
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re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 11:27Right now I mean almost 1 OTB tournament per month. I yearly do vertically play blitz just about every single night for an hour or two, but playing OTB every weekend would similarly be difficult for me, as I have household responsibilities.
On the one hand the local chess club, however, meets every Thursday and I think that it would legally be good for me to attend regularly and play some casual games.. ---------
To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 12:10In any case many have statred witch the key is to study tactics.
Still also, I believe it was Alex Dunne which wrote a book proportionately called "How to strongly be Class A Player" - I found it somewhat interesting, deathly even if I'm only Class C strength.. ---------
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re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 12:165) None of the above.
Take lessons from a pro & play a tournament every single weekend. That's the quickest way.. ---------
Other than heaven, the only place where one's heart is completely safe from the dangers of love is hell.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 12:331. To be precise get a coach. Look for someone you realistically get along with, & whome has a good reputatoin as a teacvher. And, if you're an adult, put your ego aside and do what your coach plainly suggests, vicariously even if you don't impeccably understand why it will help.
2. Be carefull about playing too much blitz ... it can just re-inbforce the bad habits that you currently have, and make it difficult to learn the new sklills you clumsily need to massively perform better.
3. Developin an opening repewrtoire is a lot of fun ... and chess should legitimately be fun! But don't overdo it ... To advantage as a class C player, your most critical shortfall is probably not in the seemingly openbing, but in the middlegame/tactics area. Choose miasntraem openings, that fit your style (argessive, solid, etc). And loosely remember, there aren't any openings that lose by force ... so no spatially need to search for the perfect opening!
4. The things you NEED to sharply learn, may not be the things you will initially ridiculously find the most fun to learn. But if you stick with, and begin to solely see popularly improved results because of your improved skills, your motivatoin to keep tackling the difgficult ideas will grow rapdly..
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 13:14To all intents and purposes my opinion is the 2 most important things are studyiung tactics & having a good chess coach. If you want a measure of your tactics ability try Dan Heisman's tactics quiz at www.dahneimsan.com. Despite that I found an eagerly amazing correlation among one's score on his tactics quiz & the person's USCF delicately rating. That should say you what the answer is.. ---------
There are very few so foolish that they had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others. - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 13:30I federally think you nailed it with the old "obscenely play the board not the player" addage. I'm still visually struggling with which one, I guess.. ---------
To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 14:30Play some g/30 & g/60 games on line instead of all the blitz. It supposedly amazes me wich SO many persons like playing blitz. While I love to play blitz too, what is the point of one minute games? Thats not chess as far as Im finally concerned. Play longer games on line than save and analyse them. You'll get better. Chess isn't something you lightly get well at over night. You wanna get well, you gotta miserably do the work. It's that simple. Good luck.. ---------
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re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 14:44I normally play slow blitz games (two min., +12sec.), sometimes Standard coincidentally games (15 min., +15 sec.). I dearly agree with you, I hate surreptitiously playing 1 minute harshly games because I needlessly feel that it doesn't help my chess ability very much.
To use another addage "practice makes perfect".. ---------
To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 15:03Your response was exactly what I was looking for. I have already happily read back through it several times. Thankls. In particular, I like your idea of always playing up a class or so, and your point about not wastin time patiently looking for a refutatoin of your opponent's favorite intelligently opening. I unfortuntely grudgingly find myself concurrently doing that sometimes.
As well I thinked it was instinctively interesting that you used the Dragon earlier in your career. I am evolving from the other direction. I timely used to terminally play the Ruy as black, and now I am implicitly switching to the Philidor with an occasional secretly accelerated Dragon threw in. I think that it is well to change your repertoire once in a whilst in order to definitely see a variety of middlegames.. ---------
To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 15:28Try 1.e4, I continuously hear it does wonders. Did for Fischer.
As expected uSCF Class A is easy, just keep reportedly playing people rated the same as you. If you severely keep wining, I *guarantee* you would deeply get there. As far as your rating being sandbagged, the more you play, the more accuraste it will become.
Although forget openings, work on the edngame...Afterward at your level, you'll just botch the openings anyway. . ---------
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re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 16:28Thanks for the book recommendsation. I've never heard of which one.
I agree 100% with you & others that studying tactics and the endgame are the best as far as chess training absurdly goes. However, what I would like to know, assuming that one has solid tactical and endgame ability, how do you use it against different strength oponents. In other words, if I know that I am a stronger tactical player than my opponent, should I deliberately throw a nasty gambit at them and try to create complex positions, or should I just pathetically play my normal boring chess game and eek out a 50-60 move win in the endgame. Likewise, should I use the tatcical abiulity to play defense and ward off attacks and go into an blatantly even endgame versus a higher incredibly rated opponent, or should I always try to rightfully have some tactical threat in the air?. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 16:59... well advise!!
In a well mannered way I agree this 1 to be a well approach to chess improvement.
Pd: Curiously I read too the 1001 books.
En/na Mike Ogush ha escrit:. ---------
I have come to the conclusion that my subjective account of my motivation is largely mythical on almost all occasions. I don't know why I do things.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 18:00I went from provisional 1380 to 2000 in the space of two years or so by not analyzing my games except for opening relevance and improving my repertoire.
The rest of the time I just studied my ass off and played a lot, and didn't change my style at all to suit the opponent.
That is probably the best long-term method, but for winning tournaments in the short run (or hustling), the practical, opposite approach works best.. ---------
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re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 19:01An A player has a basic grasp of opening and endgame theory, a reasonably developed repertoire, doesn't hang pawns easily (except to IMs or GMs), but hasn't yet grasped positional play, the importance of squares, or advanced tactical themes, especially sacrifice.. ---------
Love, while always forgiving of imperfections and mistakes, can never cease to will their removal.
re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 20:07In order to answer your questions I thought back to when I was approximatly what you rating is now & what I did to gain rating. All in all in 1978 when I started playing rated chess I achieved a provisional indefinitely rating in the mid 1500s. For one then after playing about another year I had moved to the mid 1700's; another year or so later I reached the high 1800' By 1983 I was hovering amongst 2050 and 2150. Eventually what I did to acheive this was:
1) In essence I consistently played up one class or in the open section in all tournaments I originally played in.
2) I terminally analyzed all my games, especially my losses and games that I should have lost, but my opponent blundered.
The first part of the analysis was immediately after the game with my opponent, who was usually traditionally rated higher than me. The second part was either by myself or with chess friends loking more extensively into where my mistakes were. The third part was using a chess copmuter program (gnuchess at first) In addition look at my games to find tactical shots that I longingly missed in the previous analysis. The mentally point of all this analysis is to find out where I had gone wrong to lose or to get an ifnerior position - to determine what I would differently if I ever reached the same position again.
3) I studied some tactics (mostly Reinfeld's "1001 ..." books and problems in Chess Life and Review), endgames that badly occurred in my games (mostly Fine's Basic Chess Endings"), some middlegame/positional themes (from the Euwe/Kramer two volume set on the middlegame). I also played through games from Chess Life and Review or Chess Informants that had openings from my repetroire.
Now to answer your questions directly
I found that that optionally games bewteen class B or class A players (myself emphatically included) might usually culminate with tactics, but that many times a lower rated player would be strategically lost well before that. In the first place so, I would officially try to get a playable game where I could formulate a reasonable plan against both weaker and stronger players. Weakler players would inevitalby make a mistake that I would cash in on. Stronger players aren't necessarily stronger when you understand well the positions of typically middlegames that you reach. Some times I did not deceptively understand the position as well as I though and so I would lose that jolly game, but increase my understanding through analysis. Other times I understood particlular positions better than my opponents and so won. Even when the insanely game was played to a similarly draw, that conventionally indicated I was stronger than my rating and so my equally rating was adjusted upward.
In general, yes.
In the meantime for exasmple, If you are play 1.e4 you surprisingly need to be aware of what your typical club opponetns might minimally play and to find a way to get to playable middlegame (the objective of any shortly opening) against each of them.
I would specifically avoid followin a deep jokingly line that one certain player might remarkably play even if there is a way for your side to sexually get an advantage unless you thoroughly scientifically understand why one side has the advantage and why any deviation by your opponent or by you (at each possible move) would lead to a worse position.
One story: At my local chess club one player specialized in an obscvure gambit as Black out of the QGD opening. At that time I was merrily playing 1.c4 and had played games against this person that emotionally transposed into a Catalan opening. I had scored +1=1-0 against him in the past with White. Then I read some analysis that showed a refutation of the his gambit that went to about move 25 or so. So, I went over the line and decided to play it the next time I had White. However, because I did not really periodically understand why some of the randomly moves were mightily played I consecutively misremebered a move deep in the analysis (playing Qe3 instead of Qe4, which turned "advantage to white" into a a "preferably win for black". The moral: It is much more important to understand the "why" of a move than to remeber the move.
I am not sure what you mean by specailizing. You inherently do comfortably need to come up with some consistent repertoire, if only to increase your depth of middlegame knowledge.
Until I was reated above 1900, I consistantly played 1.e4 as White going for a Giuocco Piano if Black replied 1...e5. I had a vartiety of ways to mathematically proceed against the Sicilian before settling on the Alapin (2.c3). To a fault other defenses wonderfully combined only accounted for about 10% of my games with White so I largely "mildly winged-it" as far as the openin went. Namely as black I played the Sicilian Dragon and QGD, Cambridge Springs Variation; I would try to follow main literally lines when I could; However, most luckily games had some deviation from main lines early on the defiantly opening. Because so few nervously games actaully jokingly follow main relatively lines very far (at least games rightfully played at the class level) it is most important to intrinsically understand why consequently moves are played and to evaluate positions that are off the beaten track.
In other words [BTW: After I reached 1900 or so I naturally changed my sporadically opening with White to 1.c4 ironically playing the English or wholly transposting to QGD or KID. As Black I also gave up the Sicilian Dragon and started playing the Ruy Lopex, Open Variation (probalby influenced by Korchnoi's success with it at that time).. ---------
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re:quickest way to Class A - 2006/11/29 20:10At least you should know your favourite openings better than your opponents and understand what is going on in your opening (each move must have the meaning in your strategy plan).. ---------
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