jedthehumanoid
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re:Walking through a brick wall - 2006/07/10 21:57
Holy crap. What a question!
I agree with all of the responses so far. Get a coach, an experienced tutor, not just a good player. Or seek another hobby.
It's been my personal experience that you get better in leaps and bounds, not just a little at a time. You hit a plateau, then you play the game, sometimes for months, and then you hit a breakthrough. I'm sure at the higher levels the plateaus can last years, or even a lifetime. But if you're at a "brick wall" then it seems that the brick wall is you do not have the ability to find the weaknesses of your own games. So you seek out and find a tutor.
The difference between a great teacher and a great player is that a great player can tell you exactly what you did wrong. But a great teacher can explain to you why you did these things wrong and help you make an effort to clean up your game.
I took lessons from Dan Heisman for a few months and I learned a HUGE amount. So much that I am still trying to apply all the knowledge. He's a fantastic teacher for a true novice like myself. I think the problem you run into with a lot of GM teachers is that they just don't remember how utterly retarded the novice's mind works. I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but in a literal way. A good analogy might be me trying to teach a
Russian how to speak English. Just because I know how to speak English (barely) doesn't mean I can show someone else. I wouldn't know how to begin.
In any case, one thing that got left out, is you need to be willing to put forth mammoth efforts with no fast results at all. A running theme with a lot of books and some poor teachers is to lure you in with the, "I'll make you a Grandmaster in 6 short months!" approach. I have fallen victim to this method a few times when buying books. Anything or anyone who can promise you a meteoric rise in your chess skills is blowing smoke up your lowest oriface. There is no shortcuts. You must do the work. Or, if you're lucky, you can be a natural.
Anyway, good luck. I don't think there's a chess player alive who has not hit brick wall after brick wall. You must be a novice if you're asking this question! Almost any player with even a low degree of experience will tell you that you're in for a long and sometimes unrewarding process. But if you stick with it you may be surprised in what you learn. Leaps and bounds..
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As soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral.
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