Time for improvement

[greenmatt]

Dear all,

Enjoying the site, despite my utterly appalling scores so far. I was wondering - how long do people find that it takes to start getting decent 'board tactical vision', and climbing up the ratings? I'm happy to wait a few weeks, or even a few months, for this to happen....but if I'm still stuck around the 1200s in 2009, I might start to despair!

Matt

[sourire]

Dear all,

Enjoying the site, despite my utterly appalling scores so far. I was wondering - how long do people find that it takes to start getting decent 'board tactical vision', and climbing up the ratings? I'm happy to wait a few weeks, or even a few months, for this to happen....but if I'm still stuck around the 1200s in 2009, I might start to despair!

Matt

Hi Matt,

To answer your question- I see no reason why you cannot improve to 1400, 1500 or more by the end of the year if you set up a practical study plan.

It looks to me like you're blitzing out standard rating problems. I would spend more time on each problem and do less problems overall.

I also wonder if you are going back to understand all of the problems you've missed?You didn't ask for such advice, but I give it anyway!

Last, consider long and hard about getting a premium account. Why?

Because in some areas you are scoring hundreds of points higher than your rating while in others you are performing hundreds of points lower.

I hope that helps.  Do a search for Drahacikfm and read some of his posts also.

[uri blass]

Dear all,

Enjoying the site, despite my utterly appalling scores so far. I was wondering - how long do people find that it takes to start getting decent 'board tactical vision', and climbing up the ratings? I'm happy to wait a few weeks, or even a few months, for this to happen....but if I'm still stuck around the 1200s in 2009, I might start to despair!

Matt

I looked at your failures.
You do not need to wait a few weeks to improve.

I believe that you can improve your rating by at least 100 elo after solving 100 additional problems if before moving you try to look at every piece in the board(both of you and the opponent) and ask yourself what are the legal moves of it and the legal captures of it.

Uri

[greenmatt]

Thanks guys...most interesting. I shall try to reign in my speed impulses.

Matt

[andreacoda]

Never despair! If there is desire, there is room for improvement!
Indeed, as others said, look for Drahacik (Fide Master) post, plenty of tips in most of them!
Good luck!
Andrea

[drahacikfm]

greenmatt it's easy to improve if you do these things:

1) For now only do Standard.  No Blitz.  Your goal is to get the problems right, not to do them fast.

2) Take your time.  Don't make a move until you really think it's the best move and after you considered several other moves too.  Before making your move, ask yourself if your opponent can check you, or take anything.  You have to look at all those kinds of moves by the opponent and think what the position will look like after your answer to each of those moves!  If you want to guess after 5 minutes, ok.  Some people don't have the patience to spend longer on one problem.

3) When the problem first appears, take time to count up the material.  Are you down a piece?  Down a pawn?  Is it equal?  Is his King exposed and do you have checks or sacrifices against his King?  Is he threatening anything big against you, which means you can't make some quiet move, you better do a check or take something.  Does he have any unprotected pieces?  Lots of combinations happen because the opponent has an unprotected piece.  After asking all those questions, then start thinking about what move you will make.

4) After you get a problem correct, don't go to the next problem immediately.  First look at the problem you just did, and ask yourself WHY you had a combination?  Did you have more active pieces?  Did you have a lead in development?  Was his King exposed? Asking those questions will help you to know what kind of positions to aim for when you play a real game.

5) After you get a problem wrong, study why your move was wrong.  What move could your opponent make after your wrong move?  Then study the correct moves that are given to the right of the board after you finish a problem.  Play through them and try to understand why they work.


A silver or gold membership helps a lot for improvement.  The best benefits are you get the computer analysis of the 4 best moves for you in every position in the problem.  And you can do special problems sets, such as all the Mate in 1, then all the Mate in 2.  Or you can do all the problems rated under 1000, to get a lot of practice with simple tactics.  Then you can work up to harder tactics, doing all under 1100, etc.