How do you study?

and what?

It's been awhile since we've had one of these threads so I thought I would kick it off...

First off, I do 10 tactics from CT-Art daily.

Wednesday I go to club and play at least one SD/30 game or longer which I analyze with my opponent immediately after. I spend the rest of the time shooting the breeze and playing blitz.

Monday and Friday, I analyze one annotated master game while trying to predict the winners moves.

Originally posted by zebano
and what?

It's been awhile since we've had one of these threads so I thought I would kick it off...

First off, I do 10 tactics from CT-Art daily.

Wednesday I go to club and play at least one SD/30 game or longer which I analyze with my opponent immediately after. I spend the rest of the time shooting the breeze and playing blitz.

Monday and Friday, I analyze one annotated master game while trying to predict the winners moves.

I do a few things. One, I have a load of PDF files with tactics problems, from mate in one to mate in 7,8,9. I work through those every other night (I just don't have the time for every night). I will also find a masters game online, print it out, and replay it. I do two things 1) try to figure out the next move and 2) try to understand they why behind the real move. I use variations of "concentric circles" drills, you can google de la maza concentric circles about those. I will change up the pieces, add two or three, or a pawn here or there and work them out. I also have a handful of books and I will read sections of them. Another thing I like to do is just set up a board randomly and play both sides.

i read loads of chess, find out i know nothing stop reading for a while play some games and have some success. when i start losing again or something kicks me in the butt to read again i do so. i don't study when i don't feel like it because it will burn me out. i go through stages of huge game loads then stages with small game loads and i study.

Interesting how the real strong players never answer to such threads. Instead we lowly "thousand somethings" talk about our -probably faulty and useless- ways of learning all the time 🙁

Originally posted by anthias
Interesting how the real strong players never answer to such threads. Instead we lowly "thousand somethings" talk about our -probably faulty and useless- ways of learning all the time 🙁

I've said before and I'll say it again:

Do tactic puzzles daily - Combination ones are the best. And play some longer time control games and go over them.

After that whatever you prefer. I prefer chess books, dvd/video lectures.

I would read a ton of chess books. All the books I read is listed in my blog, but I recall reading 8 chess books, 200+ page ones over 1 summer.

Used to spend 3+ hours studying chess daily for 2 years. That didn't include playing chess. With playing chess I would have to say 5+ hours a day on chess.

I do fine without "studying."
I basically just look through this forum sometimes and check things out...I use the Illuminati clan, sometimes I play a 30/30 blitz game... and I really analyze my games here, which helps a bunch.

Heck, I haven't even played chess for a year, and I'm 1700 here, 1500 OTB...so I suppose that I'm doing enough studying...

I play chess on here very seriously. I've actually spent 3 hours on a single move (I consider that a lot, maybe some others don't). I kinda subscribe to the theory that chess skill is like the two other things I do regularly (play tennis and sprint)... if you play at your best your best gets better. If you just goof off you don't get far.

In terms of actual study, I look over the games of Korch and Weyerstrauss and Akizy every once in a while and try to understand (often by looking back) why they made the moves they did. I do the same with masters games on www.chessgames.com.

In addition, I play OTB chess for about 20 minutes each day, whether it be online or with friends.

Originally posted by anthias
Interesting how the real strong players never answer to such threads. Instead we lowly "thousand somethings" talk about our -probably faulty and useless- ways of learning all the time 🙁

Originally posted by Patzergrl
they need your credit card number first before answering that

Originally posted by anthias
Interesting how the real strong players never answer to such threads. Instead we lowly "thousand somethings" talk about our -probably faulty and useless- ways of learning all the time 🙁

I dont study (apart from solving puzzles on CTS now and then to maintain my super-high level of tactical knowledge). I play blitz. And you can, yes...YOU, can do it too. It is the best way to improve if you do it right way.

Originally posted by Jusuh
I dont study (apart from solving puzzles on CTS now and then to maintain my super-high level of tactical knowledge). I play blitz. And you can, yes...YOU, can do it too. It is the best way to improve if you do it right way.

Originally posted by wormwood
click open the 'player tables' page. count the number of 2000+ players. then count the 1000-1999 players. take a second to think about how many active posters there are on the chess only forum. 50? certainly less than 100. how many of those 1000-1999's post in this thread?

then do the math.