How to Stay Sane While Studying Chess
These days, learning chess as a beginner or improver can seem rather frustrating!
Bulbous books and monstrously sized Chessable courses are overwhelming…
An engine is a tap away to tell you how crap every one of your moves was…
Chess.com hurls large-sized question marks at you, a percentage grade that reminds you of your grades at school, and, worst of all, a thumbnail akin to Danny Wrench giving patronising advice…
Here are some ideas:
Openings…
If you’re shy of 1500 ELO, trying to remember 30-move lines of theory in a super-sharp opening motor-mouthed by Anish Giri isn’t going to be easy – in fact, maybe even if you’re 2000…!
You might want to consider system-based openings or openings with calmer but relatively simple development plans – examples include The Italian Game, The Spanish (but go easy on the theory), The London System, The Caro-Kann, The Queen’s Gambit Declined, or The French Defence.
Chessable…
Consider the ‘Starting Out’ or ‘Keep it Simple’ courses. Chessable is meant to be a learning platform but some of the encyclopaedias trotted out by super-GMs are completely indigestible perhaps to anyone below FM level.
Conversely, some of the best courses on the platform are by FMs and WFMs Certain authors are just better at communicating the ideas to a broader audience, as opposed to merely commentating on the engine’s best lines.
Highly regarded authors on the platform include Kamil Plichta, Christof Sielecki, Andras Toth, Alex Banzea, and Gawain Jones – but there are many good ones. The number of courses angled at ‘beginner’ has increased significantly in the past year or so, and there are courses geared towards tactical patterns and endgames, not just openings.
Engines…
Stop using it! Almost everyone is rubbish compared with modern-day engines so it’s hardly good for morale to keep using it. Also, practically, the evaluations are misleading – because they’re based on calculated lines where each side plays perfectly, every game, which just doesn’t happen in real life.
Play through your games after you’ve played them… Play them out on one of our analysis nights and gain human input instead. You can’t think like an engine, but learning how other people think is possible.
Regarding your openings, play through ‘model games’, or master-level games. Here, the purpose is to get a feel with where the pieces tend to move within the openings you play. This will educate you on the pawn structure(s) involved in your opening, and which squares are best for your pieces to develop to. Focus on the opening and early middlegame.
Finally….
Chess isn’t decided by the first mistake. Work on tactical patterns and puzzles, as well as endgame fundamentals; these will improve your results and are additional, interesting aspects of the game.
John