How to work on chess at home, chess improvement

I shall write, between weightlifting and TV, how I work at home, how I’m analyzing the results of past tournaments and how to prepare for the upcoming ones.

So, the next tournament is over, the morning after the closing ceremony is gone, and we are finally home. I believe that in this moment a player is able to work effectively individually: the head is, as it were, “charged”, calculating variants quickly and easily, efficiency is high. All of this is a residual effect of the tournament, but it is short-lived. As for me, in 7-10 days (depending on how difficult the tournament was) comes complete numbness and apathy toward chess, or, as it’s usually said, “overeating” it. Nevertheless, even for a week and a half one can do a huge amount of work. In September 1997, arriving home from Ukraine, I worked on chess 14-16 hours a day for about 2 weeks, and six months later there was huge progress: in three open tournaments in a row I completed an International Master norm and raised my Elo rating from 2370 to 2490.

Working on chess at home

Now let’s move directly to what to do. Undoubtedly, the most important element is analysis of games played. That is known by everyone, but not everyone does it — that is in vain. If you read Botvinnik’s books, the greatest specialist in training in the history of chess, one can see from his comments that he played openings or typical positions based, essentially, only on his own games. Even as world champion, he could repeat a game from an A-category tournament and ignore the latest survey of theorists.

I start the analysis of games played immediately at the tournament, after each round, by inputting them into the computer with brief notes: noting mistakes, covering part of the opening, trying not to forget interesting possibilities that remain behind the curtain. Later, this “rough draft” helps me get started much more easily.

I can also recommend a method of analysis and self-control that I invented myself: after a tournament, evaluate each game (e.g. with a 10-point scale), noting pluses and minuses. For example, the opening was played poorly, variant calculation was not confident at certain moments, but at the same time there was a bold positional solution and competent play in the endgame. Then the results are summarized and the overall level of play is revealed (say, if the average score is 7, that’s OK — anything above is progress), along with the most common strengths and weaknesses. This work is not complex, but when done objectively it can produce valuable conclusions.

So the games were analyzed, defects were found, and you can start to eliminate them. Suppose you had difficulties a couple of times in rook endings with the implementation of superior piece activity. You can take one of the games and spend a lot of time on that part of the endgame, then try to understand similar situations with other positions of pawns or Kings, etc. Step by step, an article about the endgame may emerge. It’s not a shame to spend a few days on this work: first, you can deeply understand this type of endgame, and second, your general understanding of the endgame and your skill will increase.

Let’s talk about how to work with your computer. It can be divided into three components: working with opening databases and games, analysis of positions using chess engines, and educational programs. Let’s start from the beginning.

I won’t teach the reader how to use ChessBase or Chess Assistant — I will explain only my own “kitchen”. I use two programs (CB and CA), but mostly CB, since it’s more convenient for analysis mode.

For work I use a relatively small base of annotated games, such as “all informants”, but I almost never use huge bases, since 90% of them are “garbage” played by A-category chess players in some German league on board 8. For the same reason I lost interest in the “chess tree” of CA long ago — I’m not very interested in what the most popular variant is, since the most popular is not always the strongest. I can define the most interesting move myself. Of course, for an average club player, especially when studying unfamiliar positions, you might want to see the general picture of the opening, and here a “tree” might help.

I already wrote about how to study openings. Once again, let me briefly show one example. Say you need to find a game in some variant. If you start searching by position or index, you could find 200-300 games. How do you work with them? The best way, perhaps, is to see the interpretation of a strong grandmaster with consistently good results. It’s sufficient to view 5-10 games, but it happens that one bright victory makes a great impression and you want to play that way.

While studying a variant, I create special bases for opening lines or add comments to my games.

Hand in hand with this goes the use of computer analysis. At first glance everything is simple: set the position, switch on Fritz or Tiger, and play Minesweeper, occasionally glancing at the results. However, it seems to me that qualified correspondence players don’t do that — they use the computer only in moments when calculation of positions is needed. Most of the work must still be done “by hand”. Perhaps analysis is the least of what a computer can help with, especially for growing chess players.

We turn to the last point: educational programs, such as Chess Tactics Art and Strategy. The “step by step” principle built into them is very good, because it simulates a real game of chess, but not everyone uses it effectively. Perhaps because of psychology, people somehow can’t think for a long time while looking at the monitor, so teaching positions are more often solved “by eye”. One needs the desire to overbear this and work with full concentration, as in a tournament game.

A paramount factor, especially in our time, is physical training. For some unknown reason it receives little attention, especially in chess sections and clubs. Have you ever seen chess school students, with the entire team running a cross or doing pull-ups “instead of” studying? In other sports it’s called PFD, and it’s given at least one session per week.

Clearly, any player who wants to achieve results should work on their physical form and keep it in good shape. It’s impossible to imagine, for example, a tennis player or boxer who only works through strokes and strategy of struggle. Good physical shape helps a chess player withstand stress during the game and gives additional confidence in the tournament overall. Personally, I love weightlifting and table tennis, but I force myself to run until I can’t (although I should do more). The main thing is to engage in it constantly, or at least a couple of weeks before a competition.

In conclusion, I confess that everything described above is the ideal case. Sometimes there is a lack of energy and will for one thing, sometimes for another, and sometimes for everything together. Otherwise I would have been a grandmaster.

IM D. Salinnikov

Published on 26th of January 2010