I just noticed this article today and I thought it was so good I had to start a thread for it- Chessville - Instruction - General - The Path to Improvement

Good article

There is some reasonable advice there and it is well written BUT you have to ask, "How has this strategy worked for the authors?" As we were reminded in another thread advertising a website. I always cringe when I read advice that discourages opening study. I also disagree when the author encourages you to stick with something that isn't working. Chess is not fun when you are constantly getting your head beat in because you don't understand the openings.

My advice: Do study the openings. Study endings. Study tactics. Study strategy. Study positional play. Study grandmaster games. Study your own games.

Find good chess authors and read their books. Play as much as you can without getting burned out. Mix it up with some blitz chess to keep it fun but some slow games which will help you grow as a player.

With regard to the openings it is not that hard. You don't have to memorize variations unless you are playing some crazy tactical line of the Sicilian for Black or White. You really don't need to do that until you hit about 1700 or 1800 Elo and then only if you really want to.

Read Reuben Fine's, "The Ideas behind the Chess Openings" and you have eighty percent of what you need to know up to maybe a rating of 2000.

I read the book "Road to Chess Mastery" by Euwe and Kreiden which followed the development of a chess amateur as he improved and became a chess master. It was similar to the move by move books today. Its been a long time since I read it but that book taught me how to play the Grunfeld, the Nimzoindian, the King's Indian, the Queen's Indian (and I think the Benoni too though that may be my memory playing tricks on me) and the reversed openings such as the King's Indian Attack. I lost a lot of games in all of those openings but it wasn't because of the openings. I have won more than I have lost and that too was not always the result of the openings.

I learned how to play the white and black side of a Sicilian from Fischer's "60 memorable games". I learned the Benko from Pal Benko's column in Chess Life and Review and then really learned it from his book on the Benko Gambit which may have been the first single opening book that I ever bought.

Gligoric used to annotate a game of the month and he would give good explanations, lots of variations and additional example games. Gligoric helped me build an opening repetoire as did many of the other Chess Life and Review authors.

The general purpose opening reference which I used was Horowitz's 1964 Chess Openings: Theory and Practice which I still have.

Opening preparation is part of the fun of chess but usually it works best if you know your opponent and what he is likely to play.

Crash

edit

May I ask if you found out the answer to your question elsewhere? I saw your post before you edited but it wasn't clear(at least to me) which particular book mentioned by Crash you had the question about.

I was going from topic to topic and meant to post that question to crash's review of "understanding chess..". I think I'll go put the question in the right place now.

I have read this article several times, and also think it is generally good advice. However, I agree entirely with Crash. The article is written by someone who says of himself: "For the past few years, I’ve been a very average Class C player, with a playing strength of about 1500...", and whose current ICC standard rating is 1497. Food for thought?

I don't see that quote in the actual article. I only see the comment about his rating- "...I essentially wasted 15 years studying chess the wrong way, with very little to show for it, other than watching my rating gradually drop from 2000 to under 1600.."

I did some research on the author, although I can't speak for Kreider and have no idea of his strength. The solitaire idea is very good, Nimzovich used it, and when I had the patience to use it my strength increased significantly. I may do a separate post on the topic.

I am currently using this guide as my personal study plan. This was the only plan I could find when looking for a course of study. It seems logical and makes some since. I am currently tracking my results with this plan. So far I am doing well. I believe my I am actually rated higher than what I currently am but I believe thats due to the relitively few tournaments that I have been to, 4.

You also have to remember that there is new books out there that were not in production before this wright up. So tweeking this plan a little is probably a good thing. I guess you can say im actually testing this plan. While I'm not real far in the plan, I am almost done with the first set of books. I plan to get through each set of book in one year and so far I'm on track. I seem to improve my rating every tournament so far.

One of my complaints would be that some books are in Descriptive Notation, which I don't like.