Training Programme For Significant Improvement In Chess Ability

1) Tournament Play

Mednis suggests that tournament play against your equals or betters is a key component of any improvement program. He suggests that 50 or more games a year should be sufficient to allow you to improve. This tends to correspond with what I have found for myself.

2) Thorough Review of Games Played

Mednis suggests that playing by itself will not lead to improvement unless you critically consider your games and strive to improve your play in that manner.
He cites Botvinnik as an authority and again this is something that I have to agree with since it was a key factor in my own previous improvement plans.

3) Study Programme

Mednis suggests a program consisting of 50% openings, 25% endgames and 25% general study and I can't fault his logic. He points out that there is no point in studying endings if you are always lost out of the opening. First things first.

A) Opening Study

Mednis suggests that memorizing openings is a waste of time and that the way to learn openings is to strive for understanding rather than memorization.

B) Endgame Study

While I like Mednis as an author his suggestions for endgame study are a bit self-serving with most of the suggestions being books that he has authored. This book came out in 1991 so many of the recent books are obviously not mentioned.
C) Learning Chess

Mednis makes a number of suggestions (many of which I have on my shelf) but his key point is that you should stick to books authored by grandmasters as the way to improve and I can't argue with that at all.

Mednis goes on to suggest learning to think like a grandmaster and studying particular openings by studying the annotated games of grandmasters (Fischer, Karpov, Polugaevsky). Then he talks about picking an opening repetoire (pick one that suits you). Then he has a chapter on move orders (this is the third book that I have read recently which makes a big deal about move orders but it should be noted that this book predated the other two.

Mednis talks about preparing for a tournament game and suggests that you should decide what to play before the game and not during. He also makes a point of criticising people who spend a lot of time on the first few obvious moves as this is a waste of time and can potentially hurt you later when you might need those minutes that you wasted on how to answer 1.e4 which you should already know.

Mednis discusses what to do during the game and after time control has been reached and also when it is time to adjourn (which is less applicable these days).

This is a book full of tips for the tournament player. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to players of any strength. I found myself agreeing with him often. If you have read Mednis "Strategic Chess" you will recognize a few of the example games from the latter work where they are given in more depth.