For a look at de la Maza’s method from a respected chess coach read the following:
Rapid Chess Improvement: A Study Plan for Adult Players

I would suggest paying particular attention to the following observation: “Many players have tactical abilities far beyond their rating, but are positionally pathetic. Another thing that de la Maza didn’t mention (he was most likely unaware of it) is that many tactical errors occur after a strategically poor position has been reached.” He also points out that even GM’s are subject to the same problem when they get a poor position strategically…tactical errors follow.

Many will disagree with this assessment but I’ve been saying all along that if you have a poor position strategically tactics are only going to be possible if your opponent blunders and allows you a tactical solution to your problem. The reason Morphy was so successful at pulling off brilliant combinations was because his positional understanding was so far ahead of his contemporaries that he achieved overwhelming positions which made the tactics possible.

De la Maza’s system may, or may not help improve your tactics. That’s not the point I wish to emphasize. It’s exactly as bjphillips’ good advice indicates. Too many times players think that once they reach a certain level that all it takes to move to the next level is more of the same. Like tactics study got me to 1600. More will get me to 1800. Wrong! It takes different skills to beat an 1800 than it does a 1600.

To improve positional play, you "simply" suggest playing through master games? What masters to start with?

I’m assuming one has already acquired some basic knowledge of tactics, strategy and basic endgames. Choose a player you like (in my case it was Reshevsky) then play over the games at 10-15 minutes per game while trying to guess the next move. Although you can stop to investigate further if you find a particularly interesting position. If you can still find them tournament books are good too. To make things more interesting you can keep track of the percentage of correct guesses.

The idea of this technique is to gain pattern recognition skills so that when you see similar positions you’ll have an idea of how to play them. You’ll also learn how to handle different openings in the process. This is not my idea; it originated with US Senior Master Ken Smith (the Smith-Morra guy).

How well does this method work? I was rated about mid-1600’s for a long time and could give 1800-2200’s a fairly good game but then usually caved in and lost. Then I started playing over a lot of games…

First it was 300 games from the old Lone Pine tmts, then about 600 from an Informant. I don’t remember what my percentage of correct guesses was, but I do remember it more than doubled by the time I was finished. I credit this method to adding about 400 points to my rating. When I mentioned to an old master what playing over all those games had done for my rating he simply replied, “Of course.”

This is a very important process to understand. One thing that I noticed in my own study was that, I not only began to see the proper response, I also had the confidence to make the move.

"You can lead a horse to water (Understanding), Though you can't make him drink (Execute).".....

Food for thought: GM John Emms in his book Simple Chess

“…by this time I was already geared up with a warehouse of tactical tricks… Winning material was the aim of the game and mine were full of forks, pins and skewers…Suddenly my next plateau was reached-my more experienced opponents wouldn’t fall for any of my tricks anymore. Worse than this they were slowly but surely grinding me down to defeat with something called ‘positional’ chess. Finally the real work had to begin.”

“…what do you do when you reach a level where the phrase ‘chess is 99% tactics’ is no longer applicable; what to think about when your opponents see your traps before you’ve set them; how to exploit a minute advantage such as a better P-structure or an opponent’s badly placed piece.”

Wow, they must be clairvoyant. Sounds like a Master Vs. Beginner.

Or maybe a 1800 vs. 1400.

Chess is 99 percent tactics. - Teichmann

Chess is 99% Tactics. - Susan Polgar

Chess is really 99 percent calculation - Soltis

How about looking at master's games that feature your openings?

Tomorrow I start my first day at a new job so I won't have as much free time to dedicate to chess as I have had recently. I'm still continuing this program but I figured I'd check in with a status report.

I'm of course learning tactics, but I'm not very impressed with this program. Here's some reasons why:

-It takes way too much time. No normal person with a job (or if you don't have a job, then a life) can reasonably dedicate this much time to tactics alone. Instead of using the 7 circles method, it would be better to do 10 problems every day, as long as you do them every day.

-While my ability to spot and calculate tactics are getting better, my ability to set them up is not. The author obviously didn't have this problem, and my suspicion is that he had a solid understanding of positional chess (whether he knew so or not) and was woefully lacking tactically. He notes himself that he studied strategy a lot, including Silman's material. This would explain his huge jump in rating after studing tactics.

-There's better ways to learn tactics than just simply following CT-ART on its own. I've recently started studying How To Beat Your Dad at Chess, and now in CT-ART I instantly recognize tactical shots in a better (not just faster) way than I had by studying CT-ART on its own. For example I know that the possiblity of an Arabian mate may be on the board. Or maybe there's most of the elements for a Greek Gift already present. Knowing this guides my thoughts towards finding ways to make these positions a reality. I feel that this is more constructive than simply having 1 position burned into my brain.


One thing I like about this program however is it forces me to solve the harder problems in CT-ART, which I otherwise would have treated as beyond me.

My suggestion at this point to everyone interested in this program is to:
-Get CT-ART (its a great program!) and solve 10 problems a day every day from it.
-Study things other than just tactics. In order I'm studying these books while doing tactics as well:

1. HTBYDAC
2. Silmans endgame book
3. The Amateurs Mind - Silman

-Finally, the best tip I've picked up for studying books (from somewhere on this site) is it is WAY better to study 1 book 3 times through than 3 books 1 time through each. I'm on my third run through HTBYDAC and I'm learning a lot. I can't wait to tackle silman's books again like this.