A while back I purchased Rapid Chess Improvement by Michael de la Maza: Amazon.com: Rapid Chess Improvement (Everyman Chess): Michael de la Maza: Books

This is an interesting book and I can already tell many who will read it will not like it, and perhaps this is a good place for me to start my review.

Why this book will not be liked by some:
-It does not contain any real content other than a study plan
-The study plan requires hours of devotion, including on the final day of the program a solid 8 hours of work!
-The author neglects strategic study of chess

Why I personaly like this book:
-I bought the book looking for nothing but a study plan. I'm an inconsistent 1414 level player and really needed to get organized and create a study plan. This book did that for me.
-I recently quit my job, so I've got a lot of free time on my hands. This gives me the time needed to devote to the study plan.
-I agree with the authors assertion that, while there is merit to the statement that 'tactical punches arise out of superior positions,' this statement cannot be 100% correct or else beginner games would never be decided by tactics as beginners don't know how to create or handle superior positions. In reality beginner games are almost ALWAYS decided by tactics.

Overview:
The lesson plan is essentially a schedule to go through the program CT-ART 3.0 a solid 7 times (1209 positions each pass). Each time you go through CT-ART you exponentially increase the number of problems you do and decrease the time you spend per problem. Eventually, on the 7th time through the CT-ART you do every problem in the software spending no more than 30 seconds on each. It takes approximately 4 months to complete this training period and at the end you should have 1209 tactical positions drilled into your head. Additionally the author also has several visualization drills that take approximately 1 month to complete.

I'm going to be very pragmatic about my views on this program. Like I said before, I'm a 1414 level player before I started this program. I'm currently on my 4th week of the program. I'm going to do PRECISELY what the author has suggested and the proof will be in the pudding. March 2, 2009 will be the last day of the training program for me. I'll report back here on March 3rd (or close to it) and let everyone know how it has worked out for me!

My question to the forums: Has anyone else tried this program, and if so what has their experience been like?

Here's an addendum to my previous post with some thoughts I've been having about this system. Many correctly critique that de la Maza's program completely neglects learning strategy. However, I don't think the goal of his program is supposed to teach you strategy. I think de la Maza correctly recognized that you HAVE to know how to find these tactical shots to play high level chess, although it may not be enough on its own. Once you have a solid foundation of tactical play, THEN you learn chess strategy.

This is where I'm worried. I've no doubts that I'll complete this 4 month program and be a better tactical player for it. However whenever I seek to learn how to play better strategic chess I'm told one of three things:
-Read Nimzovich's My System
-Read John Watson's 'Modern Chess Strategy'
-or Read Silman's strategy books

Well I have. And these books have done nothing to improve my playing strength collectively. BTW - I'm also playing through the annotated games of Capablanca with little improvement to show for it.

I know that Convekta (creators of CT-ART) also have a training program called Strategy 2.0. Perhaps I can apply de la Maza's training regimen to that program after completing the tactics regimen. Top it all off with some solid opening training at the end and maybe I can find myself piling on points.

I could be wrong, but I have to try something.

I sense a measure of frustration that after studying strategy you have not improved and in desperation you’re going to try studying tactics to see if that helps. I’m not going to say anything about the merits of de la Maza’s program. Just let me say that you are on the right track in studying strategy, tactics and playing over classical games. I would only point out a few things:

1) When studying tactics be sure you are alert to the motif that makes the tactics work (pin, fork, hanging piece, etc.) so that when you see the motif in your games it’ll alert you to the possibility that a tactic MAY be present.
2) When playing through a game make note of the different elements of strategy and tactical motifs and how they were applied. Don’t just make the moves.
3) Finally, don’t be surprised if your results take a nose dive at first! Learning how to apply new knowledge takes time and will result in many failures. Years ago I remember spending a lot of time studying a book on chess strategy and in my first tournament game after that I got so involved in utilizing my B v. N superiority and open file I forgot to pay attention my opponent’s K-side mating attack.

Beginner’s games often have nothing to do with the merits of the position. They just make a lot of blunders. If you apply a system to eliminate gross oversights that alone will alleviate a lot of problems.

Anyway, good luck.

Hi Exodus,

Kinda bummed to hear that you have yet to find "Your method" of learning Chess.

IMO it really boils down to finding what works for you. We all seem to learn a little differently which I believe is based on personal perception. One is able to see something from a completely different angle than another, though they both end up observing the same thing.

This is part of a working theory on how we learn, how the brain observes the individual's environment, and therefore how different people/perceptions are able to grasp the same information effectively.

As far as being aware of a "Tactical Motif" when studying, clearly there are two distinct schools of thought here. Some feel it is important to "Be notified" in advance of what to look for, However, in over the board play, there is no magic coach to appear to tell us what to look for. We must be open to looking for ALL possible tactical combinations all of the time. (This is also the opinion of the GMs who had input on the creation of our little tactical trainer.) Keep it simple, with no pre-conceptions. This forces the individual to "Think on their toes". Thereby increasing the scope of their awareness. (Of course if we all agreed on everything, the world would be pretty boring.)

As an experiment, if you would like to participate, PM me with your mailing address, and I would be happy to send you a free copy of our tactical trainer on PC CD-ROM. If it helps you, then it really helps all of us understand the difference in the approach to learning and the potential in varied methods.

One thing is for sure, You have been using good study materials and giving it 110%!
(This is surely a winning combination.)

Best Of Luck!
PC

While I've not read De La Maza's book, I did read the two articles for which the book is based and I'm doing something similar to he suggested. There is an entire group dedicated to following De La Maza's study plan, called the Knight's Errant. The Knights Errant It might be motivational to read what others are experiencing as they follow the same study plan.

As for me, I'm "circling" each Level (10-90) until I get it 90% right in CT-ART and then moving on to the next level. After two weeks, I'm going to drop back a level and see if I can still score greater than 90% on the previous one. While I'm not sure about the results I can expect, I know that everyday I'm sitting down and studying chess. My thought process has improved clearly, which I noticed only after about ten days of study. It could be confirmation bias, but I am putting a serious hour or two of thought into something like 80 problems. That's more study than I've ever put towards chess, and I can't really see it hurting anything. (Other than me losing 1/24th of my day, but I'm at uni, so I have lots of time to waste...)

I'll be following this thread for your opinions on this program.

The idea of repeating tactics until the patterns are easily recognizable isn't new. Is there something other than that in the book to make it worthwhile?

A lot of what the author has to say is pretty obvious, but becuase its obvious these things are easily overlooked or simply skipped. de la Maza's book is basically 3 steps:

1. Do chess vision drills. These are micro drills that the author likens to 'throwing free throws in basketball.' They're easy, but they help improve board vision. You do these repeatedly for several weeks. I can elaborate on these exercises if you're interested.

2. Go through CT-ART Using the '7 Circles.' I already described what this is like in my first post, but if you'd like to see my personal schedule to clarify - I can provide that.

3. Create a thinking technique, and in that technique you set up a system that forces you to look for the tactical punches that are ingrained in your head during over the board play.

I just got back from club about an hour ago, and I can already report that I'm playing better than before I started the program. I suppose this shouldn't be surprising - because I've been studying tactics at least an hour (closer to 2) every day for 4 weeks now. I'll keep this thread updated with my experiences with de la Maza's program.

remember to breathe

I have read it, but never followed it religiously. All I did was some Vision Drills and then I got slightly better. Since I'm about 1300-1400, I believe it would help me.

From a psychological perspective, what the programme does is pounding patterns until they become second nature to spot. It's like how we try to find outfit combinations for major events all the time until we 'convinced' ourselves that so and so combo is the most preferable. As an after-effect, when we are to attend a similar event, our mind would bring out the picture of the outfit we would usually wear, because that neurological pattern has been stimulated over and over positively. So it has a higher 'connectivity' with the mind compared to other patterns.

In that sense, when we are used to the positions that emerge in the positions in a certain programme, when we face such a position in real games the ideas start popping up, even if involuntarily. As Jackson said however, it pays to see the motif, not only the solution. This is something I have failed to do to this day.

Hi Exodus5000,

I loosely followed the program De La Maza advocated and I'd say it brought me a couple hundred points. I went from high 1400s to high 1600s and I do think it was largely due to a regime of problem solving with CT ART and books.

For me the real value was the structure of the program. I never tried the 1200 in a day version tackling problems in groups of about 300 instead. It made for a lot of work on the last couple of days but it was manageable while holding down a job. Typically I would do whatever number of problems the schedule called for and then, time and mood permitting, I'd look at whatever else I felt like (openings, endings, whatever). Having a set number of problems to do each day kept me at it - I studied something every day. When I got CT ART I didn't stick with the 7 circles. Instead I did each level (10, 20 etc) from start to finish as many times as it took to do it with a 95% success rate (similar to Moe). Level 10 only took a few passes but the last few levels were very nearly impossible - though gradually the stuff seemed to stick. Bottom line - De La Maza gave me a model of a study program that I was able to tailor to meet my own needs.

Now for the downside. De La Maza doesn't really talk about playing and yet it seems to me that this is an essential part of the program. I'm not sure how much he played (you can look it up on the USCF website - it looks like a lot) but I'd guess that 50 serious games a year is a minimum. This may not be as important going from 1200 to 1600 but at some point regularly playing serious games is necessary. He doesn't talk about this and I believe that it is a serious oversight in his articles and book.

The second point is that tactics only take you so far. Once you get through his program move on. My recommendation is to look at JacksonWShowalter's posts and follow his advice. Playing through GM games is a logical follow up to De La Maza's program and Showalter talks about how to do that.

Good luck,

Brian