The Lasker Method to Improve in Chess
Posted: Wed May 05, 2021 10:23 am
The independent home for discussions on the English Chess scene.
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I'm much more in the first camp. If I am reading a book for education rather than pleasure. I think it is necessary to stretch myself a bit. My favourite in this category on how to study is "Improve your chess now" by Tisdall. The author famously did not choose the title, "Work hard on your chess now and it will eventually improve" probably would have been closer to the spirit.Richard James in the review wrote:Most instructional chess books fall, broadly speaking, into one of two categories.
There are those, often written by younger players, which emphasise studying recent grandmaster games, teach openings by encouraging you to memorise long variations, provide annotated games with reams of computer-generated lines, offer very hard puzzles from top level competitions, and sometimes suggest you devise a timetable for study, setting aside a certain number of hours a day for opening study, tactics training, online games and so on.
Then there are books, usually written by older and, perhaps, wiser authors, very often not of GM strength, but with decades of experience both playing and teaching, who understand that most amateurs have a limited amount of time available. They recommend studying the classics, keeping things simple, choosing openings which are easy to learn, understanding ideas and plans, mastering the ending.
You won’t be surprised to learn that my sympathies are, with some reservations, more with the latter camp. And that’s what we have here.
This reminds me of a story told by Alex Baburin, about a suggestion that he might wish to author "Winning with the Alekhine". Had this come to anything, he would have preferred "Surviving with the Alekhine".Paul Cooksey wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 7:56 pmThe author famously did not choose the title, "Work hard on your chess now and it will eventually improve" probably would have been closer to the spirit.
My review of this book will be appearing shortly.Paul Cooksey wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 7:56 pm
But I liked How to Study Chess on Your Own by Kuljasevic which came out recently. I'm spending a bit more time studying than I would be if I could play OTB, so it seemed worth some time to make a plan, and the book was very useful.