Chess is an atypical case where there is no last word in what refers to the ideal path for the correct improvement. Other sports disciplines follow a strict fundamental order to guarantee the improvement and specialization in these branches, but in chess everything is different, as there is no single method by which all coaches are governed or for which the athletes follow as a manual that will take you towards mastery.
The material that counts to improve in chess is so great that it is practically impossible to read all the available bibliography, in addition to hundreds of thousands of programs, manuals, video courses and an infinity of tools that facilitate? The learning. I am one of those who think that the ideal is to simplify (and not only speak of pieces to reach a winning end) and to have an order when training. This order is what will give us that optimization of the time we need, because just like those who spend 3 years to be good players, there are also those who spend 6 months and are as good as the first. I prefer to be from the latter, investing less time for better results.
Time-Experience vs. Time-Quality
Time-Experience is the most common case of all club players. Hundreds or thousands of hours of games, trial and error, correction by repetition and memorization by frames. This type of learning is ultimately slow and not significant from a methodological point of view. The pragmatic training hardly takes (except for exceptions) towards the mastery in a medium, short term. There are even coaches who recommend that you play thousands of games online! and it's not that you can not, but that the benefit or real contribution of improvement in your game is barely perceptible. According to my own opinions based on years related to the world of chess, 1 hour of training in understanding positions equals 50 hours of chess on the internet or chess of squares.
I'm not saying we should stop playing hundreds of games, no. I am mentioning that the contribution to our game is not as significant as in meticulous training.
Time-Quality should be our north if we want to make great strides and in a short time. Positional understanding is the fundamental pillar of chess, and although different coaches focus (many perhaps due to ignorance) in other areas that they believe are important but not so many, such as problem solving, decision making, security of the king, the finals, the openings, the strategy or the tactics, and I regret to inform you that none of that (although in one way or another they have a strong relationship) is the fundamental pillar of chess.
Fischer understood this when he began to read Russian literature and Kasparov understood it in full match for the world championship against Karpov. The art of learning to learn (in chess) is closely linked to positional understanding, if we focus on that, the rest will be an easy task and you will soon see the results of it.
The topic is broad and this is just an outline of a long and complex topic, but I also wanted to give a small sample of the things that those who want to improve their chess should focus on.
The material that counts to improve in chess is so great that it is practically impossible to read all the available bibliography, in addition to hundreds of thousands of programs, manuals, video courses and an infinity of tools that facilitate? The learning. I am one of those who think that the ideal is to simplify (and not only speak of pieces to reach a winning end) and to have an order when training. This order is what will give us that optimization of the time we need, because just like those who spend 3 years to be good players, there are also those who spend 6 months and are as good as the first. I prefer to be from the latter, investing less time for better results.
Time-Experience vs. Time-Quality
Time-Experience is the most common case of all club players. Hundreds or thousands of hours of games, trial and error, correction by repetition and memorization by frames. This type of learning is ultimately slow and not significant from a methodological point of view. The pragmatic training hardly takes (except for exceptions) towards the mastery in a medium, short term. There are even coaches who recommend that you play thousands of games online! and it's not that you can not, but that the benefit or real contribution of improvement in your game is barely perceptible. According to my own opinions based on years related to the world of chess, 1 hour of training in understanding positions equals 50 hours of chess on the internet or chess of squares.
I'm not saying we should stop playing hundreds of games, no. I am mentioning that the contribution to our game is not as significant as in meticulous training.
Time-Quality should be our north if we want to make great strides and in a short time. Positional understanding is the fundamental pillar of chess, and although different coaches focus (many perhaps due to ignorance) in other areas that they believe are important but not so many, such as problem solving, decision making, security of the king, the finals, the openings, the strategy or the tactics, and I regret to inform you that none of that (although in one way or another they have a strong relationship) is the fundamental pillar of chess.
Fischer understood this when he began to read Russian literature and Kasparov understood it in full match for the world championship against Karpov. The art of learning to learn (in chess) is closely linked to positional understanding, if we focus on that, the rest will be an easy task and you will soon see the results of it.
The topic is broad and this is just an outline of a long and complex topic, but I also wanted to give a small sample of the things that those who want to improve their chess should focus on.
