Creating a Study Plan: The Adult Beginner Diary - Year 2: Month 1
Hello chess friends, I'm going to try to do these updates monthly from now on because I like writing them. The idea is to keep the same format with me writing about what I’ve been up to, how I have been training and sharing anything useful I have come across.
In the non-chess world this month has been about reorienting ourselves. We have decided to forget about the farm for a little bit and focus on getting ourselves some financial and house stability first. That has meant I’ve had a solid chunk more chess time than normal. That might change soon, but until then I am making the most of it.
Overview of My Study
So the first month of my second chess year has been very productive. I created and began working through a structured study plan for my second year, which I’ll get into later on. Briefly it comes down to this: I intend to get around 8000 extremely simple tactical patterns taken from high-quality books into my brain this year using chessable and a method adapted from Alex Crompton that I heard about on The Perpetual Chess Podcast.
As well as this, I have subscribed to the Neal Bruce study method and have committed to spending the next 3-4 years studying the endgame. The first year will be dedicated to general endgame theory.
Lastly it was my 30th birthday at the start of December and I opted to get myself a block of chess lessons from the fantastic Fionn O’Donovan who runs the #chesspunks puzzle group. More on this in the article.
8000 Tactical Patterns
In just 30 minutes a day I will learn and drill at least 8000 tactical patterns this year. How will I do this? First of all I have selected the following chessable books to learn from (in brackets are the rounded number of puzzles in each book):
- Everyone’s First Chess Workbook (750)
- Typical Tactical Tricks (500)
- Back to Basics: Tactics (600)
- Chess Tactics Workbook for Kids (450)
- Mastering Defensive Technique (600)
- Tactics Time 1 (1000)
- Tactics Time 2 (1000)
- How to Find the Perfect Mate (450)
- Mastering Mates 1 (1000)
- Checkmate Patterns Manual (1000)
- The Unexpected Mate in 1 (700)
The books are arranged in the order I will read them. The first four are elementary tactics where the puzzles are sorted by theme (pin, fork, skewer, etc). They are also arranged in order of difficulty, which I have inferred by the average line depth (number of moves) listed on chessable. The second two books (The Tactics Time books) are mixed tactical motifs and the final four books are checkmate books.
I will cram these into my brain by spending ten minutes on learning new patterns each day (sometimes I’ll do more than 10 minutes if I haven’t done 22 puzzles in this time - weird number I know, but I need to do 22 per day to reach my goal of doing 8000 patterns this year).
After doing 22 new puzzles (or ten minutes) I then spend a further 20 minutes reviewing the patterns I have already learned. It’s a pretty simple method. Apparently it is important to review your puzzles for the same amount of time each day to avoid randomly having way too many reviews in one day. I don’t understand why, but one man does. Alex Crompton inspired me to choose this method. He was interviewed on The Perpetual Chess Podcast and apparently will be on How to Chess - an interview I am excited to hear. He also wrote an article about the method on his blog where he goes into the science behind the method and why it works. He reached 1500 on chess.com almost solely by employing this method. I will link to his article and his podcast interview with Ben Johnson at the bottom of the article.
I will note that if I get a puzzle wrong or have to calculate the answer that I am still opening it in a new tab and employing IM David Pruess’ repetition method for getting the pattern into my brain. You can read about that method in the article I wrote on My First Year in Chess. In short: you wait some time, revisit the puzzle, click through the moves three times, imagine the solution three times and close your eyes and visualise it three times.
Note that the puzzles are mostly very basic and, when I am reviewing them, I aim to bring my time down to 10 seconds a puzzle. That would mean I am reviewing 120 puzzles per day. That's 43,800 per year. So I will eventually see each of my 8000 puzzles at least 5 times a year. By this point I should be getting close to assimilating all 8000 patterns into my subconscious and I can add new books and keep up my daily reviews in the years to come. Pretty cool no?
Last note on puzzles, I’ve been doing 3 puzzles a day on chess.com as deeper calculation exercises. I spend exactly 5 minutes on each puzzle regardless of when I find the solution or if I haven’t found it yet. Maybe it’s not the highest quality stuff, but the puzzle rating is keeping me motivated and it’s a quick and easy exercise to set up.
This is my morning routine now - new puzzles > puzzle review > calculation > going over missed puzzles (for both new and reviewed puzzles). It takes around an hour and I get it done before anyone else in the house is awake.
Beginning at the End
In my first year of chess I was all over the place. But I really have subscribed to the Neal Bruce method of taking one topic at a time and really getting it down. For some reason I resisted making this change even though some part of me knew it was best. Probably because it is also not the easy way.
Anyway I want to share with you the quote from his interview on The Chess Journeys Podcast that finally convinced me to change. In fact that whole interview was superb. For about a week after it, I was walking around hearing Neal Bruce’s voice in my head repeating:
“I believe that anyone can get to 1600, you just need to know a little bit about all four areas of the game and have a belief you can get there.”
And I’m thinking F*CK YEAH NEAL I’M GOING TO BELIEVE MY WAY TO THE TOP (of the class C rating bracket). I still hear the voice sometimes. And then he said this gem:
“Imagine a mansion in the 1800s where you only got candles … to me chess is this huge mansion with four floors and every wing is dark and scary and spooky and I light a little candle in one of the little rooms and if I run around to all the other rooms, then by the time I come back - it’s gone out. That doesn’t work for me. I see people who are like: 'I am going to spend 20 minutes one week on strategy and the same week I am going to spend 20 minutes on something else' - to me that is like running around lighting candles in every room and they are all getting blown out. I am going to spend years on one area, I am gonna light the hell out of this room and I am going to get a basic understanding of it, then I am going to the next floor, then the next floor.”
So I am going to light up the whole room. The endgame room specifically. Why did I choose to begin here? It’s partly practical. There are roughly 220 endgame positions in Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual. Some endings can not be logically worked out over the board. They simply have to be memorised. Unlike openings, endgame theory isn’t going to change much, if at all. Since 220 positions and techniques are a lot to learn, it will probably take a few years of drilling and revisiting these endings daily on chessable for me to fully understand and commit the ideas and techniques to memory. By starting here I can continually update, review and revise these endings over the next decade and beyond.
Before I break down my strategy to master the endgame I want to briefly note just how much all of this has already helped me. Silman’s book is littered with little tips in little boxes. With just this one book I have seen results.
Before reading the book I would be pretty planless in endgames and often throw a winning position. Just having knowledge of what must seem to a lot of people like obvious stuff has helped me a lot. For example - do I have a passed pawn in the endgame? Great. Stick a rook behind that and launch it up the board.
One of the most major things I have noticed (and again this is almost embarrassing to write), is when I have a 4v3 majority on one side of the board I actually know how to create a passed pawn. Pretty useful stuff. Just knowing the point of the endgame is to promote a pawn 90% of the time is ridiculously obvious but not something I was doing before! I seemed to be chucking my pieces across the board trying to attack pawns and set up tactics.
Finally I actually had a theoretical position in one of my games. Two blocked pawns on the same file. My opponent didn’t know the endgame theory and I trebuchet’d myself to victory. It was quite satisfying.
I am spending about 45 minutes a day working with the endgame theory books. I normally do this at the end of the day. I find it challenging but relaxing. Like trying to make a salad in the bath.
I have been looking for (and am happy to say that I have recently found) an online chess endgame theory site (I’ll link it at the bottom of the article) where I can drill endings against stockfish on maximum. I started out with the basic mates and am working my way through everything the site has to offer. It is pretty comprehensive. The great thing about training this way is that sure - you know the Philidor position - but can you get to it from each of these 10 progressively challenging starting positions? I think doing this practical exercise is going to be a vital accompaniment to reading and understanding each theoretical ending. I spend about 15 minutes on this daily.
The 3 Year Endgame Plan
So that is how my daily chess training will look this year. I will also try to play a rapid or longer game each day.
But how will my overall endgame study go over the coming years? I plan to start by reading five books on general endgame theory this year. I have already finished Jeremy Silman’s Complete Endgame Course and started on Yuri Averbakh’s Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge. A lot of the endings will be repeated across the books that I plan to study this year but that is the point. I will get five different explanations from five different authors and if the information isn’t in my brain at that point then it was never going to go in anyway!
I own 100 Endgames You Must Know on chessable and hope to buy Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual there too so I can keep reviewing the endgames I learn this year and retain them for life. At least that's the plan. Year one: theory.
Now to the overall endgame plan. As stated, I will do one year of general theory studying the following books, in the following order:
- Silman’s Complete Endgame Course
- Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge
- Just the Facts! Winning Chess Knowledge in One Volume
- 100 Endgames You Must Know
- Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual
Next I will study specific themed endings using the following books:
- Secrets of Pawn Endgames
- The Survival Guide to Rook Endings
- A Practical Guide to Rook Endgames
- Starting Out: Minor Piece Endgames
- Basic Endgame Strategy: Rooks and Queens
At this point I should have the theory down.
Next I will move onto endgame strategy books reading a selection from the following shortlist:
- Grandmaster Secrets: Endings
- How to Play Chess Endgames
- Monster Your Endgame Planning Volume 1&2
- Endgame Strategy
- Winning Endgame Technique
- Winning Endgame Strategy
- Secrets of Chess Endgame Strategy
- Practical Endgame Play
- Mastering Endgame Strategy
- Mastering Complex Endgames
- Grandmaster Preparation: Endgame Play
I will then finish up by going over some endgame game collections:
- Greatest Ever Chess Endgames
- Capablanca’s Best Chess Endings
- Endgame Virtuoso
- Arkell’s Endings
And finally I’ll grab myself some endgame tactics courses to tackle and review on chessable using the tactics method outlined in the first section of this article. I’ll probably pick this up during the process rather than afterwards and just mix it in with the tactics training outlined above.
- Endgames 101
- 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook
- Van Perlo’s Endgame Tactics
I’m hoping to add some more endgame tactics books as I find them or if they are added to chessable.
So that is the plan. By the time I am finished I will either be an endgame expert or have died of old age. Either way my chess will have improved.
I would love some feedback on the order and method I’ll be using to study the endgame. If there was ever a time to change the plan, it is now! In particular I’d love to hear if there are any great endgame books or resources missing from my list or anything you think I should skip.
Legendary Coach Fionn O’Donovan
It was my birthday at the start of my second chess year. I opted to spend the money on a coach and I am glad I made the choice I did.
What an absolute revelation it was to have someone look at my games and spot things I never would have. The main thing I took from our sessions and worked to fix was me not developing properly out of the opening. I was spotting threats or even a chance to win material and going for it. But now I am stopping myself and asking if my opportunity will go away on the next turn. Half the time the answer is no. Secondly I need to consider if the material I gain is actually worth it if it means I am giving my opponent a massive lead in development. Evaluating that has been a challenge, but I am getting better at it. I also used to think I knew what winning a tempo was. Now I really understand what winning a tempo is. And guess what? When I had my first session with Fionn I thought my main issue was having no idea what to do in the middlegame. My middlegame issues have partly resolved themselves. Because it is much easier to find a plan in the middlegame when your pieces are all out and developed on the right squares.
Also 1.d4??
My results with the Ruy Lopez (which made up the majority of my white games) were not great and the slow development in this opening made me feel uncomfortable especially with everything I had learned with Fionn. So together we made the decision for me to change to 1.d4, a move I always thought must be a blunder due to my 77% win rate against it in the last 3 months. Turns out it’s a fine move.
I am feeling way more comfortable in the opening as white now. Although as expected there have been some teething issues as I get used to the new and unfamiliar positions. I don’t plan on studying much, but I have enjoyed a couple of videos on the d4 structures I want to play and I now stalk GM Keith Arkell on Lichess like I am a 13 year old girl, it’s 2013, and he is my favourite member of One Direction. Jokes aside, I love Keith Arkell’s style of play and feel comfortable in the structures he plays. So I guess he can be my 1.d4 spirit guide going forward.
In Conclusion
So this year I will have much more structure and routine. Year one was fun and crazy, but year two is here and it’s time to grow up and become an intermediate player.
My main aims for this year are to stick to the above schedule, learn my 8000 tactical patterns, read my five endgame theory books, and secretly to get to the equivalent of around 1500 FIDE in rapid and classical online time controls. But don’t tell anyone because rating goals are forbidden.
My final and most ambitious year two goal is to start a local chess club. I live in a very remote rural area of Northern Spain where there isn’t that much to do for local kids (or adults). Since I won’t be farming full time this year and there aren't many employment opportunities in this area, I figured this could be a fun challenge. I plan to get access to one of the old abandoned schools here and fundraise some chess sets and books. I have already planted the seeds of chess obsession throughout the villages here by introducing chess to my friends' kids and have even followed that up with some chess coaching which I have really enjoyed. With a bit of luck they will take their newfound hobby to school and the chess bug will spread until my chess club is bustling. I will keep you updated.
Thanks for reading. Happy New Year! I hope that you have set yourself some decent chess goals and that you achieve them all.
If you want to reach out you can contact me on twitter @TheOnoZone
Resources
Alex Crompton on The Perpetual Chess Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Eahcj9LQajkhWDpkMcCR7
Alex Crompton's Blog Post:
https://www.alexcrompton.com/blog/how-to-learn-chess
Keith Arkell on The Perpetual Chess Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/32NcYRNx01o7ISgX1vAB9d
Neal Bruce's episode on Chess Journeys:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4fwJKMtyJbjNxNKGWBj1Ni
Endgame Theory Trainer Tool:
