The easy road to 2000:
Become a master
Then develop senility.
Easy way to make it to 2000?
Sort:
Apr 23, 2016
0
#3
The shortcut to improvement is to enjoy playing and learning about chess.
Unfortunately wanting to find a shortcut is the opposite. This is the longest and hardest way.
It's not uncommon for players to offer overly concise descriptions of ratings at or near their level.
The most common one is:
"to be [speaker's rating -100 points] all you really need is tactics"
You can find quotes explaining that the only thing a player needs is basics plus tactics to get to ratings from 1200 all the way to 2700 (depending on the speaker of course).
---
IMO the simplest way to improve is to be well rounded. Specializing requires extra effort and leaves more weaknesses.
Apr 23, 2016
0
#5
Oh yes it does!!
What you describe here happens to me all the time. I win - and then I say - wait a minute, without tactics trainer I would have never come upon this idea!
It trains you, first of all, to recognize the basic situations where you can SUSPECT a tactic... :-)
I got to roughly 1600 by (mostly) not hanging pieces anymore. When I stopped making simple tactical mistakes (overlooking two move sequences that lose a pawn, for instance), I rose to 1800, where I then stayed for years. My general chess strength remained the same, in a way; I simply stopped dropping pawns and pieces and losing games that way.
Getting over 1800, though, took a lot of work and a lot of time. It's also Internet elo, not FIDE, so it's probably lower in terms of a real rating. Regardless, at this point it seemed that I needed to do more than just not make obvious mistakes, and that proved really tough.
Most of my loses (or really, most of games) featured me using a completely wrong plan. For instance, I would play on the kingside when I should have played in the centre, and if my opponent reacted properly I got a worse position and lost that way.
In my experience, then, competence with basic tactics got me so far, but I needed a really solid positional foundation to increase beyond 1800. I don't think I personally could have gotten to 2000 on tactics alone.
If there would be an easy way, everybody would be over 2000...
WOW, cool, awesome.
Apr 24, 2016
0
#9
Avoid hanging pieces. Preserve your pawn structure. Put your rooks on active files or ranks. Attack pinned pieces. Don't let your kingside get shattered. Keep an eye out for any tactical blunders your opponent might make.
Snatch up a pawn or a piece if you're safely able to, then trade down to a superior endgame.
Stuff like that.
Mostly, just play with basic fundamentals in mind. Being strong tactically definitely helps (at all levels of chess), but knowing what to do positionally with any advantages you build is also important.
Reading and studying chess books that teach you how to think at the board (books like Nimzo's "My System", for example) certainly helps, too.
IMO all the three stages of games are equally important I.e opening; middle game & endings.
Tactics plays important role in between.
You guys aren't looking at the scientific evidence. Michael de la Maza was just ok positionally but strong tactically and he made it to 2040 USCF.
Apr 24, 2016
0
#13
fallingboulder wrote:
You guys aren't looking at the scientific evidence. Michael de la Maza was just ok positionally but strong tactically and he made it to 2040 USCF.
MdlM admits to reading strategy books and one example is not scientific anything, it's just one example.
More interesting is how people who have tried the method proposed by MdlM did not improve nearly as much as he did.
The fastest shortcut is taking lessons several hours a week with a masterteacher like GM Vladimir Georgiev, WIM Sheila Barth Sahl and GM Torbjørn Ringdal-Hansen.
GM Vladimir Georgiev works with skype.
Probably its even better to start at NTG, Norsk toppidrettsgymnas, the chess class. This school just pops out IM´s and GM´s and the boss teacher there is GM Simen Agdestein.
I know kids that have taken lessons with the masters I mentioned, and they are really strong now. One of them did draw GM Jon Ludvig Hammer and GM Kjetil A Lie, won the rest and finished second in Arendal grand prix 2016 with the rating performance 2496.
The lessons is not enough. They mix it with very active otb- tournament play.
I'm just a 1700 but I think some good advice is don't go in to Auto pilot mod as fun as chess is it can become vary boring try to stay in the game for ever move. I've been playing games where after I move I just realized I had a much better move. "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - NB also play d4 if your and e4 player and play e4 if you a d4 player a lot of people get stumped at d4 for some reason at this level
I once heard someone tell me that to become expert level all you have to do is be just ok positionally but strong tactically. Is this a shortcut to 2000+?