Limited time: how to Git Gud EFFICIENTLY?

When I look around the Internet for tips for improvement, most finds have either of two sins:

1. They're trite lists. Anyone could have written them. "Point 1: make sure you know the game rules" - yeah, thanks, very helpful.

2. They assume you have infinite time to dedicate. "Play lots and lots of games", again, yeah, if you practice something endlessly you will improve, I don't know what person out there needs to be told that.

My question is: how to best direct my limited time, energy, and motivation?

Suppose I only have a few hours a week to dedicate to chess. Obviously that amount of investment isn't going to make me a Master no matter how I go about it, but I would like to discover what distance it can take me, however modest. Are there any non-trivial, non-obvious ideas for how to make optimal use of that time? Is it better to play longer or shorter time controls? Just play games, or divide my time into games and e.g. puzzle solving? At what Elo should I seriously look into theory and openings? Or what questions don't I even realize I should be asking?

Thanks in advance for sensible input.

Yup, this was indeed a long shot.

O

If you have only a few hours per week to dedicate to chess why do you even try to get better? It's like asking what's the best way to earn money to buy a gaming PC and not having time to play games..

I find this a confusing viewpoint. I mean, "a few hours a week" is perfectly compatible with "a game every day". How many hours a week would be the minimum that justifies wanting to get better, in your eyes?

Getting good at something takes time, dedication, and hard work. There are no shortcuts.

Yeah look at this genius trying to become master with minimal effort and EFficiently too !!? And all of us morons who wasted most of their lives on chess without even becoming experts, I hope u stay at 100 rating for the rest of your days, EFFicient improver

You didn't answer the question.



I didn’t need to.

My apologies, I mistook you for the previous guy.

Good question. Basically 2 things. 1) looking at annotated GM games and 2) tactics.

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Look annotated high level GM games from ~50 years ago. There are books (which I recommend) but a simple free source is chessgames.com. This has lots of benefits, but one of them answers your other question (about openings). Choose strong lines that are founded on good ideas but are NOT current main lines. This way there is less theory plus your opponents will know relatively less about them.

When you look at a GM game, DON'T try to understand every move. That's not the point. If you can find just 1 interesting idea (opening, endgame, tactic) that's enough. That means you learned something... save the game in an organized way... even if it's just a link in a text file or something. Write a small note about the game, it can be a single sentence long "interesting mating attack on the h file"

As your list of saved games grows, organize it. Opening, endgame, attacking ideas, French defense, etc.

As your list grows, from time to time take a break from looking at GM games, and review your saved games. Not only will that help get the patterns and ideas into your long term memory, but the more you learn about chess, the more interesting things you'll start noticing in high level games.

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Tactics. To do tactics in a meaningful way you should avoid some things... mainly doing them super fast or super slowly. If you guess moves that look good because you know it's a puzzle, you may get a higher tactics rating, but that doesn't help you learn anything... and if you calculate for over 10 minutes on a single move you're training your calculation more than tactics (1 puzzle every 10 minutes is not enough unless you have literally all day).

I recommend writing down your whole solution before making a single move. Then go back over your solution 1 move at a time looking for a way the opponent can mess up your solution. Don't spend longer than ~10 minutes on a single puzzle. After it's over, whether you get the puzzle right or wrong, it's very important to review any line or idea you weren't sure about with an engine. You have to learn why the good moves work / why the interesting-but-bad moves don't work.

Just like the GM games, save interesting puzzles and write 1 sentence about them. "Crazy sacrifice" or "knight fork" or "I didn't see this good defensive move" As the list grows organize it by theme. From time to time review all the tactics in your list (if the list is too long you can just review 1 section or something of course). This helps get the ideas into your long term memory.

And obviously you should play games... and you can use the same process...

Save interesting games, and write a small note about it. "My attacking idea was totally wrong" or "amazing win" or whatever. As it grows organize it by theme. Review it from time to time.

This is especially useful in terms of mistakes... all good players have made thousands of mistakes, and little by little they learn not to repeat them... if you're looking over your games for 1 big mistake and saving them and organizing them and reviewing them... well guess what, you're going to learn not to repeat them faster than someone who is just playing games.

Just like with the GM games it's not about understanding every move. It's about finding 1 idea that's interesting or important to you. 1 idea per game is more than enough (not every game will have something interesting!)

Thank you for taking the time to offer all that advice. I'm thinking about it.

Can you clarify the piece I quoted above, however? If I'm doing a puzzle, I do know it's a puzzle, so yeah, I will be automatically on the lookout for wacky sacrifices and such. What are you advising me to do about it, exactly?

I think it is better to play longer time control. You won't learn much playing blitz and bullet.

It's good to look for the crazy aggressive moves... but don't guess, that's all I mean

One thing I do when starting a puzzle is I look for every check I can play (no matter how sacrificial or crazy) and every way I can threaten the queen.

But for example, in some puzzles, the opponent is threatening mate in 1 and you can't stop it, so you know the first move is a check, so just guess a scary looking check. Maybe 1 out of 10 times or 1 out of 5 you fail, oops, but guessing will usually work in that case... but that's not a good learning strategy. Calculate. When moves you're pretty sure are good fail, that's when learning can happen.

Oh, yeah, of course, I never touch a piece in a puzzle until I think I have the solution and a good grasp on all the ways it can possibly go. Unless I've been stuck for minutes and it's starting to feel unproductive, they I may click "hint".

By the way, maybe worth mentioning that Axel Smith wrote a book on this topic (no-nonsense efficient way to improve)... I didn't mention it before because telling someone to read a book about how to improve doesn't seem very efficient lol

https://www.amazon.com/Pump-Your-Rating-Axel-Smith/dp/1907982736

But yeah, I stole the list making idea from him... he says to keep a list of mistakes, but I found that keeping a list of interesting games / puzzles is also very useful and important since it helps you get new ideas into your long term memory.

avoid some things... mainly doing them super fast or super slowly. If you guess moves that look good because you know it's a puzzle, you may get a higher tactics rating, but that doesn't help you learn anything


Thank you for taking the time to offer all that advice. I'm thinking about it.
Can you clarify the piece I quoted above, however? If I'm doing a puzzle, I do know it's a puzzle, so yeah, I will be automatically on the lookout for wacky sacrifices and such. What are you advising me to do about it, exactly





Don’t just guess a move that looks very powerful. Make sure you have actually calculated that it works, or eliminated all other possibilities (even then try to find the idea). Also make sure to take your time.

And at some point (even now) a good way to improve is choosing your weakest area out of openings, tactics, endgames, strategy, and buying a well respected book on that topic, and study the heck out of it.

For an example of how both my advices may present in real life...

I played this one guy at an OTB tournament rated maybe 1700... he simply outplayed me in the middlegame, I was losing, but he had no idea how to handle the endgame and I was lucky to draw... but then I was interested in this guy, and started watching his other games. He played 2 or 3 other players 1900-2000... he was winning every time (again, he was rated 1700) but then he couldn't finish them off... ok I think he won 1 game out of 4 winning positions lol.

The guy was carrying a game collection book, 100s of games lightly annotated. I got the feeling he'd gone through the whole thing, and due to this he knew lots of good middlegame ideas.

The next step for that guy would be focusing on the endgame, because that's where he was weak.

Many lower rated players focus on the opening, but if you're not frequently getting behind in the opening (on the clock or board) then that's a waste of time.