Systematic way to get better at chess?

Im looking for a systematic way to get better at chess. I am a note taker. I learn from taking notes from textbooks and analyzing deeply. This is easy to do for openings- i can take notes on sharp variations, common themes, common traps etc... as well as endgame. I can pick up my Jeremy Silman endgame course and note take. But what about decision making and calculating in the middlegame. Is there anyway to effectively note take while watching GM games? Or some how get better at the middle game through note taking?

I have a lot of time on my hands and want to get better at chess through sheer studying and hard effort. 

Too bad you're not a diamond member.  Jeremy Silman's "Roots of Positional Understanding" is a 300 lesson course on Chess Mentor that is all about middle game decision making.  There are other smaller courses that also deal with the middle game.  But you want a book, hmm....Let me "preview" this and check the forum archives..  I just did a forum search for "middle game book" and came up with 50 or 60 threads, a dozen or so look (by their titles) to be just what you want.

Tactics, endgames repeat.

The tricky part is maintaining intrest through some of the more tedious studies.

Chess isn't a school subject, you can't really learn it by taking notes and then studying them.

Chess is a skill that needs training. The most systematic way is to solve a lot of exercises.

Agree and don't agree.

Yes it's not a school subject you learn by only reading books. It's more like learning to play a music instrument or some other game. It's ridiculous to think you can learn play for example golf, by reading books!

So you must train to play. The best way is to play long games (time control over 1 hour) against strong opponents.

You will not be better by:
- Playing blitz.
- Playing weak players.
- Only solving puzzles, even if this can help.

OP has the right approach and I'm sure he will improve.

The "secret" is simply hard work. You learn stuff only if you put an effort on it. You make effort in calculating things, reading books, playing, etc.

What you actually do is less important in my opinion. Even playing against much weaker players is useful if you put an effort in understanding the features of the position (not just beating them with cheap tactics).

The reason many people never improve is that they don't put an effort in it, and play chess only as a pasttime. I'm not criticizing them, after all I do it too when I come home tired from work I play some blitz just as a pasttime, without thinking/calculating and just playing the first move that comes in my head.

Chess is already a school subject, at least in Spain. Anyway, I know what you meant by that, kikvors.

Choose an opening repertoire, preferrably reliable, trusted openings (not strange things that you've made up to be unique).

Read books on your openings of choice.

Play the games in your opening repertoire.

Save every game, and find improvements for you in each game. Take special note of the blunders you're making, so you won't ever make those again.

Rinse and Repeat until you are a master at the games you play.

Also, remember that progress takes time. Be patient, have fun, and stick with it. Results will come.

*thumbs up*

Dang! Very straight and clear. Im gonna remember this advice.Thanks dude for posting.

I really like makikhustle's advise YET is that getting better at chess or is that just making me a master at certain lines? and if so i play 1.e4 and in response to e4 i play 1...e5. What super GM's would you reccomend i study and take lines from?

As to everyone else, thank you. I really do wish chess was a subject that i could just take notes on an improve but sheer effort must be enough

I'm sorry to say, lower rated players will not improve their game but "studying" openings. Even so lot of people believe this, and put lot of work in these "studies".

The little advantage you get from a correct played opening, will be of little of no use, latter in the game, which usual will be decided by tactical blunders.

when you're in a messed up position out of the opening you're much more likely to make blunders.

Opening study is useful at all levels.

Opening study is indeed very useful at all levels, and every player need at least something of an opening repertoire, but as you progress and get better, what you need to study gets more and more complex and involved.

A rank beginner need only know 1) center pawns first 2) then knights to f3/c6/c3/f6 3) then bishops, but don't block the queen pawn

A lower intermediate should know his way around the basic ideas in the Spanish, Sicilian, and Italian--and maybe the KID.

But knowledge beyond that, IMHO, is useless unless you've studied piles and piles of tactics and done a good amount of work on endgames. That is, after all, where the vast majority of games between beginning and intermediate players are won and lost.

I had a player on my high school chess team some years ago who was obsessed with studying openings. He kept asking me about this opening and that variation--mostly stuff I'd never heard of, let alone played. Yet when I watched him in one of his match games, he was material ahead and yet refused to exchange queens to simplify into a dead-won ending. THAT was what he needed to master, not some obscure variation in the Vienna.

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/ they're supposed to be really good

OFc it will be of use, because the opening defines your later plans. You will missing a lot of plans if you dont look at opening. Sure you must not study them to play them but you should know the ideas and plans, like the nimzo indian, see Carlsen used the idea too to gang up on the weak pawn. Its not that the plans are useless.

1) Buy the right books and STUDY, and practice.  END OF STORY.

2) Stop wasting your time in these mindless threads.

*There are hundreds of these threads, all basically on the same topic.  DUH?

Or hire yourself a good chess coach, get to work, and return to step #1.  

Well thats a million dollar question. Because everyone is different. Everyone  learns differently as well. All 3 phases of the game are important.

The more you can remember from studying while playing an actual tournament will determine on how you will do generally. Obviously it depends on how much you actually know and can retain  and put into practice while playing.

Blitz can be good to help memorize openings, and practicing your quick tactics, and mating patterns. As far as calculating thats open to debate.

It usually turns sloppy, but for some it does help them, and it can also help your thinking under time pressure (at least for some players), which can be quite stressful, in a standard tournament setting.

For a systematic approach. I would start from the beginning basics. Start with your favorite openings, at least one for white, and one for black. (the ones you mostly play, and like the most). Learn them inside out.

If not every variation, at least the most common ones, with a couple of the not so common ones, that lead to solid positions, maybe even a couple of the sharp ones as well, in case you want to surprise an opponent. Sam Shankland talks about this approach, and I agree with it.

Learn all the traps, and mating nets you can especially from the openings you plan on playing, taking notes on these is a very good idea. It helps reinforce these into your long term memory. ( I was taught if you want something ingrained into your long term memory write it down 3 times).

Then learn the pawn structures from the openings you have chosen, and find the general plans that favor them the most.

Analyze them, and look for your own ideas as well, try to come up with creative ideas, that will improve it, or make the position better, so it will lead to better chances of you seeing something winning in many different end game positions. This will be difficult, perhaps not even possible depending on your ideas, and position you look at, but take it move by move.

Then go over all your end game knowledge, and try to learn even more.

Then go back to the basics again, it will never end, just keep cycling thru every phase, learning tactics, studying master and GM games looking for new ideas, maybe try a couple new openings you are interested in. What I have stated so far, left a lot of stuff out that you also need to study as well.

Such as positional play, pawn structures, outposts, light and dark square weaknesses. Pawn chains, breaks, wedges, timing, space, square control, on, and on. Piece coordination (what pieces work best for you, under what circumstances). Rook play, Queen and knight, or queen and bishop, rook and knight or rook and bishop, depending on pawn structure, and even other circumstances.

Are you weaker with a certain piece. (for example, most people try to trade their knights off quickly because they really don't know how to use them, or they are afraid of them).

Not saying this is your case, but if you do have a cerrtain weakness with any chess piece, I would highly recommend you practice with that piece, until it becomes your favorite piece to use. If thats not possible, at least until you know it as well as any other piece.

I hope this wasn't too long, and I didn't want to write a book, but hopefully it will be of some help, it covers a lot, and it maybe totally worthless. Anyway Good luck.

Being good at chess has almost nothing to do with knowledge. Every chess club of any size is filled with 60-something year olds who have been playing since they were kids who can show lecture on dozens of famous games and positions and yet they are weekly put to shame by 8 year olds who have never even heard of Kasparov. 

Chess knowledge and chess ability  are related, but distinct things. Chess ability is about concrete calculation and decission making at the board, and just about nothing else. It can not be learned by studying about chess. It can be learned and improved only by doing it. Knowing things like "rooks belong behind passed pawns in the endgame" isn't even really all that helpful in practice because that general rule is true except when it isn't, and the only way to know when it isn't true is to be able to calculate and evaluate in a concrete specific position. 

That's the horrifying truth. Good explanation, concise and to the point.