Expert: Louis Lima - 7/9/2007

Question
Hi! I'm going to be a freshman in high school after this summer is over, and I have not played any chess since May 2006. My USCF rating was/is 1255, and it really hadn't gone up for a year during the last time I played. I have a tiny library of chess books that I got on discount on Amazon and old bookstores: Understanding Chess Move by Move, Judgment and Planning in Chess, 1001 Winning Sacrifices and Combinations, Logical Chess Move by Move ( I studied this one 3 years ago ), The Art of Attack in Chess, Winning Chess tactics by Seirawan, Winning Chess Openings by Robertie, How to improve endgame play by Flear, How to improve opening play by Ward, The Game of Chess. Combinations: The Heart of Chess.

I would like to know how I can utilize these books and improve in chess, as I am interested in starting to play again. I used to play the Colle System, but I don't think it's such a good idea now. I was a very defensive minded player, who just waited for the opposing player to hopefully make a mistake. I don't really have any openings in my mind that I can play, other than very basic ones.

Well... I'm very eager to improve, and hopefully go to a few chess tournaments throughout the year. I just don't know what to do to make myself better, as some of the books seemed kind of hard, and I really don't know just which one to try.

Thanks! and hope you respond! =)

Answer
Hello Alex,

You have some instructive books in your collection! I would recommend for you to focus on these books: 1001 Winning Sacrifices and Combinations, Understanding Chess Move by Move (I assume is the one written by John Nunn), and Logical Chess Move by Move (You can revisit), and How To Improve your Endgame.  The others you can put away this year.

I would recommend you follow Mr.Maza's technique of seven circles when working on the 1001 sacrifices. Basically, you divide the 1001 chess problems into 64. That is about 16 tactics a day. You want to set a time of about 10-15 minutes to solve each one. When you are doing with the book, you try to solve all the puzzles again in 32 days (about 31-32 per day), then all puzzls in 16 days, 8 days, 4 days, 2 days, and finally the entire book in one day. This means you will go through the book a total of seven times! Try not to peak at the answers when you are frustrated because it will hurt you in the long run. If you cannot solve a problem after a 20 minute sit then look at the answer but try to understand why did you miss the right answer.

I also wrote this article on my site about tactics

http://chesstactics.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/discovering-tactical-shots-in-your-...

This will give you an idea on patterns that give you a clue that a tactic is present in a position. Going through thr 1001 book ths way will give you a huge jump on your rating

The other move-by-move books I would just go over the games, in particular the games that you are interested from an opening viewpoint. You can  take the winning side and try to guess the move and write down your rationale, then compared the notes with the authors. It's a lot of work but it will surely pay off.  

Hope this helps! Let me know how it goes. TenderDragon@Optonline.net   Cheers, Louis