RSS feedChess is officially difficult
I’ve started to play chess again. And wow, they’ve made it lots harder since I’ve been away. I’m putting it down to my more open brain. Yup. Remind me to write about my strange left-brain-to-right-brain conversion some day; there can’t be many designers with Physics degrees.
There doesn’t seem to be a great lot of advice for people who know their fundamentals but need to shake off the rust. So I’ve had to make my own tiny training list:
- Remind myself of some basic tactics to get my eye in
- Brush off a couple of sharp but not overly theoretical openings - I’m thinking Sicilian (Sveshnikov as Black, Morra Gambit as White), Benko Gambit against 1. d4, or maybe Dutch Leningrad.
- Finally understand the endgame (my eternal weakness)
- Most importantly, play lots.
As a kid I played a fair bit but spent a long time doing what I thought was studying - playing through games, nodding sagely at nice-looking moves, but never really putting the graft in to improve. Can’t say that I’ll put in the graft this time either (I’m hugely busy, and it’s not likely to ease off) so I think my only chances of making any sensible progress are by playing, not worrying about my grade, and learning from my mistakes.
In retrospect, I think that’s why I never progressed the way I should have as a kid: my grade sat around 80-90 and never accelerated like most juniors. Too much trying to get better, not enough playing for the love of the game. Bit like this blog, recently…
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