Chess Improvement Plan Without Books? I’ve Got An Idea!
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Bad news – as mentioned in my earlier post, I’ve lost all of my chess books that I’ve held close to my heart. I was clueless how to start a chess improvement plan. I’ve relied on these books for honing my skills – thinking method, tactical eye, strategic thinking, etc.
The good news is that I’ve got it all figured out now!
I just remembered that I was once a member of a chess membership site where they offer games annotated by Romanian FIDE Masters, International Masters, and Grandmasters. Fortunately, I can still remember my log-in information.
And after keying in my username and password…VIOLA! I now have 83 heavily annotated and analyzed master games, with quizzes in between the moves, at my disposal. The only question to be answered now is how I am going to use them…what chess improvement and training plan will I use that will get the most out of these annotated games?
I’m yet to figure out, but discovering these annotated games is definitely a good start!
BAD NEWS! My Chess Books Are Missing!
Now unlike many of you, I don’t have myriads of chess books in my library. I don’t have compendiums of opening manuals that cover every variation of the Sicilian Defense, Ruy Lopez, or French Defense. Matter of fact, I don’t have any opening book or manual!
HOWEVER, I can proudly say that the chess books I’ve chosen are of great quality and they provide hours of priceless chess instruction to the serious and improving player.
Re-Assess Your Chess Workbook – Written by world-famous International Master Jeremy Silman, this book will teach you Silman’s well-known imbalance-based way of thinking in chess.
After all, it’s a thinking game. Knowing how to make decisions and think right will make you a far stronger player than reading reams of opening theory.
How To Be A Deadly Chess Tactician – This one is written by a non-master but very strong tournament player David LeMoir. This one has helped me view a chess game and spot tactics and combinations like I haven’t before.
Attack With Tal – Tal has a special place in every chess player’s heart – master or amateur. This guy showed how to play daring, exciting, and speculative chess with his ‘unsound’ sacrifices which dismantled even the almighty Botvinnik! This is your chance to learn how to play and attack like Tal.
I can still remember reading through the games and the corresponding analysis and annotations without a board. It really strengthened my tactical vision and calculation skills.
How Good Is Your Chess & Test Your Chess – In my opinion, these 2 books focusing on move-prediction written by Grandmaster Daniel King go hand-in-hand with Silman’s workbook. These books will challenge you to predict the moves made by the likes of Kramnik, Kasparov, Korchnoi, Svidler, and others masters.
I went through the challenges of this book after getting used to Silman’s way of thinking. It helped me get about 80% of the moves and an overall increase in my playing strength!
These 5 books are all that I have in my VERY small chess library…and they’re all lost now unfortunately. How will I train and improve in chess now that my chess books are gone without a trace? That’s the BIGGEST question.
