Canterbury Summer Swiss and Gold Coast Open

There are two tournaments currently happening where juniors are making a splash. I was at the Canterbury Summer Swiss at Box Hill Chess Club yesterday. Will blog more when I get the chance but you can follow the results here and the live games (top three boards) here. Rounds 6 and 7 (last round today).

For Gold Coast Open with Australia's top player, GM Zhao ZongYuan playing, see here for the links. It seems there are video reports and lots of photos. The biggest upset was in Round 3 where ACT junior Andrew Brown defeated GM Zhao! Results are also on Chess-Results.com here but there are a bit behind.

Fun video ...... what chess for spectators should be?

A great fun video from the London Chess Classic (happening now):

2010 Australasian Masters_Round 9

The 2010 Australasian Masters reached its end today and the most important game for this blog (with its focus on junior chess) is the battle between younger FM Bobby Cheng (Vic via NZ) and older FM Max Illingworth (NSW). And the battle was won by Bobby (see game below) in a QID game. Congrats!

Results

Gorka-Solomon 0-1
Rujevic-Levi
Teichmann-Smirnov 0-1
Steadman-Morris 0-1
Cheng-Illingworth 1-0

Standings

1.S.Solomon--- 8 points and Australasian Master Title
2. B.Cheng---- 6 points and Victorian Master Title
3-7. J.Morris,E.Teichmann,M.Rujevic,V.Smirnov and M.Illingworth--- 5 points each
8. C.Gorka--- 3,5 points
9.M.Steadman-- 2 points
10.E.Levi--- 0,5 points

6th ASIAN SCHOOLS CHESS FESTIVAL Colombo, Sri Lanka, 6th to 13th December 2010

This morning at 9 am (local Colombo time), the last round will be played in the 6th Asian Schools Chess Championships 2010. Our two representatives are doing rather well.

Rowan Willathgamuwa is standing at joint 4th with 5.5/8 (rating perf of 1473). His younger brother, Kevin, is presently in second place with 7/8 (rating perf of 1596).

Cheer them on for the last round as they do Australia proud.

Results here and here.

82010 Australasian Masters_Rounds 5, 6, 7 and 8

Round 5

Smirnov-Solomon 0.5-0.5
Levi-Morris 0-1
Gorka-Illingworth 0-1
Rujevic-Cheng 0.5-0.5
Teichmann-Steadman 1-0

Round 6

Cheng-Teichmann 1-0
Illingworth-Rujevic 1-0
Morris-Gorka 1-0
Solomon-Steadman 0.5-0.5
Smirnov-Levi 1-0

Round 7

Steadman-Cheng 0-1
Gorka-Smirnov 1-0
Levi-Solomon 0-1
Rujevic-Morris 1-0
Teichmann-Illingworth 1-0

Round 8

Solomon-Cheng 1-0
Illingworth-Steadman 1-0
Morris-Teichmann 1-0
Smirnov-Rujevic 0-1
Levi-Gorka 0.5-0.5

Bobby needed to defeat Solomon or at least draw ( and defeat Max in last round) to gains an IM norm. But alas ......

The last round (Round 8) starts at 2 pm AEST today but Santa Claus aka St Nicholas has already wrapped up the 2010 Australasian Masters for an early Christmas present. IM Stephen Solomon has won the 2010 Australasian Masters with one round to spare.

Unfortunately, none of the hopefuls managed to gain an IM norm as they all failed to achieve the required 6.5/9 score.

Standings (after Round 7)

1.Solomon---- 7 points
2-4 Cheng,Illingworth and Teichmann--- 5 points each
5-7 Rujevic,Smirnov and Morris---- 4 points each
8.Gorka--- 3,5 points
9.Steadman--- 2 points
10.Levi -- 0,5 points

BTW, one of the participants, Carl Gocka, is providing a round-by-round summary on his blog here.

2010 Australasian Masters_Rounds 3 and 4

Round 3

Morris-Cheng 0.5-0.5
Levi-Teichmann 0-1
Smirnov-Steadman 1-0
Gorka-Rujevic 0-1
Illingworth-Solomon 0-1

Round 4

Solomon-Teichmann 1-0
Illlingworth-Levi 1-0
Steadman-Rujevic 0.5-0.5
Morris-Smirnov 0.5-0.5
Cheng-Gorka 0-1

6th Asian Schools Chess Championships 2010, Colombo, Sri Lanka

The 6th Asian Schools Chess Championships 2010 (under-7, under-9, under-11, under -13, under -15) has begun today in Colombo, Sri Lanka (6th to 13th December 2010).

The Schedule is as follows:

6th December 2010 : Arrival of Delegations
7th December 2010: Technical Meeting – 0900 hour; Opening Ceremony and Round 1 – 1500 hour;
8th December 2010: Round 2 – 0900 hour; Round 3 – 1600 hour
9th December 2010: Round 4 – 0900 hour; Round 5 - 1600 hour
10th December 2010 : Round 6 – 0900 hour;
11th December 2010: Round 7 – 0900 hour; Round 8 - 1600 hour
12th December 2010 : Round 9 – 0900 hour; Closing Ceremony - 1630 hour
13th December 2010: Departure

Australia has two representatives in the Championships: Rowan and Kevin Willathgamuwa from Sydney, NSW. Rowan and Kevin is flying to Colombo straight after Australian Schools Finals in Perth.

I cannot locate a website but results can be found on Chess-Results.com. Strangely, Chess-Results.com is posting the different age group competition as separate tournaments. Rowan is competing in the U9 and results are here. Kevin is competing in U7 and results are here.

2010 Australasian Masters_Round 2

Steadman-Levi 1-0
Illingworth-Morris 1-0
Teichmann-Gorka 1-0
Cheng-Smirnov 1-0
Solomon-Rujevic (postponed)

Games are here until taken off for Round 3

2010 Australian Schools Championships in Perth_Final Results (Unofficial)

According to postings on Chesschat, here are the final results (the official website has not update as yet):

Primary Open

Place Name Feder Score

1 Deepdene Primary School, VIC 15.5
2 Sydney Grammar School, NSW 14.5
3 King's Christian College, QLD 13.5
4 Kaleen Primary School, ACT 10.5
5 Mitcham Primary School, SA 6
6 Swan Christian College, WA 0

Primary Girls

Place Name Feder Score

1 Mount View Primary School, VIC 14.5
2 Curtin Primary School, ACT 13
3-4 Wilderness School, SA 10
Abbotsleigh Girls Primary, NSW 10
5 Somerset College, QLD 8.5
6 Perth United, WA 4

Secondary Open

Place Name Feder Score

1 North Sydney Boys High Sc, NSW 15.5
2 Balwyn High School, VIC 14
3 St Peter's College, SA 11
4 Radford College, ACT 10.5
5 Somerset College, QLD 8
6 Perth Modern School, WA 1

Secondary Girls

Place Name Feder Score

1 Somerville House, QLD 16
2 Lyneham High School, ACT 14.5
3 Presbyterian Ladies Colle, VIC 14
4 Hornsby Girls High School, NSW 3.5

Congratulations to the winners. It looks as though my predictions were not too accurate in the Primary Open. Need to find out the inside story as what happened to the Qld team.

2010 Australian Schools Championships in Perth

The 2010 Australian School Championships have started over in Perth, WA. The participants are:

2010 Australian Schools Teams Championship – Entries

Primary Open

Mitcham Primary School, South Australia
1. Lachlan CAMERON
2. Louis MacCONNELL
3. Charles WILKINSON
4. Dinula KALUDEWA

King’s Christian College, Queensland
1. Daniel LAPITAN
2. Martin JACK
3. Matthew PYPER
4. Daniel NOWSHADI

Swan Christian College, Western Australia
1. Daniel D’ANGELO
2. David STEBBINS
3. James EDLAND
4. Sherran DeSILVA

Deepdene Primary School, Victoria
1. Karl ZELESCO
2. Max CHEW LEE
3. Matthew CHEAH
4. Steven CHEN
5. Alanna CHEW LEE

Kaleen Primary School, ACT
1. Jamie-Lee GUO
2. Marat ROSTOV
3. James ASHTON
4. Johnny HAJDU

Sydney Grammar School St Ives Preparatory, NSW
1. Nathan TAM
2. Kevin WILLATHGAMUWA
3. Calvin WANG
4. Rowan WILLATHGAMUWA

Primary Girls

Somerset College, Queensland
1. Elizabeth KAY
2. Anneliese McCONNELL
3. Isabelle LEE
4. Stephanie KAY

Abbotsleigh Girls Primary School, NSW
1. Helen PRETORIUS
2. Sarah MOK
3. Stephanie KAN
4. Amy CHANG
5. Sarah CHANG
6. Alysha CHIN

Curtin Primary School, ACT
1. Emma DUNSTONE
2. Kezia KARENINA
3. Aislinn SMITH
4. Jaimie LIEBOWITZ
5. Lucy SUGERMAN (not expected to play)
6. Zoe SUGERMAN (not expected to play)

Wilderness School, South Australia
1. Cindy CHEUNG
2. Annika GRENFELL
3. Kira WYSOKE
4. Lulu XIAO

Mount View Primary School, Victoria
1. May FOO
2. Kaitlyn BUNYAMIN
3. Bonita GU-YANG
4. Geraldine QUAH

Perth United, Western Australia
1. Indira SAVORY
2. Casey TAY
3. Sayalee TAK
4. Jaquise MANN

Secondary Open

St Peter’s College, South Australia
1. Stephen DAENKE
2. Ricky HAN
3. Tim SELVANDERAN
4. Aashray GUPTA

Somerset College, Queensland
1. Jonas MULLER
2. Brendan BAKER
3. Alex ARASE
4. Kevin TUFFAN

North Sydney Boys High School, NSW
1. Kevin TAN
2. Jack RUAN
3. Oscar WANG
4. Peter YANG
5. Jerry XU

Perth Modern School, Western Australia
1. Neville SHAH
2. Erwin TEE
3. Michael Xie
4. Joseph THOMPSON

Radford College, ACT
1. Edward XING
2. Willis LO
3. James LI
4. Yijun ZHANG
5. Joanne MASON

Balwyn High School, Victoria
1. Sam DALTON
2. Jonathan TANG
3. Zhong HAO GAN
4. Ben DI STEFANO

Secondary Girls

Somerville House, Queensland
1. Leteisha SIMMONDS
2. Abbey KANAGARAJAH
3. Jenny YUM
4. Sylvie LONERAGAN

Hornsby Girls High School, NSW
1. Pearl ELGINDY
2. Nicola SMITH
3. Neta ARAD
4. Elizabeth JOANNOU
5. Sarah KUNG

Lyneham High School, ACT
1. Emma GUO
2. Zalia LAI
3. Anna ZHOU
4. Jessie DONG

Presbyterian Ladies College, Victoria
1. Sally YU (captain)
2. Sakthi RAVITHARAN
3. Chloe WONG
4. Jennifer CHEN

Results thus far are found here (click on the logo).

In the Primary Open, it looks like Queensland (10 pts) will win with a very strong team but is being challenged by Victoria (8 pts) and New South Wales (8 pts). Qld has yet to play Vic and NSW while NSW lost to Vic 1-3.

The Primary Girls is a much closer contest with NSW, ACT, Vic and Qld still much in contention.

New South Wales is leading in the Secondary Open and I think they are good for the winners podium as they have already faced and defeated two of their main rivals.

Similarly in the Secondary Girls, Queensland is too strong and is running away with the title.

2010 Australasian Masters

The 2010 Australasian Masters has started at Box Hill Chess Club(3 Rochester Road,Canterbury)in Melbourne yesterday. Three juniors are playing, NSW's FM Max Illingworth and Victoria's IM James Morris and FM Bobby Cheng.

The full list:
1.Stephen Solomon(Australia)---International Master---2397

2.Erik Teichmann(England)---FIDE Master----2388

3.Vladimir Smirnov(Russia)----FIDE Master--2379

4.Bobby Cheng(Australia)---FIDE Master---2316

5.Max Illingworth(Australia) -- FIDE Master --- ELO rating 2304

6.Mirko Rujevic(Australia)---International Master---2296

7.Mike Steadman(New Zealand)--FIDE Master---2285

8.James Morris (Australia)--International Master---2240

9.Eddy Levi(Australia)--------FIDE Master---2228

10.Carl Gorka(England)--------------- 2179

The draw and results (and ACF ratings) are to be found here.Each round begins at 4:30 pm.

Live games for three boards are here.

From Round 1, Bobby defeated Eddie Levi but Max lost against Vladimir Smirnov while James' game with Stephen Solomon is postponed. Today Max plays James while Bobby faces Vladimir.

[Note: due to Stephen's coaching responsibilities at the National Schools Competition in Perth, there has been some changes to the draw.]

IM Mark Dvoretsky speaks ......

Yes, he is only an IM, not a GM ....... So why should we read/listen to what he says, you may well ask, dear reader. Aha! he may only be an IM in playing strength (although there is argument that he is actually GM-strength but that is another argument for a another day ......) but he is definitely a super-super-GM (possibly 2900 if there is such a thing) in terms of chess coaching and training. His books are recommended and compulsory reading but only if you are at least Elo 2200 and above. Don't try them if you are below that chess strength as the books may actually do more harm than good.

Recently Dvoretsky did an interview with Chessvibes who has published the interview in three parts: here, here, here.

Here are excerpts of interesting bits (well according to me):

The most important question: Chess parents and expectations:

Do you agree that playing chess at the highest level (top sport, under pressure from the parents) for children aged five till seventeen actually is an unhealthy activity because the total surrender and fixation costs a lot of individual development and spiritual/physical joy?
It can be dangerous. If the young player has smart parents and a good trainer he can develop reasonably and there’s no harm. We have examples of both: chess players who received a very limited, one sided support and who have psychological problems, and on the other side very well developed, very smart, very interesting persons. So it depends on how a player develops. On the other hand, as was proven in many experiments studying chess helps to develop some essential, general skills for kids. They don’t have to become a professional player but they get a new source of pleasure if they can play chess and if they can follow games of other players. Professional chess can be harmful, but with an inaccurate approach, a primitive approach. [emphasis original] [a pity Dvoretsky does not elaborate further on the harmful, inaccurate primitive approach to chess training.]

But consider this answer and underlining the importance of family, chess organisation and country to ultimate success:

Which players that you either trained or not, of the top chess world do you consider that they are at least equal (or maybe even better) in natural chess pure talent to the very best (players that made it to WCH or the top ranks), but for other reasons (laziness, personality, etc) haven’t or wont ever been able to be either WCH or even the top 5. In my view, the most notable example is my favourite genius Vasil Ivanchuk.
Ivanchuk is of course a good example and there are many others. I will mention one of my former students, not so well-known like Ivanchuk, it was certainly my most talented student and he had all practical qualities to become World Champion: Alexei Dreev. I started to work with him when he was eleven years old. When he was young, during several years he had much better results than players of the same age, like Ivanchuk or Anand. He had much better results and he had perhaps even better prospects. But he didn’t even became a player of the level of Ivanchuk, I don’t speak about Anand the World Champion. The main reason was bad environment – bad family environment, bad environment in the city where he lived and bad environment in the country where he lived because a lot of harm was done to him by his country. This was the reason why he couldn’t use his talent but when he started his quality was absolutely fantastic.

From Part One:

Are there more examples, like Lipnitsky’s book [Questions of Modern Chess Theory], of books that are very good but have not yet been translated into English yet?
Maybe it makes sense not to mention books, but authors, because it is essential for any chess player to read good authors. Some old books we mentioned, but there are of course a lot of very good modern books. The books of grandmaster John Nunn are basically very good. Great books, which I like a lot, about chess self improvement, were written by grandmaster Jonathan Rowson: Chess for Zebras and Seven Deadly Chess Sins. I liked them very much. They are very deep and very instructive. A good book was written by my friend grandmaster Aagaard and he collaborated with grandmaster Marin, he also writes very good books. There are some very good collections of exercises, for example the collection that was written by grandmaster Volokitin and his trainer Master Grabinsky, this is a very good collection of exercises, a very high level. Just recently I received a book from grandmaster Shaw from Scotland. I had no time to read it so I gave it to grandmaster Motylev, a student and friend. He told me just yesterday that he solved a lot of the exercises and he liked them very much, he believes that the book is of very high quality. I don’t have my own opinion, but I believe him, perhaps it’s true. So there are many really good books, and I recommend people to distinguish them from bad books and to read just good books, no other books.

And from Part Three comes a recommendation of a book on calculation training:

When learning from your book on endgames, should I use a board or try to do the calculations in my mind? What will improve my chess more?
You can do both, you can analyze some complicated line at the board and simultaneously you can try to do something in your mind. Actually, to train yourself in blindfold chess, to see the board, I believe that it is important, I didn’t do such kind of training myself but I know for example the opinion of grandmaster Igor Zaitsev, he believed that it’s very important for a chess player and he recommended to train blindfold chess and to make blindfold analysis and so on. So I have no certain opinion about it but I believe that perhaps it’s useful for a chess player. Logically it should be useful. I can recommend one good book, the book of Jonathan Tisdall, Improve Your Chess Now. There is a chapter in this book the development of this skill. I can recommend to read it and to think about it.

I like his honesty and professionalism, that he will not trade on his name, goodwill, reputation to make money by writing books of all sorts and kinds:

All your books are directed to relatively high-level players. Would you ever consider releasing a book teaching a player from scratch rather than assuming they are already quite good?
No, absolutely not, I will never do this. There’s a very simple reason: I should speak and write about what I know well, the best. From the very beginning of my training work I prepared myself to work with either strong players or with very talented young players, to help to develop to a professional level. It’s how I collected my exercises, my examples, my method of work, and so on. This is what I know, what I studied. So I prefer to write what I know well. I have not enough experience about another level, a weaker level, so what’s the sense? By the way, the same criteria we can apply to some other question:

Do you see any drawbacks in your method, or have you seen things in methods from other trainers that you actually like very much? That you would like to adopt? Or maybe even aspects that you have copied from other coaches?
When I developed my approach to training I was quite a well educated chess player. I read a lot of chess literature so I tried to use the best of what I read from other authors. I also watches the work of some people, maybe trainer Roshal, or Botvinnik, with whom I worked together, and so on. So I tried to use some of those features, but always some features. But what is more important is that actually I have no method. I don’t believe that it can exist, some correct kind of method. Such methods cannot exist just because people are all very different. Trainers are different, with different levels of knowledge, different chess strengths, and the students are absolutely different, by personality, by level of play, and so on. So I don’t see that there is some absolutely correct method which I can recommend, that you should do this, and that, and so on. What I do have is some important principles for a correct approach to chess; principles of work, principles of effective work in chess. But principles is not enough; I also need to have ways how to implement principles, so some good chess material, some of my own ideas about chess problems, chess aspects, some very good examples which will be impressive for my students, and so on. But I cannot say it’s a method, it’s a little bit different. So for this reason, OK my principles have been very successful during all my life. So many young students were usually so successful, that I don’t have reasons to doubt them. Do I see any drawbacks? Well, if the principles are correct, what drawbacks can you… The only weakness of my problems is my person. Of course I cannot know everything in chess, so some topics, some problems I cannot teach, or I don’t understand well.
Can you give an example?
I understand that I am not a specialist in openings so I avoid opening work. I am not a very good strategist, so I cannot perhaps explain well some strategical situation in chess, and so on. I understand my weakness and I of course I work in the areas where I’m stronger, as everybody does. It’s ridiculous to demonstrate something which you don’t understand yourself well. And of course there are some personal drawbacks. Drawbacks of nature, which sometimes do not allow me to do my work by the most effective way. So it’s not about drawbacks of a method, of the approach, it’s the drawbacks of myself, they exist of course, but what to do?

There is a last question and answer about his annotations in his book. A must read. I won't excerpt.

Now, what do you think will attract a trainer/coach of Dvoretsky's calibre to work with you? Well, it should come as no surprise, really ......

What is the starting level you would prefer to work with? From what rating level?
It’s not exactly a matter of rating. In Russia it’s, I don’t know how to evaluate it by rating, but in Russia I started either with very young Candidate Masters, when they were let’s say eleven years old boys, like Alexey Dreev or Alexander Riazantsev for example. If my student is older he should be stronger, because I would like to reach good results with him and so on. So either with a very talented young player, to help develop somebody’s chess style, or sometimes to help some good grandmaster. But the most important condition is that he should really want to improve and he should be ready to make serious work. Of course I gave some random lessons, I gave some knowledge if somebody wanted to listen, but it’s work for money, not for interest. But for interest both of us should aim at something serious. [emphasis added]

Excerpts from Part Two: For those pinoys out there, if you ever wondered about the missed opportunities especially for Wesley So, you can start hitting the wall with your head now ......

Players like Giri, but also for example Wesley So, have become very strong by using the computer, much more than working with a coach. Does this surprise you?
No. I believe one reason is that there are only a few good coaches in the world, so the lack of a good coach. Who could be the coach for Wesley So? I remember a couple of years ago Campomanes wrote me that he wanted to arrange work for me with Wesley So but eventually he didn’t do it – maybe there were some financial troubles, or with the organization. I believe it would be useful for them but the majority of the players just don’t have such an opportunity.

But it may not be too late. Perhaps it is time for all expatriate Pinoys all over the world to establish a Wesley So Foundation Fund dedicated solely (no pun intended) to supporting Wesley in his quest for World No 1 and the world championship.

Now here are two interesting answers on training:

But does it surprise you that somebody can become this strong without working with coach?
I have a theory that working with a strong trainer is especially important for young players who don’t have great intuition. Players with great talent and great intuition enable to absorb things around them themselves so they can improve better than players who have some serious drawbacks in the beginning and cannot overcome that because they cannot learn from games they are playing, from other games, and so on. So for some people this help is more essential than for others. But even great talents got some good support. Carlsen preferred to work by himself, is the general opinion, but when he was young he got great help from his coach grandmaster Simen Agdestein – a strong player and a very nice person – I believe that it was very helpful for Carlsen. Now he works with Peter Heine Nielsen and some other strong players, so you cannot say he works without trainers. Anand maybe didn’t have strong trainers, in the past, but at some point he started to work with the former Russian grandmaster Mikhail Gurevich and it helped him a lot because Gurevich helped him to absorb some elements of Russian chess culture, which was useful for him. Then he worked with Elizbar Ubilava, which perhaps was helpful, and so on. So we cannot say all of them work absolutely by themselves.

Can you say what it is Western players might miss when they are not growing up in Russia? What is typical for Russian chess, for the Russian chess school, as described very often in books?
You know, it’s different for different players. In the past – I’m speaking about the previous century, the seventies, eighties, and so on – the majority of the strong, professional players lived in the Soviet Union. The majority of good books was published in the Soviet Union. So strong players were in contact with each other. So it was another level of chess knowledge, chess atmosphere. People were more educated, with more books, more contact, new opinions, different approaches, and so on. This was absent in the Western countries where there was just one single strong player. For these players it was more difficult.

So such contact, such work with Soviet trainers just enabled Western players, like Anand and some others, to get some ideas, devices, some typical approaches in different situations – chess approach, psychological approach, how to behave in certain situations, which was already tried and checked in the Soviet Union. Now the situation has changed, of course, because the best books are published in the West, and there are a lot of chess players everywhere, so now this situation just doesn’t exist. So it’s just a matter of a more professional atmosphere, the sum of knowledge and ideas.

On the importance of endgame theory and perhaps more importantly endgame technique and endgame approach:

It’s very difficult, almost impossible to be a top player with weak endgame technique. [......] Endgame theory developed of course but endgame technique, endgame approach perhaps not too much.

Following there are two very important answers to "so-called" concrete questions on improvement in chess and the very common question of opening versus endgame training. You should read in full.

concrete recommendations depend on so many concrete details that it is impossible to give such a general recommendation, what he should do, what he should study. All such concrete recommendations are absolutely silly. You can recommend this, you can recommend that, and many things can be correct. So all such questions have no answer. But generally, what to do, OK I tried this in all my books, how to improve the various sides of play. But a player should decide for himself where he is weaker, where he is stronger, what kind of drawbacks he should eliminate, which kind of play he should develop, which openings better suit him, according to his personality, his approach, his memory, and so on. Sometimes people ask questions like: what should I do, this or that? Should I play the main lines or some side lines, should I concentrate on tactics or on positional play, should I play more or study more, and so on. Again, there is no answer to such a question. The right answer is: you should do both in some proportion. But the main problem is proportion – this proportion depends on the personality of each person, so again there’s no clear answer. It’s a matter of the player himself, or his trainer to decide what is correct in this concrete case. To ask such a general question ‘what is better, this or that’ is just the wrong approach.

Lastly, Dvoretsky deals with the question of actual training and what is required. I like his answer which is very similar to what I have previously posted on the utmost importance of practice and practice and more practice:

Chess can be seen as a practical skill, an occupation like riding a bicycle, or playing the piano, or something like this. How to improve? Like in any other area. You should follow good patterns, so study good examples, good patterns, and train yourself. Very simple. Studying good patterns means studying good books, good articles, try to get the best out of it, this will help you to do best yourself. Train yourself, in any practical area. I do it in all my lessons, with all my students. It’s a natural part of normal chess work: train yourself. Because chess is not just knowledge, it’s also skills. But skills don’t appear automatically if you don’t study something. OK, I can maybe study everything about driving a car but if I will not train myself to drive, of course I would do it very badly. The same applies in any other area. Schoolboys solve a lot of mathematical examples, exercises. Football players train between games practically every day and they repeat the same exercises over and over, because they need to develop new skills or at least keep the skills which they have because without practice they’ll become weaker. The same in chess: if you study something you should also do work to support the study.

Part Three has some gems on more concrete training such as these:

Do you recommend repetitive cycles of tactical problems, or that a student look at as many varied tactics as he/she can?
Why does he speak about tactical exercises only? I prepared a lot of different kind of exercises for the development of various skills, not tactics only. And not only chess skills, but also psychological skills. Professional trainers should be ready to help his students in many areas. Nobody can be strong everywhere so; I told already about it. If the trainer has a wide repertoire, he can prepare in many areas.

But I think this specific question is basically: is it better to learn with specific problems of the same theme, or is it better to mix the themes?
Again, there’s no clear answer; it depends on the aims you have. For example, say, some player is always underestimated the opponent’s counter chances. OK, for him it’s natural to concentrate on this direction so for a trainer it’s good to suggest him exercises which develop exactly this skill. But sometimes a player should just make a general training, for example prepare himself to be in good form before competition and in this case it makes no sense to concentrate on a specific topic. So there are a lot of situations and a trainer should select the exercises in accordance to the situation.

On the downside of relying on computers and chess engines to improve and train:

Another thing that is asked is: what is the disadvantage of using a computer? It’s also quite obvious. Most important is that if a chess player trusts a computer too much and takes the recommendation mainly from the computer, he doesn’t develop the practical skill which he will need to use during the game. For example the skill to quickly see short tactics. The computer helps you to avoid this work. The computer demonstrates short tactics instantly, so when you watch in on the screen you don’t need to think about it yourself so you don’t train this skill. But in a practical game you need to do it every time, in every game, at almost every move. Without training you will do it much weaker. So you should somehow try to replace this work with the computer with some intentional training in this area; you should develop the skill to be a good tactician. {also read on to know his point on computers not understanding some aspects of chess such as positional sacrifices.]

Estimating your potential chess strength as a junior

From Shaun Press (over at his blog here) comes a rough guide to estimating the potential chess strength of juniors. But as with any scheme, these are not foolproof nor one hundred per cent accurate. For example, if wish to reach Elo 2200 by the age of 23, then you should be tracking Elo 1680 if you are now 12 y o. But have a look and let me know what you think:

Age -> Rating
6 1000
7 1160
8 1288
9 1408
10 1512
11 1600
12 1680
13 1760
14 1832
15 1892
16 1948
17 2000
18 2044
19 2084
20 2120
21 2152
22 2176
23 2200