Sunday, March 04, 2007

Experience versus Knowledge

Below is a 10 point list from the Kenilworthian blog site where you can find more elaboration on each of the points here. The premise is gaining experience over the knowledge you have aquired. ( and not buy any more damn books...for a while at least)There are lots of books out there but getting to the point where you can apply the concepts regularly and consistently is a matter of experience in order to improve. There are more adn more books now promoting this idea too ( Rowson's Chess for Zebras is an example)

I have been looking at my plateau that I am currently on. Over the past couple years I have mainly focused on bullets 1-3. I’ve recently tried to fold in a means to start working on 4-6 in my time commitment (bullet 9) but this is where it gets complicated. I finally have gotten to a balance with 1-3 so that if I focus on openings I am not slacking in tactical training. Its like plate spinning.

1) Study tactics, tactics, and more tactics.

2) Do a limited amount of focused endgame training.
3) Commit to a single solid repertoire as Black and one as White.

4) Play through lots of games.
5) Read on strategy only as it relates to your openings or problems you have in your play
6) Decide how to make decisions and practice it.

7) Get experience, and lots of it.

8) Find a coach or mentor.
9) Make a time committment.
10) Find a partner.


I do get a lot of experience by going to a club regularly and playing in a weekend tournament about once a month. I want to get 1-6 worked into my regimine to a point I feel balanced. This is a goal I have set for myslef by summer. I have several game collections to review and am going through my own annotation process on each. I check it with fritz only after I have gone through the entire game as thoroughly as I feel possible. I believe that this is the only way for me to develop proper positional evaluation and a deeper understanding of the game. Otherwise its just a “read and nod” session. I have to struggle with the understanding in order to intrernalize it.

I want to bring in a coach at some point… but money is a factor and I do have strong players at the club who are willing to let me exchange ideas and pick their brains.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm working on number 4. See http://globularchess.blogspot.com/2007/03/2000-games-in-366-days.html

I'm not having much luck keeping up the pace of 5.5 annotated games per day though.

-Matt

Montse said...

yes your bloggs are read but not commented on. -)