Would you like to improve your ratings?
Is your goal to have a digit "2" right next to your Lichess username?
People who accomplished this goal are in the 2% of the all active chess players worldwide - that tells a lot.
Fact above may sound discouraging, and it is. That players are in the 2000+ club for a many reasons, and none of them is the thing of an overnight achievement. Also, many people hit a plateau for years, thinking that some particular rating is their maximal, life-time potential, and that they lack IQ to improve even more.
I was thinking about the all of the factors which may stop (or slow down) the progress of the individual, and after the years of coaching many hobby players, I am confident that age, chess experience, lack of free time or any other "adulthood" factor has almost zero influence on your path to the 2000+ ratings.
By working together with the student, I do my best to force theory of learning by understanding rather by memorizing of calculating, for the following reasons:
- Less statistical percentages for the blunder(s)
- Optimal way of playing for a human (engine evaluation is not the best ally for the amateur players! )
- Energy is conserved (factor in the longer time-control games)
- Style that older people prefer due to decline in the focus through the years
I would like to be more concrete and detailed - on the chess sessions, we go through the following things:
1. How to play chess on the "off days" - having a bad days, weeks or months is not likely, but expected to happen, especially if you are working more serious on your chess (if you don't work on a chess, you just avoid playing chess when you're not motivated, and playing chess always feels good (but it just "feels", and there are not too many good days in the calendar). It is a must-skill to learn how to play great on the days when you are not feeling in the chess, competitive mode.
2. How to improve by investing not more than 12 hours/month - it is fair to mention and accept the fact that non-titled players don't have so much free time to work on the improvement, due to the many obligations in the private life. However, by "trial and error" mechanism, I detected an optimal balance of noticeable improvement with the least time invested, and found that 3-4 hours/week is enough for the gains (more time invested, even better).
3. How to play without focusing deep - focus is not a thing that we can control, and it is not-so-wise to expect that it will always serve us, especially in the stressful matches. By understanding the game, reading the board (and clues on it) and training for the specific scenarios, we minimize the need of deep focus during the game.
4. How to understand the path of the chess improvement - I found out that surprisingly many chess players on the many levels of skill do not understand how the improvement in chess works, and then we got a story from the top of this text (about the plateau).
5. Improving outside the chess - if you're reading this text, and you come to this part of it, that means that you want to improve your chess, and you will want to improve it in the all stages of chess career, or using the other words - you enjoy the process of improving, and you won't stop thinking about it in the long-term. Luckily, improving chess comes with many side-improvements, and the most important one - enjoying your results more in the rest of your chess career!
If we're not in the contact just yet, you may message me via:
- Lichess (account: delta2206)
- Instagram (account: chesswithmirko)
and get ready for the start of an improvement journey together.
Fact above may sound discouraging, and it is. That players are in the 2000+ club for a many reasons, and none of them is the thing of an overnight achievement. Also, many people hit a plateau for years, thinking that some particular rating is their maximal, life-time potential, and that they lack IQ to improve even more.
I was thinking about the all of the factors which may stop (or slow down) the progress of the individual, and after the years of coaching many hobby players, I am confident that age, chess experience, lack of free time or any other "adulthood" factor has almost zero influence on your path to the 2000+ ratings.
By working together with the student, I do my best to force theory of learning by understanding rather by memorizing of calculating, for the following reasons:
- Less statistical percentages for the blunder(s)
- Optimal way of playing for a human (engine evaluation is not the best ally for the amateur players! )
- Energy is conserved (factor in the longer time-control games)
- Style that older people prefer due to decline in the focus through the years
I would like to be more concrete and detailed - on the chess sessions, we go through the following things:
1. How to play chess on the "off days" - having a bad days, weeks or months is not likely, but expected to happen, especially if you are working more serious on your chess (if you don't work on a chess, you just avoid playing chess when you're not motivated, and playing chess always feels good (but it just "feels", and there are not too many good days in the calendar). It is a must-skill to learn how to play great on the days when you are not feeling in the chess, competitive mode.
2. How to improve by investing not more than 12 hours/month - it is fair to mention and accept the fact that non-titled players don't have so much free time to work on the improvement, due to the many obligations in the private life. However, by "trial and error" mechanism, I detected an optimal balance of noticeable improvement with the least time invested, and found that 3-4 hours/week is enough for the gains (more time invested, even better).
3. How to play without focusing deep - focus is not a thing that we can control, and it is not-so-wise to expect that it will always serve us, especially in the stressful matches. By understanding the game, reading the board (and clues on it) and training for the specific scenarios, we minimize the need of deep focus during the game.
4. How to understand the path of the chess improvement - I found out that surprisingly many chess players on the many levels of skill do not understand how the improvement in chess works, and then we got a story from the top of this text (about the plateau).
5. Improving outside the chess - if you're reading this text, and you come to this part of it, that means that you want to improve your chess, and you will want to improve it in the all stages of chess career, or using the other words - you enjoy the process of improving, and you won't stop thinking about it in the long-term. Luckily, improving chess comes with many side-improvements, and the most important one - enjoying your results more in the rest of your chess career!
If we're not in the contact just yet, you may message me via:
- Lichess (account: delta2206)
- Instagram (account: chesswithmirko)
and get ready for the start of an improvement journey together.