--If there is an answer to this question, please send it on to the chat. And close/archive this I guess--
In this scenario, I would love to get serious in chess. What I mean is getting better, improve. Have a training plan like on basketball, soccer and more. As humans on this planet earth, we got j*b, a life. I don't have all day to train like GM. I have bills to pay.
I have a few hours to train. How do you train to get better. Other than the basics I know as doing puzzles, playing games, analysing and watching lessons about our mistake. My question is tell me how do you get better with a few hours. Give me ur ideas, training plan and more! Thanks :)
Try one of these following books...
1) Improve Your Chess Now...............................Jonathan Tisdall
2) Chess Training for Budding Champions......Jesper Hall
3) Improve Your Chess.......................................William Hartston
You can look them over at Amazon.
Have I read them. No...I have scanned them in my own unique manner. But I have an uncanny ability to recommend books I haven't read cover to cover...And no, I am not kidding.
These books are pithy and fast especially Numbers #2 and #3.
Other than that, analyze your games.
No applause please...just throw money.
Maybe, you can find something useful at https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/how-to-improve-18 or https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/i-need-advice?page=2 .
@NoJusticeForAll said [^](/forum/redirect/post/XGqxPTJv)
> --If there is an answer to this question, please send it on to the chat. And close/archive this I guess--
>
> In this scenario, I would love to get serious in chess. What I mean is getting better, improve. Have a training plan like on basketball, soccer and more. As humans on this planet earth, we got j*b, a life. I don't have all day to train like GM. I have bills to pay.
Here's some recommendations of mine :
- play a regular amount of games each day. Fix yourself an amount of 5-7 slow incremental blitz (like 5+3) or 4-6 rapid games. It's okay if you have one day when you can't play any games or the exact amount you fixed, but the idea is to make a routine to practice regularly.
- analyze all your games, no matter the result, and don't hesitate to discuss with your opponent after a game. I myself did it and it's helpful, because it can highlight some aspects of the game you didn't noticed, and, another point of view is always interesting.
- play regularly puzzles, standard puzzles or puzzles streak.
There are many great chess players who had jobs and life.
Anderssen, Steinitz, Lasker, Euwe, Nunn were mathematicians.
Botvinnik, Vidmar, Dorfman, Sveshnikov were engineers.
Tarrasch was a medical doctor.
Alékhine was a lawyer.
Taimanov was a pianist.
Portisch was an opera singer.
'I ... have two vocations: chess and engineering. If I played chess only,
I believe that my success would not have been significantly greater. ' - Botvinnik
As for a training plan, I wrote a blog about how to reach 2000 in 1 year, 200 hours.
https://lichess.org/@/tpr/blog/reach-2000-in-1-year/dF8xLiJg
"... Zukertort ... enrolled as a medical student at the university. It is certain, that he did not finish his studies and probably did not advance much beyond the first phase. ... In 1867, Zukertort's university career ended definitively; he was de-registered from the medical faculty, probably because he had hardly attended for some time. ... Steinitz was given the opportunity to go to Vienna to study at the Polytechnic Institute. Steinitz dropped out even sooner than Zukertort and the rest of his life was devoted to his chess career. ..." - The Ink War (2022) by IM Willy Hendriks
"A few hours to train..."
Per day? Per week? Per Month?
I would suggest the following routine.
1: Tactics by motif per week. Do them until you can solve the motif in your sleep. you will never forget the motif doing it this way. Start with the list of thye most common motifs and rotate through them.
2: Review a classic game once per week from as past champion using a good book with annotations (NOT Chess Informant Style). Play it over one day; play it over again and find the critical moments; Play it over again and analyze the critical moments;
3: Study one strategic concept related to your opening choices that relates to the pawn structure. For example, the IQP or Carlsbad if you play the Queen's Gambit or the Slav/Semi Slav. One entire month. When you drop bqack into your games you will have a deeper understanding of those pawn structures.
4: Avoid Snake oil salesman who tell you its "quick and easy.". Chess is easy to learn, hard to master. Taske the comensurate time to do the work.
Good Luck
@NoJusticeForAll said [^](/forum/redirect/post/XGqxPTJv)
> As humans on this planet earth, we got j*b
Hire a professional coach.
"... the situations in which trainers work vary enormously. ... Some trainers work with large groups of students and others individually; with average low-category players or with bright and highly talented potential stars. ...
That is why I am skeptical about any attempt to introduce a rigid methodology, rigid rules telling us what to do and how and in what order to do this or that. What should one begin with? Openings or endgames? Should he play open or closed openings, should he concentrate on main lines or 'subsidiary' variations? What is more important: a tactical mastery or a positional one?
Opinions of respected specialists, grandmasters and world champions differ greatly. Some claim that chess is 95% tactics, while others hold that the basis of chess is positional play. We should not take such statements seriously; they are worthless and only disorient people because each one reflects only a single facet of the problem. In fact, when we think over a dilemma, be it the one I have just mentioned or another one - for example, should we work to develop strong qualities of a player or to liquidate his weaknesses? - any unambiguous answer like 'we do either this or that' will be a wrong one. The truth lies in skillful combination of the opposite approaches, in search for an optimal proportion between them. And this proportion is individual for every particular case. ..." - IM Mark Dvoretsky (~2003)
@NoJusticeForAll said in #1:
> ... In this scenario, I would love to get serious in chess. What I mean is getting better, improve. ...
In the 2026.09.08 game against Orpeka,
[Event "casual rapid game"] [Site "https://lichess.org/84cvI2Os"] [White "NoJusticeForAll"] [WhiteElo "2012"] [Variant "Standard"] [TimeControl "900+10"] [Annotator "lichess.org"]
you were checkmated by Orpeka‘s 17th move. You played moves 8-15 at an average rate that would have left you out of time before move 30. During those moves, the evaluation went from ~0.6 in your favor to ~8.3 in favor of Orpeka. Your play did not seem to be helped by averaging over 48 seconds per move.
This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.