I am a part of a chess club and all its activites are available at http://buffalochess.blogspot.com. I play over the board every week at the club. I also play in T4545 league online on ICC as part of a LeChess team.
Below I give information on my training lessons, the chess books and softwares that I own and a brief review of them highlighting those that have helped me when utilized in tandem with my lessons.
Chess Training Lessons
I started taking lessons towards end of year 2005 and the periodicity of lessons has varied from once in two months to even twice a month. My teacher GM Petr Kiriakov (ICC handle: Petrovich) analyzes my games (tournament and club) and I must say that these have been the most benefitial amongst all that I list further below. The sessions last 1 hr long each and soon after, I annotate my games in my database with the notes during the lessons.Chess Books/DVDs (To be Updated)
- Tactics
- chesstempo.com : This site has been amazing to solve tactics. I only came across it in late 2009. But this makes solving tactics lot more serious since there is a rating assigned to each problem and your rating goes up or down depending on whether you solve a puzzle correctly or not. The rating of the puzzle also fluctuates little bit depending what rating people solve it. I spend abotu 5-10 hrs in a month (averaging 15 min. a day) solving the puzzles.
Here is the chesstempo's daily chess puzzle - Attacking Manual 1 and 2 - Jacob Aagard(Level 1800+;Rating 5 on 5): I got this as gift for my birthday in March 2011. The book had received the best book award for year 2010 (during the London Chess Classic that year) and it absolutely deserves it. Firstly the narrative is excellent and all the games are fully annotated (by this I mean its not a puzzle book) making this book dual purpose -- tactics and serving as a source of annotated games. This book is unlike anything I have read so far (only completed 4 chapters of 1st book as of July 2011). It contains mostly very recent games for eg of of Carlsen, Anand etc hence you are more motivated to read them having followed some of the games yourself. Secondly, the author tries his best not to lose the reader in mindless endless variation but rather explains the ideas and points succintly. The author explains it in a way that it somehow remains in your head the beauty of the game and the tactic involved. A must have for 1800+ players.
- Forcing Chess Moves - Charles Hertan(Level 1500+; Rating 4.5 on 5) : My latest addition to my collection has really been very different and useful. Its hard to put in words the uniqueness of this tactics book as opposed to others, but really practicing the idea of calculating and identifying forcing chess moves is critical for chess improvement. I would strongly recommend this book to all serious chess learners.
- Find the Winning Move - Garry Lane(Level 1200+; Rating 4 on 5)
- Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games - Laszlo Polgar and Bruce Pandolfini(Level : Universal; Rating 5 on 5) : I have heard many people comment negatively about this book saying "Oh, these are so easy ..., I can solve them so fast and they are so boring ... I can always solve puzzles when given one, but during the game its different". Well its tough to read this book with that attitude. It is true that when given a puzzle, the mind starts to look for unsual moves and indeed solves it, but fails to identify and use such combinations during a real game. But the plain truth is, unless the mind is saturated from seeing such positions over and over again (by looking at these boring puzzles) its not going to identify them at a real board. So I completely disagree with all those who think solving short mate puzzles is not going to help you at the board. Rather I would say this is almost mandatory even though it may be boring at times, but who told serious chess training is always fun.
- School of Chess Excellence 2: Tactical Play - Mark Dvoretsky(Level 1800+; Rating 3.5 on 5) : A very slow read book. Some of the puzzles are really hard (speaking for myself). But most chess experts around the world will agree that Mark Dvoretsky is one of the best chess trainers in the world. And his books are always great. I have only come to appreciate this lately as the book is meant for 1800+ or even master level players.
- Openings: I have not sutdied opening books since 2008 as my opening repertoire was to an extent complete with my lessons. To build my repertoire before that I used the below books along with my lessons
- Starting out series: These are a bunch of books with eg. "Starting out the Ruy Lopez". I have those that I use in my games and built up my repertoire (enetered and saved in Bookup/Chessopeningssoftware and more recently also in chessbase 10). These books are very nice, they are not bulky and at the same time give out the all the main variation along with the main ideas involved.
- The tricky and dynamic lines of ...a6 slav : I play this variation and did not find a starting out series for this and hence purchased this book. Excellent in depth details of this variation
- Endgames : I have studied this from several sources, I will list those from which I have benefitted the most
- The Endgame Manual - Mark Dvoretsky : A great but slow read. Very nicely illustrated principles, but this book has to be combined with the next in the list since not all positions are explained.
- Basic chess endings - Rueben Fine : It is the encyclopedia of chess endings. Its a must have for studying pawn and rook endings. Again, its a slow read, but it covers everything that you would want to know about endings. As I study positions from this book, I enter them in my endings book in Bookup/Chessopeningssoftware software.
- Karsten Müller Endgame Training (4 dvd series) : I purchased them after a recommendation from my friend in my chess club. A great instructional video lecture series from chessbase. I listen to it over and over again to grind the ideas into my head. It is easier to use than a book since you just have to listen and follow.
- Misc
- My Great Predecessors - Garry Kasparov(Level 1800+ although some game/analysis are well over that) : A classic piece of work and I own all five volumes. The best way I have found to use these books is to take a particular opening (say Ruy Lopze ECO C80) and study all games across all the five volumes (and the three books that I mention next) in choronological order. This gives an idea of why certain move choices went out of fashion while other prevailed. This used to be a very slow read. It took me sometimes one hour of study for upto 5 days to complete one annotated game until I discovered the correct way to read annotated games (jump to this note for details). In between, the political stories and facts are also interesting for light read. I have heard many many GMs say, that one of the good ways to improve your chess is to study classic game, and there is no better place than this set. As of Jan 2010, I have began to use these books in a more conventional way. I am currently studying all of Lasker's games, and will follow with all of Capablanca's games.
- Kasparov vs Karpov - Garry Kasparov(Level 1500+ and same comment as above) : Here again I own the three volumes of the four published so far. These books follow the five volumes I mentioned before and I use them exactly in the same manner. I will also investigate the latest series on Kasparov on Kasparov to see if I should add that to my collection
Chess Softwares and Internet Resources
I work on Windows machines and use UCI engines that I add to my chessbase 10 interface. Most recently I have started to use Houdini as my main engine. It is extremely fast and much more stronger than what I used before (Stockfish, Fritz 9 and Rybka 2.3). The only thing you need to be wary of with these freely available engines such as Houdini and stockfish is that they are pretty bad at endgames (It will suggest a line that it thinks it is winning only to go all the way to the end and change its mind to a draw - even things like it cannot see from far away that a known queen vs rook pawn is drawn -- so dont use it for analyzing your endgames). But in middlegame, they are great. In view of this problem someday I might consider purchasing Rybka 4(On hindsight after the scandal may be not!!). Links to Houdini 1.5 in case you want to try it. You can download Stockfish from here. Previously I used Rybka 2.3 and Fritz 9; all using the fritz 9 interface. Here too I now have switched chessbase 10 interface as I can also keep track of the opening database simultaneously. Generally I use it to analyze my games (but only after I analyze it myself without the engine first) and also to look for strong moves in unfamilar openings (if nothing concrete can be found by searching through my database). I feel turning on an engine to analyze one's game without analyzing it yourself over the baord is a very bad habit. You will be surprised as to how many good moves you can find yourself in post-mortem and this can build up your confidence when later verfied by the engine. Hence I recommend to use the engine (atleast for my level of play) sparingly and only to verify your own analysis.
I never found the necessity to upgrade to a commercial engine (like Rybka 4 or Fritz 12) since firstly I believe now that stockfish is stronger than them and secondly its just a waste of money when something else stronger is free.
- ChessBase 10 with Big Database 2010: I purchased this March 2010. With ChessBase I must warn people of bugs, but at the same time if you are faimilar with softwares like this you can really exploit its functionalities very well. The main reason I got this was to keep my database well tagged with motifs -- especially for my own games. I can tag my games with say missed win or say missed opponent tatic or whatever it may be and then just before tournament, I can just take a quick look at all of these using the keys I have defined in ChessBase 10. Ofcourse apart from this, the Big Database serves as a better reference database than what I was using earlier (TWIC - below). I also have separate databases where I store annotated games from internet subscriptions like chesstoday or chessvibes, as well as manually enetered annotations from books that I read.
- TWIC: This used to be main source of games until I got ChessBase 10. I think I will still continue to download games from TWIC as my subscription to online games will end in 2010. May be I will subscribe to games from chessbase after that. If you are going the TWIC path, then you can update your database from TWIC. They provide the games in chessbase format and this populates the main database. You need to have some starting point though. I used to just have the 1.2 million games that came with fritz 9 as the base. However, this is not enough since none of the games obtained here are annotated. Rather than purchase the mega database (annotated games database) I have worked around with cheapter alternatives as below.
- My Games: I also maintain a database of all my games played at the club and tournaments. Once in a month (or before the next tournament), I take a look at those and their analysis to identify some common patterns of mistakes. Now with the help of ChessBase 10, I hope to benefit more.
Going over annoated games of top players is a great way to improve your game. Ask any GM and they will tell you this. But the sources of annoated games are very less. One very important factor I have to come to learn in the last so many years is that when you go over GM games of the past, do not scrutinize and ask question on every move in the game -- "why not this move.. why not that move". Those question just take too long to find asnwers for and you will never complete going over the game. Rather just go over them and the annotations given (if they are not too long) keeping in mind it is alright if all your questions are not answered. By the time you go over a 1000 games, I can guarantee that many of the questions you might have had when you went over the first game are already answered by now. Reading chess games is much like reading research papers. The very first paper is very difficult to understand, but dont try to know everything right then... its not possible. By reading more, your knowledge will improve automatically. Getting back, they annotated games are predominantly in books, but it is always great to have then on your computer as it is much faster to go through them. Even those books which have annoated games, I enter the annotations manually in chessbase the first time I go over the game ( say for eg. games from My Great Predecessors). That way, they remain there if I want to go over it again at a later stage (along with possibly my own notes for my understanding). Below I list those that I use/used that directly give annoated sources in pgn.
- ChessToday: I (used to) subscribe to the daily chess news letter provide at ChessToday and they provide annotated games/endgames/puzzles everyday covering the games played internationally on that day. I did not find the time in my routine to study the daily annotations and unsubscribed after a year of trying. But if you have the time to go over, then its great. All great players including Anand subscribes to this (fact reported from ChessToday).
- ChessVibes Openings: I have intermittently subscribed to the ChessVibes openings which provide weekly news letter annotating important opening novelty games and providing an uptodate status of new moves in chess theory. It is always easy to find games in pgn, but very hard to find annoated source of games (other than in books). This is one good source for that. I have right now taken a break from the subscription due to lack of time in utilizing its benefits but instead have opted to subscribe to their other magazine the Chessvibes Training whose review is next.
- ChessVibes Training: I switched from the above (openings) to the trainings magazine and I already like it much better for my interests. Firstly Anish Giri's commentary is fantastic and his analysis is great for learning. Although it has more pages than the openings it does not get the reader tangled into pages of sub variations that is required for opening theory. All in all I would seriously recommend this for an serious chess learner. Now with my iPad, I use the freely available pdf-notes to put all my ChessVibes magazines on it and read it anytime. The interactive nature (like guess the move, questions and tactics) are those for which you may not need a chess board and hence this training magazine and the iPad go well together.
- ChessLecture.com The website chesslecture.com provides several video lectures on chess (one new video everday of week). Some of the videos have annotated games in the pgn (others only have video narration). I subsucribe to chesslecture and listen to these videos whenever I get time. Nice thing is you can view these lectures on a smart phone.
- ChessMastershool I stumbled upon Chess Masters School website accidentally and was immediately impressed by what it had to offer. They specifically focus on improving chess skills for players who have already reached a certain level (such as 1600 or 1800) and hope to reach a goal of 2200. They offer a long one year course whose materials you get to study on month by month. They provide plenty of annotated games (not pgn but pdf and browser) which I found very interesting to read. Lots of comments for every move made. There is too much material covered and and the author recomeends 7-10 hrs per week but based on my expereince I would recommend more (may be 13 hrs) if you wish to cover the material. But ofcourse you are free to read at your own pace while they make available the next months material. I have completed so far the first two months only so far although I have downloaded material for 11 months. I am really behind in studying this material but I hope to catch up some day. But I must say from what I have read so far that its very unique and instructive way of teaching chess ideas.
- ChessOpeningSoftware (Prior name Bookup): I have found the ChessOpeningsSoftware (Bookup) to be a useful tool to study and practice openings. Basically it allows you to enter moves for white and black and then train a give opening from either side. I use this on a weekly basis to constatnly memorize certain openings.
- Wyse Pocket Cloud Pro: Firstly, this is not a chess app. But since none of the apps I will be reviewing below do meet all of my requirements above, this app is a make shift. This is a remote desktop connection app that will just use your google account setup on your PC running chessbase to your iPad. Great user interface. I have accessed Chessbase 10 on my PC quite easily using this app. I have only run this using Wi-Fi on my iPad and have no idea how it will work on 3g. You will be able to have full control over your PC just like your iPad was running windows and chessbase on it. Ofcourse the response will be a sluggish but it is something atleast.
- Chess at ICC: There is an app for both the iPhone as well as the iPad separately. Its best if you are a member of ICC. It allows you to follow live events. It has several limitations as in when I am following a live game, I cannot turn on the engine. I have to save the game and then load it again to run the engine. Also I cannot move pieces myself when I am looking at a saved game. So although it is a good app there is plenty of scope for improvement. But if you are a member of ICC, I will recommend the app as it is bound to evolve with more features.
- Shredder: The best engine for your iPad or iPhone (both version available). You can enter moves as you analyze. It provides a good user interface. But I cant load a pgn game from elsewhere such as my email and have it analyzed in here. That is a big drawback. I can only analyze games that I play or enter from scratch on the app. Other than that they do have a tactics set to work through which is nice.
- Stockfish chess: A good engine alternative for shredder (especially since it is free). Its there for your iPad and iPhone. You can enter moves as you analyze. It provides a good user interface. But again same as Shredder I cant load a pgn game from elsewhere. I cant see why chess engine developers dont keep this functionality.
- tchess Pro: Definitely better than the above two for one main reason. I can load a pgn from my email and analyze it using the engine but any game with recursive variations do get messed up. It still not yet supports annotations and recursive variations. The UI provides for a nice way to navigate through moves, better than shredder or stockfish. Its there for your iPad and iPhone. Unlike the others, you can even start entering new moves while viewing a pgn file, the only trouble is it will not be entered as a variation but it will replace the main line and then to go back to the main line you need to close the pgn without saving and opening it again.
- ChessViewer: Easily my favourite app for my requirements. Here is a link to the developers page. Firstly with this app you can start purchasing eBooks (just like chessbooks) and they have a great collection of books (but only those published by Everyman Chess). These books are just soft copies of the regular chess books you would generally buy. For eg. they have Kasparov vs Karpov the 3 books. Now to the pgn support. I can copy any pgn files (containing several games with annotations and variations) into my dropbox or just email myself. And then use the email link to open the pgn in chessviewer. From what I have seen this app is easily the best that is out there to look at a annotated pgn. You can enter a variation and at the end youu can jump to the place where you branched off. You can even search your pgn by playername and sever other fields. This is especially useful for me since my games database contains more than 1000 games. Having said that the interface to view the recursive variations can be improved a lot. But a serious drawback is again that it does not let you enter your own moves as you analyze a pgn. And ofcourse there is no engine to turn on to analyze. Since this is the app I have been using I shall tell you my workflow. After every otb or online game I play, I enter it on my PC into my chessbase 10 into my games database. I then enter my analysis on my PC. I then select all my games in the database and output it into a pgn file which I email it to myself. I can then open this on this app which I can take it wherever for going over it (pity I cant modify variations within this app).
- Chess DB (HD): This is an iPad only app that claimed to do all of what chessviewer does but falls apart very quickly. You cannot use a dropbox or email attachment pgn to open the game. You need to upload the pgn on to a website and then download it from there. Still fine, but recursive annotations are a pain to go over in this app. NOT recommended until they get a decent update.
- CBase Chess: This is an app only for the iPhone but you can install it on the iPad as well (but ofcourse you are going to have a small screen). A decent app that performs at the same level of ChessViewer but its only for the iPhone. You can open any pgn with recursive annotations and comments from an email attachment or dropbox. You can enter variations or the main line, but at the end of the variation you can't jump immediately to the place where you branched off (something you can do in chessviewer).
- ChessEye: I have used this ChessEye simple tool (freely available for limited use) since mid 2009 only, but it has been useful to improve my chess visualization. Basically it asks questions like "What color is square a2", "Are a3 and g7 the same color", "Are squares b2 and g7 on the same diagnol", etc etc. Quite often at my level I feel the problem I face during calculation over the board is I make mistakes in my visualization of the boardtwo or three moves deep. This training has probably (I say that because I know my visualization has improved but not sure if this was the main reason amongst several others) helped me to see it better.
- My Own Knight Routes: My trainer suggested this idea to solve knight routes (blindfold) to improve visualization and I developed an iPad App for the same to ask questions (at random) for knight routes (eg. b3 to h7). Use the left bar to proceed to iOS apps to download the app for your iPad. Please email me if you have questions. In future I plan to create more capabilities for visualization training.