Summarize ALL of  this content into a blog post that I can use: Note I am not gm smirnov but have permission to modify his work. Also remove any references to gm smirnov. Also please don’t use fancy vocabulary as I’m trying anyone from sixth grade to adult to be able to read and understand the blog post. Lesson 1: How to Use Your Brain Effectively?

Hi and welcome to the course “Self-taught Grandmaster”! This is Igor
Smirnov – an International Grandmaster and a very active chess coach.

Effective Training – this is the central theme of this course. Within the
next couple of lessons, I will REVEAL…

- How to get the MAXIMUM benefit from your chess training.

- How you can succeed in chess even if you live in a small city, don’t have a
chess coach near you, don’t have a lot of training time to spare, and so on.

YES, despite all of these obstacles, it is possible to make SIGNIFICANT
chess progress. And I will be more than happy to hand-hold you through
the process.

The principles of effective learning – this is one of my favorite topics for
discussion. Matter of fact, I have dedicated years of efforts (and even took
up psychology in a university) to discover the BEST chess training
techniques! And it’s a great pleasure to share this unique and extremely
useful knowledge with you.

Without further ado, let’s get rolling.

In this first lesson, I will tell you the general principles of an effective
study. I will show you how your brain works (explained in an easy to
understand way) and how a learning process goes.

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I know you are itching to get your hands on some secret training
techniques right now  . However, please, be patient and take this lesson
slowly and seriously. This knowledge is a necessary foundation for your
future and significant chess progress. It will allow you:

- To coach yourself well.

- To coach other people.

- And it will help you to improve ANY skill (NOT just chess skills) effectively!

I will not bother you with unfathomable scientific theories, but will explain
you everything in a user friendly way.

First, let’s check out how the brain works. This will give us an idea how to
study chess MORE effectively.

(NOTE: In the next couple of lessons I will give you all the concrete chess
recommendations, so just relax and don’t worry about it.)

OK, here we go! How does your brain work? Long story made simple: a
brain works with images and associations.

Let’s make a quick test: right now, please, think about an apple. How did
you do it? Most likely, you visualized a picture of an apple. Maybe you felt
its taste or your feelings while eating an apple.

In any case, you don’t think about a word “apple”, you don’t visualize the
letters a-p-p-l-e. You use pictures and feelings. That’s why I said that a
brain works with images.

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You see, your brain creates associations between different images. For
example, it can create a connection between “an apple” and “your taste
feeling about an apple”. That’s why if you think about an apple for some
time, you will automatically somewhat feel its taste.

By the way, this a really perfect system, because it allows you brain to
accumulate unlimited quantity of information and to keep it well
structured.

Next, when your brain creates a chain with several images and
connections between them – it becomes “a program” for you (an
algorithm of your actions). Similar to a computer, human brain uses
programs.

Here’s an example: when your phone rings – you take it and bring it to
your ear. It’s a simple program, and of course we operate with much more
complex programs as well.

By the way, it’s really “a program”, because you don’t think “How exactly I
should take the phone by my fingers?” or “Should I bring the phone to a
left or right ear?” and so on. You just do what you have to do.

You make everything automatically.

Here we come to another important idea: when you realize and practice
one brain ‘program’ a couple of times – it becomes automated. It takes
about 3 weeks to automate such a program. After that it becomes your
SKILL. Of course it all relates to your chess skills as well.

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That’s why it’s definitely not enough to simply read a chess book about a
certain topic in order to fully assimilate it. You need to practice the same
element for the next 23 days and only after that you will be able to use it
practically.

That’s why often it seems for you like you know something when really
you don’t (so you can’t use it really).

In my free e-mail lessons I gave a simple test: calculate how often did you
use a positional sacrifice in your last 50 games. If you did such sacrifices in
less than 5 games, then of course you do NOT know “what a positional
sacrifice” is. More precisely, you don’t have this skill.

Summing things up, here’s how YOU can assimilate chess skills properly:

1. You need to know a new idea (possibly from a chess book).

2. You need to integrate this idea in your thinking process. Thus it will
become a part of your “mental program”.

3. You need to practice this new program regularly during next 3 weeks.
Only then you may honestly say “I know it!”.

Now we come to the next important question: “How to learn chess
effectively?”

There are 2 possible ways…

First, you can test different thinking algorithms in practice and choose
better ones. Here you will need to get new ideas from chess educational
materials, then test them in practice, then correct the elements which

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didn’t work well, then test it again and so on. This is certainly a possible
way. This is how Steinitz, Capablanca and other old masters learned chess.

This is the harder way.

However, you don’t really need to go through this long process.

Instead you may copy the thinking process of a strong player (who already
tried different thinking rules and already found the best ones). You don’t
need to fix what is NOT broken.

By the way, many famous players have used this method with great
results. Tigran Petrosian studied Nimzovitch’s book “My System” very
thoroughly and has copied Nimzovitch’s style. And guess what, Petrosian
got an International Master’s title and became a strong player.

Anatoly Karpov in his childhood read Capablanca’s books many times and
copied the thinking process of the 2nd World Champion.

The list of examples can go on and on…

Of course it’s not that simple to imitate a strong player. Here we arrive to
the main problem in teaching:

When you automate a skill, you forget its elements!

Graphically it can be presented like this. Here is your mental program. It
contains some actions (images) and associations. When you automate this
program, your brain starts treating it as a single line. After that you can’t
focus on every single element anymore.

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And we should be thankful! This allows you to realize this mental program
quickly and automatically, without thinking about it. It would be pretty
annoying to think how to lace up your shoes every morning 

From the other hand, this makes it difficult for you to teach another
person how to make something. You just do something, and you can’t
even explain in details how exactly you are doing this.

All chess players suffer from this situation. Let’s say you are reading a
Kasparov’s book and you see a sentence: “Here I made a great move
16.Rg5. This is a beginning of a right plan of an attack on a king-side.”

This sentence looks good, but it’s useless for you.

It doesn’t explain: (1) Why this move is actually so great? (2) How
Kasparov came to this plan? (3) How he decided that this plan is better
than other possible plans? And so on.

I remember how I trained with one famous Grandmaster some years ago.
When I asked him to explain me how does he find the right move, he
answered something like: “Well, you know, I feel that the rook should be
here…”

Gee, thanks. Very helpful.

You see, often strong players can play well, but they can’t help you to do
the same. That’s why only very few coaches can really teach you
something.

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Nevertheless, everything is not that bad for you. In my courses I show you
the Grandmaster’s thinking process in details. So you can easily train it and
copy it.

However, there is one obstacle here also. Our brain tries to use the
existing automated programs mainly.

This allows a brain to work quickly and with little stress. Thus if there is a
choice between your existing automated skill and something else – your
brain will use your automated skill.

That’s why it’s very difficult to retrain yourself and to replace your old
thinking habits with new ones. It’s natural for a human’s mind to cling
onto old habits. There is one interesting dictum about it: “People always
decline changes, including changes for the better.”

Very often chess players continue making the same mistakes again and
again. And they can’t change the situation even if they know about it. It’s
the biggest problem of every chess pupil.

How can you overcome this situation? There are 3 main ideas here:

1. In order to progress in chess you should always be ready to replace your
old thinking habits with new ones.

2. This process may be uncomfortable and confusing. Inwardly you will
dislike it. Don’t worry. That is perfectly NORMAL.

3. In order to develop new thinking habits you should use your
WILLPOWER. Practice the new mental program for 3 weeks.

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From the beginning this may be confusing. However, little later you will
start realizing the new program easily and you will even like
it…especially when you start winning MORE games!

And here is the final question: What should be the result of your training?

Bottom line: you want to create your thinking system, which will allow
you to find the best move in any situation.

Such a thinking system will contain a set of simple thinking algorithms. For
example: After an opponent’s move I should ask myself “What is an
opponent’s idea?” This helps you to prevent blunders and this is an
example of a portion of your thinking system.

You need to piece together these thinking algorithms, which in the end
will form your whole thinking system. Also you need to train and automate
each algorithm, and your thinking system in whole. After that you will
constantly play well and make SIGNIFICANT chess progress.

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Now let’s make up some conclusions.

1. The main goal of your training is to create your perfect thinking
system.

2. You can create such a system by 2 main methods:

A. Copy the thinking algorithms of strong players. This is the main way.

B. And secondly, test your thinking system in practice and replace
ineffective thinking habits by new ones.

3. Use the following ideas to develop new skills:

1) Be ready to replace your old and ineffective thinking habits.

2) This process may be uncomfortable and confusing. YES, you will not
like it (and that is normal) and it will take a lot of effort.

3) WILLPOWER is the key. You need to have the willpower to practice
the new mental program for 3 weeks. Again, it will be confusing. BUT
once you have automated the MUCH more efficient thinking system,
you will play better chess and get BETTER RESULTS!

That’s it! It shows what chess training actually is. It’s very useful to deeply
understand these fundamentals. It helps us to detect the most effective
training techniques. Check out the next lessons…

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Lesson-2: “The Best Training Techniques.”

Hi again and welcome to the 2nd lesson, “The Best Training Techniques.”
Here I will share with you the most effective training methods in chess.

In the previous lesson you learnt important background knowledge. Now
you will easily be able to understand the principles of effective learning.

The 1st principle: Use MIND MAPS to organize your thinking system.

If you have studied my course “An Endgame Expert”, then you will know
what a mind map is. Several mind maps were presented in the 7th video
lesson.

If you have never heard of mind maps before, I will show you a few
examples now.

Here is one. As you can see the topic is not about chess, but that’s not
important. I just want to show you how they work.

Here you can see different objects and connections between them. Does
this remind you of something? Yes, it’s a graphical illustration of how
your brain works!That is why they are so effective! Mind maps are natural
to your mind, and so you can digest them easily.

The contrary happens with plain text. When you see a list of text, it’s hard
to remember and use this information.

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Another advantage of mind maps is that they allow you to use different
icons and pictures. In the 1st lesson I’ve told you that your brain
operatesby images (not by text). Thus you can assign an appropriate icon
to every element in your mind map. Therefore you will remember it
better.

Also mind maps allow you to connect any elements.Thus your thinking
system will be completely integrated.

Another feature is that you can insert links. Let’s say you want to connect
a chess database to an element in your mind map. You can do it easily:
click an icon “link”, then select your database and that’s it. After that you
will see a little icon near the element. By clicking this icon you will open
your database.

You see, it is a really excellent way to organize your thinking system. Also,
you can use mind maps to organize your training plan or anything else.
Actually I use it for my own projects too and not only in chess.

How can you create a mind map? The 2best programs I recommend are:

1. Mind Manager 9: http://www.mindjet.com/products/mindmanager-
9-win/overview

2. XMind: http://www.xmind.net/

I use Mind Manager and we just have seen a few example mind maps
made by this program. The only disadvantage is that it’s paidand costs
quite a lot.

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XMind is a pretty good program and it’s free to use. It has similar
functionality compared to Mind Manager. Perhaps XMind will be a good
choice for you.

You can find the links to these programs in the text version of this lesson.
Perhaps you can find other similar programs as well.

Let’s go to the next principle of effective chess training. In the 1st lesson I
told you that you need to focus on a single topic and train (practice) it for
some time in order to develop a new skill. This idea brings rise to a few
important consequences.

First, it means that you should focus on a single topic and not “spread”
your study too much.

A lot of chess players don’t understand this. Usually a chess player tries to
learn everything at once. That’s why he spends 1 hour on openings, then 1
hour for the middlegame and 1 hour for endgames (or something similar
to this). Thus he studies a few books simultaneously, hoping that it will
make his study comprehensive. In fact he gets the opposite result – he
does NOT progress at all!

Let’s recall how your brain works. As we know, your mind mainly uses
automated programs, which are integrated into your entire thinking
process. Therefore ideas which are just floating around, don’t give you any
practical results. While trying to study different educational materials
simultaneously, you only collect those “floating around” ideas.

So you should focus on a single topic and train it until you acquire the
appropriate skill, and that is when you start using it regularly in your own
games.

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Well, I know that it can be boring sometimes to stick toone theme. After
all we are not machines and we want to have fun and joy while training.
It’s OK and you may vary your training sometimes and do the things which
you like to do.

Nevertheless, you should not vary your training too much and too often.

By the way, a lot of strong Grandmasters use study sessions for training.
They get together and train for a week or more. These sessions are
dedicated only to 1 topic (maybe a certain opening or a strategic topic or
any other single topic).

When you start training, you should spend some time to concentrate on a
single topic. If you decide to learn many different topics at once, you will
have to waste time just to focus your attention on each one, and then to
recollect on all those topics that you have studied yesterday.

The next principle of effective training is quality oriented study.

It means that you need to focus on a certain topic and analyze it deeply.
Only this method allows you to understand the principles of a chess game
anddevelop the appropriate skills.

Don’t hurry your studying trying to learn a lot of new information. It’s
impossible to digest too many new ideas in a short time period.

It’s much better to study 1 book thoroughly and to obtain 1 new skill, than
to look through 10 books and accumulate a set of pointless knowledge. In
fact the 2nd way rather confuses you.

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Orientation on quality is closely connected with the previous principle
(focusing on a single topic). For instance if you analyze a game deeply, you
will spend at least a few hours and you will have no time for something
else. Thus you will focus on a single topic automatically.

These were 2 consequences of a general principle:

Focus on a single topic and train (practice) it for some time in order to
develop a new skill.

There is another practical consequence: use active learning.

When you simply read a book or watch a video lesson, you don’t practice
your thinking system. Thus you will get you very little effect.

Reading a magazine about bodybuilding will not make your muscles
bigger. Similarly reading a chess book will not improve your thinking
process.

In order to attain a new mental skill you need to practice it regularly. Thus
you should think for yourself and not only read someone else’s
commentaries.

By the way, a unity of theory and practice is one of the main educational
principles. Since we are interested in practical results, we put emphasis on
practice.

Here we come to the next question: what is PRACTICE? It is:
- Training games
- and Analysis.

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While playing a practical game you think about a position, calculate
variations, compare different possible moves. So actually you analyze a
position in your mind. That’s why analysis is very close to a practical game.

Most strong players like to analyze chess games and do it very well. You
may study the books of M. Botvinnik and G. Kasparov to find good
examples of high quality analysis. Botvinnik actually taught Kasparov how
to effectively analyze chess games. Kasparov’s results certainly prove that
analysis is an effective method.

In the next lesson I will show you exactly how you should play training
games and analyze chess games. Now let’s go to the next principle of
effective study.

The training process should closelysimulate a real game situation.
Though this principle looks obvious, most players don’t understand it or
underestimate its value. At the same time we can get a lot of useful
conclusions based on this idea.

For example:Is it useful to solve tactical puzzles like “mate in 2”?

White: Kf1, Qa4, Ng1, pawns: g2, h3.
Black: Kh2, Bc7, pawns: b3, c5, h4.
White’s turn.

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Here is an example of such a tactical puzzle where white should win in 3
moves. Of course it makes no practical sense to think about it. In a real
game black would not even play on, but just resign. Otherwise white will
win it maybe in 10 moves instead of 3, but who cares?

White: Kh7, Qh1, Rb5, Rc1, Bd4, Nd3, Ne6, pawns: c4, d5, e5, f4, g2, g6.

Black: Ke4, pawns: g7, g3, h2.
White’s turn

This is another similar example. Of course such a position would never
happen in a real game. Therefore there is no need to waste time on it.

The training process should closely simulate a real game situation. That’s
why you should solve tactical tasks taken from real games.

There is another common question: is it useful to play blitz?

In real tournament game you don’t play blitz. Sometimes you may be in
time trouble and it’s something similar to blitz play. However, your main
goal should not be to play well in time trouble, but to not be in time
trouble at all! That’s why you should mainly train with a normal time
distribution; and you may spend only a little time on blitz games.

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By the way, earlier I told you about active learning. This also makes your
training similar to a real game situation. You can see that all the principles
of effective learning are closely connected.

Let’s go to the next principle. As we already discussed you need to replace
ineffective thinking habits with better ones. Therefore you need to know
which elements of your thinking system are good and which ones are bad.
You need to be able to compare different ideas and to detect a better one.
So how can you do it?

You need to have an objective judge for yourself. Luckily we all have this
judge – it is a COMPUTER. It’s definitely the most objective judge you can
find.

A computer can be an extremely helpful tool if you know how to use it
properly. In the next lesson I will show you exactly how you should do it.
Right now, please, remember the key idea:

You need to use a computer to check your EVERY idea, so that you
ALWAYS stay objective.

This is probably the most powerful idea concerning an effective training. I
want you to pay very serious attention to it.

Otherwise you will stick with the same mistakes for very long time and
your progress will be halted. This sad situation happens with most chess
players.

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Again, you need to detect and replace wrong thinking habits as soon as
possible. That’s why you need to check your EVERY idea using a computer.

I will give you one typical example. Let’s say you are learning a book about
an attack. You are discovering new attacking ideas, developing new
attacking skills and so on. In such a situation it’s very natural for you to
start paying less attention to prophylaxis. So it imbalances your thinking
system.

Here it’s necessary to detect this mistake and to bring you back on the
right track. That’s what a computer can help you with. While playing or
analyzing a game with a computer you will see that you often missed the
computer’s attacking responses. This will force you to review prophylaxis.

It’s especially important to use a computer constantly if you study chess
alone. When you are alone, it’s very easy to become prejudiced. It
happens often. You may think about some chess ideas, with absolutely no
objectively. Of course it will seriously damage your chess progress.

You need to use a computer to check your EVERY idea

so that you ALWAYS stay objective.

Many people wonderhow chess prodigies obtain great results at a young
age. I know quite a lot of talented young players. Even I was awarded the
International Master title at 13. My result is certainly not that great
nowadays, but nevertheless I’ve noticed one interesting thing.

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Most chess prodigies lived in a small city in their childhood and had only a
few chess books and a computer. That’s why they focused on these
books, learnt them thoroughly and regularly checked themselves using a
computer.You see, they actually followed all the principles of effective
learning I’ve told you about in this lesson!

Of course these children didn’t think about effective training, they just had
no other possibilities for learning chess. They just happened to be in
favorable circumstance. You can consciously model the same situation for
yourself.

I am talking about objectivity so much because it is one of the key factors
for your chess progress.
The 4th World Champion Alekhine said: “Chess mainly teach us to be
objective”.

Kasparov always finds mistakes in his games, even in his best winning
games!

Botvinnik always tried to publish his analysis to receive feedback from
other chess players. This is how he tried to stay objective. Nowadays, we
can simply use computer assistance instead.

I’d like to give you one more piece of advice concerning this topic.
Sometimes every chess player feels strong pride. Yeah, you know what I
am talking about… Maybe you’ve beaten a strong opponent or realized
some genius ideas about chess or something like this 

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In such cases it’s highly commended to play a game against the
computer. Set the highest level of the computer program and test
yourself. Yes, the computer is strong, but if you play the correct moves
nobody can defeat you! This will be a good test of your chess skills and will
help you to stay objective.

This brings us to the next principle of effective training: your training tasks
should be hard.

If training is hard, it’ll be simple in a game.

There is a similar military saying: “The more you sweat in training, the less
you bleed in war”.

Sportsmen have a dictum: “No pain, no gain”.

While playing training games, you can enjoy many wins against weaker
opponents. However, for your chess development it’s much better to find
a stronger opponent and to lose most of the games. This should not
dishearten or confuse you.

The only goal of your training is preparation for real tournament games.
The only valuable result of your training is your chess improvement.

Try to play against strong opponents. Try to solve difficult puzzles. Your
training tasks should be hard.

At the same time you should start training with an easy warm-up. At the
beginning of your training you need to concentrate on chess. Only then
you can go to the hard tasks and perform them well.

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There are 2 main things which can be a good warm-up:

1) You may solve a few simple tactical tasks.
Please, pay attention on the word “simple”. You should be able to solve
several such tasks within 15 minutes.

Simple tactics happens most often in a chess game. Quite occasionally you
can make a complex 10-moves combination, while simple tactics decides a
game pretty often. Therefore solving simple tactical puzzles will be a good
warm-up and will help you to develop useful tactical skills.

And the second option:

2) You may look through your analysis from yesterday.
Thus you can use ready-made material from your previous training. Let’s
say yesterday you analyzed a game, found some variations and wrote
some comments. Now you can go through this game again. First, it’s quite
a simple task, so it’s really a warm-up. Secondly, you need to repeat the
same thinking algorithms in order to develop appropriate skills.

We have discussed effective training methods. Now let’s talk about
tournaments. Often students ask me “When should I participate in
tournaments?”

Actually the answer is very simple and logical. Let’s recall how you should
train:

 First you concentrate on a certain theme and study it thoroughly.

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 It gives you some new ideas which you need to integrate into your
thinking system.

 After that you need to train and automate this new thinking
algorithm. After about 3 weeks of training you will acquire this new
skill.

Once you have completed such training block, you should participate in a
tournament. This way you can see if you are applying your new skill set or
not.

If you want to play tournaments more rarely, you may study a number of
such training blocks first.

Some chess players think that huge practice will make them better players
automatically. So they play in tournaments over and over again. However,
their results are always approximately similar. I can’t explain why they are
stuck in this delusion of “improvement by constant practice”. Obviously
this idea doesn’t work.

I’ve told you a lot of information about the best training techniques. Let’s
make a summary.

1. Use MIND MAPS to organize your thinking system.
2. Focus on a single topic and don’t “spread” your study too much.
3. QUALITY orientated study.
4. Use active learning.
5. The training process should closely simulate a real game situation.

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6. You need to use a computer to check every idea to stay OBJECTIVE.
7. Your training tasks should be hard.
8. Start training with a warm-up.
9. Take part in a tournament when you’ve finished one topic of your
training.

Maybe it seems like a lot of advice, but really it is not that difficult to
follow. All these rules are closely connected and are just logical
consequences of the principles of your brain work. (We discussed them in
the 1st lesson.)

For example, the rules number 2, 3 and 4 help you to develop a new skill.
The 1st item allows you to organize different skills into your entire thinking
system.

The next items make your study more effective and help to keep you on
the right path.

Thanks for your attention. I am sure that following the ideas from this
lesson will make your study effective and your progress constant.

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Lesson-3: “Get The Best Out Of Books, Games, Computer

And Other Training Tools.”

In this 3rd lesson I will tell you how to use different training tools
effectively. You will know how to get the best out of books, training
games, computer programs and other tutorial materials. I will giveyou
exact instructions, so you will understand clearly how and what you should
do.

As you already know you should use active learning. It implies:
• analysis
• and training games.

Let’s talk about analysis more specifically. First we’ll discuss analysis of
other players’ games, and then analysis of your own games.

Now I will give you a plan for analysis of other players’ games.

1. Try to guess the moves of the winning side.
Your training should be simulating a real game situation. While trying to
guess the moves of the winning side you actually model practical game
play.

In a standard game you have about 3 minutes per every move. This is how
long you should think while trying to guess 1 move during analysis.

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Of course your main goal is not to just guess the move. You should apply
your thinking system and detect the best move in your opinion. After that
you will be able to compare your decision with the move in the game. If
your move was different, you will make the appropriate adjustments in
your thinking system.

How can you organize this process technically? I recommend you to use
the ChessBase program.

• Here you can open a game and close the notation window. Thus you
will be able to see the board, but you won’t see the moves. You can
go forward by pressing the arrow key on your keyboard.

• Think about a certain position and decide which move is the best.
After that press the arrow key and you will see what actually
happened in the game.

• At the top you can see the result of the game. Since you need to
guess only the winner’s moves, you will skip the moves of the other
side. Thus you will just go forward on his move and then you will
think again before seeing your side’s move.

Nimzowitsch used blank paper to cover the notation of chess games and
then worked out the moves by himself. Nowadays you have much more
convenient way.

ChessBase is a paid program and in the text version of the lesson you can
find a link for this product’s website:

http://www.chessbase-shop.com/en/cat_root

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However, I don’t really recommend you to purchase this program, because
you can use a free one instead. It’s called ChessBase Reader and as you
can see it has almost the same functions. In it you can also close the
notation window and guess the moves.

In the text version of the lesson you can find a link to download this
program for free.

http://chess-teacher.com/materials/cbreadersetup.exe

Once you’ve gone through the whole game working out the moves, you
should go to the 2nd step.

2. Read the author’s commentaries.
Of course you only do this if the game has been taken from a book. You
need to compare your thoughts with the author’s commentaries.
However, you should not rely on them too much. As we know the most
objective judge is the COMPUTER. This brings us to the 3rd step.

3. Analyze the game using a computer.
You should check every idea by using a computer engine. Here you need
to do 2 main things:

• Explain every move of the winning side based on the base strategic
principles of a chess game.

I’ve already spoken about the base strategic principles before in the
course “The Grandmaster’s Secrets”.

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It’s a very important part of your analysis, because it develops your chess
UNDERSTANDING.

Many chess players analyze games using a computer. However, they only
look at numerous variations suggested by the program. This is pretty
useless. Computer can show you the best move, but it doesn’t explain why
it is so. Computers don’t show you how it arrived at this move. Therefore
it doesn’t allow you to improve YOUR thinking system and it makes your
training worthless.

Perhaps you have seen chess books which contain numerous computer
analyses. They are also pretty useless because of the same reason.

You need to explain to yourself WHY a certain move is the best. Base
strategic principles will help you to do so.

After that you should:

• Analyze different variations (including lines which did not happen
in a game).

The main goal of this work is to check correctness of your general
conclusions by using concrete variations. Let’s see how it works practically.

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Timman J. – Van Wely L.

White: Kb1, Qd7, Rd1, Re1, Ne6, pawns: a3, b2, c2, d5, g4, h2.
Black: Kb8, Qb6, Rc8, Rh8, Bb7, Bf8, pawns: b5, d6, f3, h6.

White’s turn.

Let’s say you are analyzing this position. First, you should apply general
strategic principles in order to understand what move should be the
best.

In this position white has 2 pawns for a minor piece and a much more
active position. This should be an enough compensation for the little
material deficit.

First, we need to check forcing moves. The only forcing possibility is 1.Nf8.
However, after 1…Rhf8 white has no active continuations and certainly
this exchange only helped black to get more activity.

When immediate attacking moves don’t work you should bring the least
active piece to an attack. The white’s queen and knight are on their most
active positions already. Therefore white should think about his rooks. For
example, it’s possible to transfer one of the rooks to the b-file. For this
purpose white can play 1.Re4, Rd4 or Rd3. 1.Rd3 breaks “the principle of
maximum activity”, so it should not be the best choice.

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So far we have found 2 logical moves: 1.Re4 and Rd4. Is there anything
else? Maybe white can play 1.Rf1 trying to capture the pawn.
Nevertheless, it breaks the principle of maximum activity again. 1.Re4
should be better than 1.Rf1.

We applied the general principles in order to understand what moves
should be the best. After that we should go through the concrete
variations to check correctness of our general understanding. Of course
you should use a computer program here.

While thinking about the position we decided that 1.Rd3 should be a
mistake. Let’s check it. What will happen after 1.Rd3?

First, black can play 1…f2 and after 2.Rf1 the pawn is protected by the
queen. This would not happen if white played 1.Rd4.

Secondly, black can play 1…Qf2. This also would not be possible in case of
1.Rd4. After 1…Qf2 white has to play 2.Rc1 to protect the c2 pawn. Now
black can make a little combination 2…Rc2 3.Rc2-Qf1 and take the rook
back after 4.Ka2-Qd3. Black is threatening the c2 rook and the d5 pawn.
Probably white has to make a perpetual check by Qd8-a5 moves.

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OK, let’s go back. Also we decided that 1.Rf1 should be worse than 1.Re4.
Let’s check it. After 1.Rf1 black will probably play 1…Qe3.

Black protected the pawn and is going to play Qe2. Next logical moves are
2.Qb5-Qe2 (attacking the c2 pawn also) 3.Qb3 and let’s say 3…Be7. Now
white can’t take the f3-pawn because the d1 rook is hanging, while black
became much more active than before. Therefore 1.Rf1 really wasn’t a
good move.

According to the base strategic principles the moves 1.Re4 or 1.Rd4 should
be the best. Let’s see if we are right. What will happen after 1.Rd4? White
is threatening Rb4 and maybe can play Rf4 to f7 in some variations. 1…f2
doesn’t do much. After 2.Rf1 white will simply take the pawn. Actually it’s
not that simple to find any logical move for black here.

In the game white played 1.Re4 instead. This should be pretty good also.
Black answered 1…Rc4 trying to prevent Rb4 move.

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Here white had a simple win after the forcing variation 2.Rc4-bc 3.Qe8-
Ka7 4.Nf8. White is 2 pawns up, he is threatening Qa4 check and has a
winning position.

The concrete variations proved the correctness of our general
understanding, so everything is fine. Otherwise we would need to revise
our thinking system and make appropriate corrections.

This was the 3rd step: how to analyze a game with a computer engine.

And here is the final step of your analysis:

4. Summarize your analysis and make changes in your thinking
system.
Enter these changes in your mind map. You may either add a new thinking
algorithm to your mind map or correct an existing one.

Let’s go through all the steps of analysis quickly:

1. Try to guess the moves of the winning side.
2. Read the author’s commentaries (if possible).

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3. Analyze the game using a computer.
Here you need to:
• Explain every move of the winning side based on the base
strategic principles.
• And then analyze different variations using the computer.
4. Summarize your analysis and make changes in your thinking system
(and mind map).

Next, let’s talk about analysis of your own games.

Here everything is pretty much the same. Nevertheless there will be a few
modifications. Thus the 1st 2 items are not suitable certainly. Let’s just
remove them.
------------------------------
1. Analyze the game using a computer.
Here you need to:
• Explain every move of a winner side based on the base strategic
principles.
• And then analyze different variations using computer.
2. Summarize your analysis and make changes in your thinking system
(and mind map).
---------------------------------
I know that some players try to analyze their games by themselves. I don’t
think that it brings much effect. Since you use the same thinking system all
the time it’s quite difficult to find mistakes in your own games. You need
an objective judge. Therefore you should use a computer.

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The training method is still the same: first think about the best moves
based on your general understanding (strategic principles); then check
concrete variations.

There are a few more things you should analyze in your games. One of
them is:

• Find critical positions, where it’s necessary to compose a plan.

While playing a game you try to make moves quickly and you can easily
miss a critical moment. At the same time it’s a very important skill to
detect critical positions and to compose the right plans. That’s why you
should train this skill during your home analysis.

More specifically, you should:

 Indicate critical positions where you need to compose a plan.
 Check whether you found these positions during a game, and
whether you found the correct plans.

In the course "Your Winning Plan” I give all the directives about this topic.

Next item:

• Analyze your time distribution during a game.

Most chess players have problems with sensible time distribution. Most
probably you have this problem too.

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Sometimes we play too quickly and skip critical positions; sometimes we
spend extra time when it’s not necessary. Certainly it will bear negative
influence on your results.

In order to analyze your time distribution you need to keep time during
the game. And I recommend you to do it. Just write the number of
minutes the chess clock shows after your move. Thus you will be able to
calculate how much time you spenton each move.

You should also keep time during your training games. Most chess
programs record the time automatically.

An analysis of your time distribution will give you a lot of useful
information. It will show you your weaknesses (positions where you spent
a lot of time). It will help you to improve your thinking system.

Next you should:

• Analyze an opening thoroughly.

There is a great chance that you will play this opening again in the future.
Therefore you should prepare yourself as good as you can. It implies 2
things:

 Analyze different variations with the computer (including the lines
which did not happen in the game).
 Go to a chess database and see how strong players played this
opening variation.

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Let’s summarize analysis of your own games.

1. Analyze the game using a computer.
• Explain every move of the winning side based on the base
strategic principles.
• And then analyze different variations using the computer.

2. Analyze specific elements:
• Find critical positions.
• Analyze your time distribution.
• Analyze the opening thoroughly.

3. Summarize your analysis and make changes in your thinking system
(and mind map).

Now you have 2 step-by-step plans for an analysis of your games and
other players’ games. I recommend you to print them out when you finish
this video lesson.

Let’s go to the next training tools. How should you study chess BOOKS?

Actually we have already discussed this question. There are 2 main ideas
here:

1) Find the games (presented in a book) in a chess database and
follow the plan for an analysis of other players’ games.

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There are a lot of chess databases and you can find them easily. Open any
search engine (for example http://google.com) and type “chess database”.
It will show you a lot of results.
And the 2nd thing:

2) Copy out useful ideas presented in a book.
Every book has a lot of text (analyses, explanations); and a very little
quantity of really useful rules. Your task is to find the most valuable advice.
You should mark them out somehow or copy them down.

Here is the next question: What games to analyze?

Nowadays there is an excess of chess material. You can easily find millions
of games in different databases.

I will recommend you a few resources, where you can get high quality
games. Since your goal is to copy successful thinking algorithms, it
becomes important to analyze “perfect” games.

 First, I’d like to recommend you a useful website where you can
download different databases for free:

http://www.chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/

It’s a collection of various databases and here you can find whatever you
want. This collection is huge and it makes it unnecessary to buy any
databases.

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By the way, in the text version of the lesson you can find all the links for
the web-sites I have showed you in this video.

Now let’s get closer to our main question: where to find high quality
games which are worth learning? I will give you 3 recommendations.
1) Use COMPUTERS’ games.
The best computer programs play almost perfect games. Moreover,
modern programs play in a human style. This makes their games really
instructive.

I’ll give you my database of computer games. It contains about 100 000
games and you can download it for free. Again, the link is in the text
version of this lesson.

http://chess-teacher.com/materials/selfgm/allcomps.zip

Of course not all these games are worth learning, but I’ll give you some
guidelines:

• Learn the newest games. Modern programs play better.

• Learn the games of the following programs: Rybka, Houdini,
Shredder, Fritz, Junior, Zappa, Isichess, Hiarcs.

These programs play high quality games in a human style. Rybka is
the best choice; almost all of its games are good. Other programs are
not that great, but they also play good games quite often.

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Here is the 2nd recommendation:
2) Learn CORRESPONDENCE games.
Though you may notlike to play correspondence chess, I recommend you
to analyze correspondence games. Their quality is often very high and
sometimes unbelievable!

You can find correspondence games on the same web-site I showed you
earlier:
http://www.chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/

Go to the section “correspondence chess” and you will find a lot of games:

http://www.chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/#correspondence-
chess_worldwide

The last resource I’d like to show you is:
3) A collection of the best informant games.
http://www.chessinformant.rs/products/1000-The-Best-of-the-Best.html
This is a paid for product, but it’s pretty good. Chess informant collect best
games since 1966 and this is their collection of the best games.

Of course you don’t have to buy this product, because I already gave you a
lot of free resources. So it’s up to you.

By the way, I don’t recommend you to buy other products of “Chess
informant”, because they just contain a lot of useless computer analysis.

These were the 3 resources of high quality chess gamesfor your training:
1) Computers’ games.
2) Correspondence games.
3) The best games of “Chess informant”.

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We have been talking about analysis, and now let’s discuss training
games.

A training game is one of the methods of active learning and therefore it’s
very effective. At the same time if you just play again and again – it
doesn’t give you much. I am going to show you how to get the best effect
out of such games.

First:
 You should play training games against the computer and against
humans.
You need to play against the COMPUTER because it helps you to keep
objectivity. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the computer’s
and human’s style. For example, a positional sacrifice for an attack often
works well against humans, but not against a computer. That’s why you
need to play against real CHESS PLAYERS as well.

Anyway you should play at least 50% of your training games against a
computer program and maybe even more often. “Your training tasks
should be hard”, - it’s one of the general principles of effective learning.
The computer is a very strong opponent. If you play against a computer
regularly, then playing against humans will seem simple for you.

Next, what are the best computer programs to play against?
I recommend you 2 programs:
• Rybka
• Houdini

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These are the strongest programs and the main thing is that they play in a
human style. This makes them really good assistants for you in your
training.

Here is a web-site of the Rybka program:
http://www.rybkachess.com/

You can download a demo version or buy the full program by clicking
these links.

Also you can go to the section “Rybka engine”:
http://www.rybkachess.com/index.php?auswahl=Rybka+engine
Here you can download the 2nd version of Rybka for free. By the way, the
2nd version is pretty good. If you are not a professional player, then it’s
definitely good enough for you.

Next, let’s go to the web-site of Houdini:
http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm
Houdini is a free program and you can download it easily by clicking this
download button.

Since you can get both Rybka 2 and Houdini for free, it makes it
unnecessary to buy any other engines. You can use only 1 of these
programs or alternate them.

The next important question is the purpose of training games. When you
don’t have any concrete purpose, your training will be for nothing.

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There are 3 main purposes:
1. Test and improve your thinking system.
We have talked about it already. You can play a game and then analyze it
following the plan I gave you earlier. Thus you can detect your wrong
thinking algorithms and fix them.

There is an important note here: you may play against ANY program (at
different levels); but you should analyze a game only with the MAIN
engine.

Chess programs usually allow you to choose its level of playing.
“Chessmaster” program even can play in a style of different personalities.
You may play against the main program’s engine or set more comfortable
level for you. However, for an analysis you should use ONLY the main
engine.

While training with a computer we are mainly looking for OBJECTIVITY.
That’s why we don’t want a computer to play in any special style.

Here is the next purpose of training games:
2. Train a specific aspect.
It means that while playing a game you pay attention mainly on a certain
specific aspect. I will give you an example.

Let’s say you suffer from time trouble while playing tournament games.
Understanding of this situation doesn’t give much to you – you need to
develop new (more effective) skills concerning this matter. That’s why
you should play training games and pay attention mainly to the clock. Even
the result of the game is not so important. Just keep to sensible time
expenditure.

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For instance you may decide to spend no more than 2 minutes per every
move. If you play 5-10 such training games, you will greatly improve your
skills in time distribution.

Another example: you make blunders and want to overcome this
situation. You should play training games and after every opponent’s
move ask yourself “What is the idea of the opponent’s move?” and “What
is he going to do next?”

Training a specific aspect in training games is a really effective method. It
was suggested by Botvinnik and was used in former USSR chess schools
with great results.
The 3rd purpose:
3. Train your openings (especially new ones).
Of course you should play your usual openings in training games.
Therefore you will get more experience and more knowledge about them.
Maybe you will face some difficulties and will be able to correct your
opening line after a game. Certainly it’s better to detect an opening
problem in a training game instead of in a real tournament game.

Also I strongly recommend that you test your NEW openings in training
games first. You can’t really learn a new opening if you did not play it at
least a few times.

Thus there are 3 main purposes of training games:
1. Test and improve your thinking system.
2. Train a specific aspect.
3. Train your openings.

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You should utilize at least one of these purposes in your training games,
and preferably all of them together.

There are a few more recommendations I’d like to give you concerning this
topic.

 Play against the computer in your usual style.
It’s well-known that you should trade pieces and play closed positions to
achieve better results against a computer. However, you should not do so.

The only goal of your training is to improve your thinking system and
develop new useful skills. The result of the game doesn’t matter too much.
That’s why you should play in your normal style. Play you usual openings.
Don’t avoid tactical complications. I can summarize it by the following
sentence:

 Do your best and do NOT care about the result.
If you play against a computer, you will probably lose most of the games.
It’s OK. These games are only preparation for your real tournament games.
However, there is another important idea:

 Do NOT lose twice in the same way.
This is your real goal while playing against a computer. Yes, you may lose a
game, but you should not lose twice making similar mistakes.

After a game you should analyze it following the plan I gave you earlier.
Then you should make the appropriate improvements of your thinking
system. In this case you will not make the same mistake.

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Don’t lose twice in the same way. By the way this idea was a credo of
Chuck Norris. Since he was a world champion in karate for many years, it
worked well for him.

We’ve been talked a lot about training games. Perhaps you want to ask me
about BLITZ games too. Is it useful to play blitz? Students often ask me this
question.

In a blitz games you don’t have time to think and to train something. Thus
you use the skills which are automated ALREADY. Therefore you don’t
develop any new skills. This makes blitz games not such a good training
tool.

However, blitz gives us some fun. Also it develops appropriate skills to play
in a time trouble. Finally, as I said earlier, you need to play against humans
regularly.

A final conclusion: yes, you may play blitz sometimes, but not too often.

And here is one practical advice: define a time interval for blitz games
BEFORE you begin playing.

While playing blitz you can get excited and want to play more and more.
After anannoying loss you want to even the score and so you keep on
playing. I know some amateur players who play blitz for many hours and
can’t stop.

That’s why you should define a time interval for blitz games BEFORE you
begin playing. Of course you should keep this schedule in any case.

Now, let’s talk about the next training tool – tactical puzzles.

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First, I’d like to repeat that:

 It’s good to solve several tactical puzzles before training as a warm-
up. This should take about 15-25 minutes.

There are a lot of books and web-sites where you can find such tactical
tasks. For example, you can use this web-site:

http://chesstempo.com/

The puzzles are in the section “Tactical training”.

My next advice is:
 Don’t get carried away with tactical puzzles.
It’s not necessary to solve hundreds of tactical problems. First, tactics is
only a part of your training. Secondly, tactical puzzles are not the best way
of training. Moreover, they can be harmful!

While solving tactical tasks, you are trying to find a combination. In a real
game you are trying to find the best MOVE. You see, there is a difference
here. That’s why solving lots of tactical puzzles can even break your usual
thinking system. It brings us to a few practical conclusions.

First:
 While solving tactical puzzles you should use your USUAL thinking
system.
Don’t try to find a combination. Find the best move. Your thinking system
should be universal and should allow you to find tactical ideas as well. If
it’s not the case – then you should improve your thinking algorithms.

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The next conclusion:
 In order to develop your tactical skills you should analyze TACTICAL
GAMES.
Your training process should be closely simulating a real game situation.
That’s why analyzing tactical games are better than solving tactical
puzzles. By saying “a tactical game” I mean a sharp complex game. Usually
such games contain a lot of tactical motifs and variations. So you’ll be able
to discover a lot of tactical ideas and to training your tactical skills.

I’ll give you an example of a tactical game.

Houdini – Rybka

White: Kg1, Qe2, Rb1, Rd1, Ne5, pawns: a2, b4, c5, d4, f2, g3, h2.
Black: Kg8, Qd5, Ra4, Rd8, Bg7, pawns: a3, b7, c6, e6, f7, g6, h7.

White’s turn.

We can see an unbalanced position with mutual chances. White played
31.Nc4 threatening fork on b6. Black played 31…Ra6 preventing this
threat.

32.Rb3 Now white is attacking the a3 pawn. 32…Bd4 Black took the pawn
and created a threat of discovered attack after Bf2.

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How can white prevent Bf2? He played 33.Re3 using a pin on the queen.

Now it’s time for black to think. Though black is a pawn up it’s difficult to
do something productive. His queen and rook d8 protects the d4 bishop.
The a6 rook can’t go to a4 or a8, because of Nb6 fork. Black found an
excellent solution: 33…b5!

It’s a positional sacrifice because after 34.cb black can’t recapture because
of the pin. So why did black gave up the pawn for nothing? It was a decoy!
Now after 34…Ra4 white can’t play Nb6 anymore. Black is going to take
the b4 pawn and then he will push away the c4 knight, will support his
bishop by playing c5, and will take the b6 pawn also. What a great idea!

Something like this may happen then: 35.Na3-Rb4 36.Nc2 (a fork)-Rb6.
Here white can’t play 37.Rd4 because of the counterblow 37…Rb1. Thus
37.Nd4 is forced. 37…c5. This time black uses a pin. 38.Red3-cd 39.Rd4-
Qd4 40.Rd4-Rd4. Black got a winning position after all. Therefore this
variation is not good for white.

In the game white didn’t take the pawn and played 34.Ne5. It keeps the
tension and prepares Nf3. White won this game afterwards. We will not
analyze it until the end, because it’s not so important for us. I just wanted
to show you that during only a few moves we have seen a lot of tactical

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motifs: a fork, a p in, a counterblow, a decoy, a discovered attack and
others.

That’s why it’s so good to analyze tactical games in order to train your
tactical skills. The bottom line is this: you don’t know whether there is a
combination in a certain position or not. You just apply your usual thinking
system and try to find the best move. Thus this training method perfectly
models a real game situation.

Where can you find tactical games? A little earlier I’ve told you 3 sources
of high quality games:

1) Computers’ games.
2) Correspondence games.
3) The best games of “Chess informant”.
Most of them contain a lot of tactics (especially computer games).

Let’s draw conclusions concerning tactical puzzles:

 It’s good to solve several tactical puzzles before training as a warm-
up.

 Don’t get carried away with tactical puzzles.
 Use your USUAL thinking system while solving tactical puzzles.
 Analyze TACTICAL GAMES.

In this lesson we have discussed all the main training tools. I hope that
now you understand clearly how to use them effectively.

Now, please, go to the section “for printing” and print out appropriate
materials. You will use them in your future trainings.