What You Can Do To Improve Your Chess Training

The serious chess player - just like the serious competitive athlete - understands that if they want to play well, they must have a strong training program.

You cannot simply show up to game day and expect to perform at your peak unless you have put in the work in the weeks and months leading up to it. 

If you are an intermediate chess player or an advanced chess player. You can be sure that most of your upcoming opponents will have been doing their chess training. Therefore if you want to stand a chance of beating them, then you must train hard too!

All of this leads to an important question: what do you need to do in your chess training to achieve the best possible results?

In this article, we answer that question. You will learn:

• How to prioritize what you need to work on in your chess training.
• How to build an action plan (and how to stick to it).
• How to gain maximum motivation to keep constantly improving at chess.

Identify What You Need To Work On

Step one is to figure out which aspect of chess you need to focus on. This allows you to gain the maximum amount of improvement for the time invested.

There are many things you can do to try to get better at chess . There are literally thousands of chess instruction books and chess training courses which you could study.

But as we all know, there are only so many hours in a day. You must prioritize your chess training.

In general, it will be better to work on the areas of the game which you are weakest at. For example, if you have a strong opening repertoire, but are poor in tactical situations. Then your time will be better spent training your tactics.

Related: Upgrade Your Chess Game With The Woodpecker Method.

You cannot do everything at once. So give yourself permission to leave the aspects where you already perform well until you have brought the other areas of your game up to the same level.

You probably already have an idea where you tend to find yourself falling short in your chess games. If not, it can be as simple as asking yourself: “why am I losing most of my games?” Working with a chess coach can also provide useful insights into which area will be most beneficial to dedicate your training to.

Below is a list of potential chess weaknesses. Go through the list and decide which one of these do you most need to focus on.

• Opening repertoire
• Positional understanding / strategy
• Tactics
• Blunders / missing opponent’s best replies
• Endgame technique
• Time management
• Performance under time pressure

Create A Plan, And Take Action Every Day

Once you know what you need to work on, the next step is to build a chess training plan. A chess coach can be a great help with this. However, if you don’t have the resources to work with a chess coach, then one of the many chess instruction books can be an excellent substitute.

Be realistic about how much time you can dedicate to chess. If you are a busy person with a career and family commitments, then it is unlikely that you will be able to dedicate three or four hours per day to your hobby.

On the other hand, if chess improvement is truly important to you, you must find a way to carve out enough time for it. In the same way that you aren’t going to lose any weight by working out for just five minutes per day, playing a game or two of blitz chess isn’t going to help much. You need to dedicate more time if you are going to see real improvement. 

Put solid blocks of uninterrupted study time into your schedule where you can work at whichever area of chess is your current focus.

It is better to do something every day (with maybe a day or two off per week) rather than try to cram everything into a single long study session once per week. The compound effect of daily action is very powerful.

Make Your Chess Training Enjoyable

It’s one thing to create a plan, but it’s quite another to follow through on it. As the saying goes: “no plan will work unless you do!”

However, unless you possess an unusual level of self-discipline, a desire to improve your chess strength will probably not be enough (by itself) to keep motivated on a day-by-day basis. To stick to the plan, you must love the training too!

As anyone who has ever tried to implement a new diet and exercise regime in order to get in shape knows - if you dislike the food and the workouts, you are much more likely to find excuses to skip them.

The bestselling author Robert Greene put it this way: “The people who really get far in life, who really achieve something – it’s not that they are so ‘goal-driven’ … they are actually people who enjoy the process of their work.”

Applied to chess: If you find your chess training to be boring, then you are doing it wrong. Your chess training must be fun!

Look for Constant Improvement

Take your training plan and find ways to tweak it to make it into a part of your day that you will actually look forward to. Perhaps you can study together with a friend who has similar goals. Or perhaps you choose to work with a chess coach who has a similar sense of humor to your own, making your sessions more enjoyable. It may sound trivial - but if it helps you stick to your chess training plan, it can make all the difference!

One of the very best ways to make your chess training more pleasurable is to study with a premium quality chess set. As you are working your way through the training materials, you get the aesthetic pleasure of feeling the craftsmanship of a beautiful chess set that is all your own.

The USCF store has a wide range of gorgeous wooden chess boards to suit all budgets and personal preferences. Click here to check out our full range.

Play Serious, Over-The-Board Chess Matches Regularly

Just as you would be more motivated to learn a language if you had an upcoming trip to a country where that language is spoken - your chess training will be more focused, and your motivation to keep it up will be greater, if you have an important game to prepare for. 

Over-the-board chess with classical time controls is a big step up over online chess. Both players take the game more seriously, and both players care more about the result. This makes it the best possible test of your chess skills!

If there is a chess club in your area, join it. 

If there is a tournament coming up, sign up to it.

By always having important chess matches on the horizon, you will always be eager to keep up your chess training. That way, when the game comes, you will be ready to perform at your best.

Next Steps To Improve Your Chess Training

We hope you have enjoyed this article on improving your chess training. 

The next step is to put our recommendations into action!

Here are four things you can do - right now - to improve your chess training:

• Identify What You Need To Work On: You should focus on the area of the game you are weakest at. If you are unsure what that is, then enlisting the services of a chess coach can help you to determine what you need to do to improve. Click here to find a chess coach.
• Create A Plan, And Take Action Every Day: Consistent daily action is the key to meaningful improvement. Remember: your training will be more effective with the aid of a chess instruction book to guide you. Click here to find a chess book to help take you to the next level.
• Make Your Chess Training Enjoyable: Your chess training should be something you look forward to. One of the best ways to do that is to do your training with a high quality wooden chess set. Click here to browse our vast selection.
• Play Serious Chess Matches Regularly: When you have an event to prepare for, you will be more motivated to train and prepare strongly. Click here to find an upcoming tournament near you.