Chess Readers and Writers discussion

I've been playing in chess tournaments for about 15 years now. My current rating is 1910 USCF. For most of the years I've been studying chess, I was too obsessed with opening theory, and studied my openings almost exclusively. I've recently learned that if I wish to make Expert (or beyond), I must also embrace the middle game and endgame. I'm almost finished with Silman's Complete Endgame Course. From there I'm not sure where I should go. How do you prepare for a tournament? Are there any books out there that can help an A Player like myself jump up to Expert?

Gary wrote: "I've been playing in chess tournaments for about 15 years now. My current rating is 1910 USCF. For most of the years I've been studying chess, I was too obsessed with opening theory, and studied ..."

I wish I knew of such a book! My rating hovers around 1400. My chess studying has been just the opposite of yours: I started with Silman's Endgame Manual, then practiced tactics exercises at chesstempo.com and at chess.com. Still haven't studied openings at all. Lately I've been thinking about tactics more than anything else. In particular, about how they change according to whether the game is in the opening, middle, or end. My favorite way to study is to play through the games of masters annotated in tournament books. For example, Alekhine's New York 1924.

eat, sleep,
play 10,000 hours of chess.

Your rating is way higher than I ever reached, so I wouldn't presume to help you. But one of the books I enjoyed tremendously as a kid which might fit your situation is Chess for Fun and Chess for Blood. Good luck in your quest!

I'm just playing in my third OTB tournament, so I'm not in a position to give advice, but I can tell you what I've been doing. I analyze my games as I go along figuring out where I've been going wrong, and then try to hunt down material or exercises that can help me work on those weaknesses. For instance, in one game I overlooked a pin, and in another an overloaded defender combination, so I'm planning on digging out exercises from Tal's Winning Chess Combinations, Susan Polgar's Chess Tactics for Champions and Yusupov's nine book Build/Boost series related to these themes, and working through those.

Middlegame books I've found helpful include Nimzowitsch's My System and Keres and Kotov's Art of the Middlegame.

In two games, I ended up out of book, and made some opening gaffs as white, so I'm going to delve into Victor Bologan's repertoire books and DVD's, and see if I can flesh out my repertoire.

I only got into one endgame in this last tournie, and I played it well. Even so, I think my endgames need work just based on some casual games at my clubs. I've been reading Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, Muller and Lamprecht's Fundamental Chess Endings and Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy all of which seem good so far. Endgame positions often seem to have features which are unique to that position, so I imagine it helps to not just read, but also spend time analyzing to improve your skills in that area. Nunn's Chess Endings is a two volume series where he analyzes endgame positions from actual games trying to come up with rules of thumb that might help. The Shereshevsky book is about your general approach to endgames, and Hellsten's Mastering Endgame Strategy focuses on general principles too.

Vincent wrote: "eat, sleep,
play 10,000 hours of chess."

I take it this is a reference to K. Anders Ericsson's theory of "deliberate practice." I think in an early paper of his he found that players with large libraries of chess books tend to do better than those without.

combination books