4 Ways To Study A Chess Book If You Don't Have 10,000 Hours To Spare

 

Hi there, ChessKids!

Today, I'll answer ImpossibleHeat's question:

"How should I study masters' game[s]? I have a book [...] the New in Chess Yearbook 4 1986 which is full of games. I was wondering how I should study them and absorb things from the book."

This seems like a very pertinent question, no matter which book you have, because there is so much information out there. It's easy to get overwhelmed.

The New In Chess Yearbooks are excellent for studying openings because they offer tons of games stemming from specific, sometimes unusual lines. But they are also huge.

Here's an example from mine.

Wow, that's a lot of moves...

 

Then there are like a million games.

So, what to do with all these moves, and from only one book?

How many of you have several chess books, but you've only worked through a few pages? (Um, me? An entire bookcase's worth, but only a handful have been sincerely imbibed, digested, "absorbed.")

 

Here are four things for you and anyone who openly or secretly raised their hands. And this is for most any skill level, I would think.

The world of information is grotesquely large and it takes enormous analytical skill and inordinate amounts of time to discover what is "best" and "useful" and etc.

(Hence sites like Pinterest. Though, I don't know if chess is on there...)

Anyway, in lieu of canceling every soccer practice and dinner just to gloss yet another giant book full of diagrams and games and players never heard of...check out this Yearbook thing. NIC Yearbook has collected, for you, interesting games where players have tried certain opening lines...and your job is the following:

 

1. Play it out. Start by flipping to an opening you've already heard about, eg. the Tarrasch Defense, and find a game less than 40 moves. (Gotta stay motivated.)

Now get out a REAL, physical chess set and play through every move. Play through the analysis, too, unless you get lost doing that. It's okay if you just do the moves in bold.

 

 

 

2. Solitaire chess. Cover up the next move. What could it be? This strengthens visualization and calculation techniques and is arguably the best way to improve just by studying master games.

 

Former World Champion Spassky won with the following tactic (with Black). Can you find it?

 

 

 

---