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What’s more important — Tactics or strategy? Playing or studying? Opening or endgame?
In chess we all want clear answers, to know that how we’re studying is the optimal way. But in any complex endeavor, the answer to most questions isn’t an either/or, it’s finding the right balance. With that in mind, here are three key balances to strive for in chess training.
Playing vs. Studying
How much time should you devote to playing and how much to studying? There’s no perfect ratio. Some people naturally prefer playing and some prefer studying. It’s a good idea to lean into what you like. As long as you don’t do all of one and none of the other, many balances can work.
It’s important to have some serious, competitive play, because otherwise you’ll never get the chance to implement what you’re learning. Remember - chess is something you do, not something you know. If you never practice what you’re learning in a competitive setting, you won’t really know how to use it.
At the same time, doing nothing but playing without any studying would be wildly inefficient. One way to see the benefit of studying is as a shortcut to accelerate your improvement. By studying you get to bootstrap on the insights of hundreds of years of chess players, rather than figuring everything out for yourself.
More important than the exact ratio between studying and playing is the relationship between the two. It’s key to connect studying and playing in a synergistic workflow. Study ideas that are exciting and relevant for your games. Review your games to better understand what you need to study.
Active vs. Passive Study
Many chess coaches - including yours truly - urge chess improvers to embrace more active study. This is probably based on a belief that most players don’t do enough active study, which seems plausible, although it’s hard to say for sure. But the goal isn’t maximum effort all the time. It’s an appropriate balance between active and passive study.
In the online course Learning how to Learn, Barbara Oakley popularized the idea of the focused and diffuse mode of learning. In the focused mode you are actively putting your brain to work. In the diffuse mode your mind is relaxed and free. It turns out that alternating between active and diffuse states seems to be best for learning.
For years I’ve watched YouTube videos of chess games before going to bed. It’s not a particularly active process, but the patterns I absorb from those games nonetheless help me be a better player.
Defensiveness vs. Self-flagellation
I was watching a video of a coaching session recently. At some point, the coach asked the student if he had seen a particular move. It was obvious the student hadn’t seen it, but rather than address the question directly, he responded with an unrelated observation about the position. It was clear that he was uncomfortable simply saying, “I didn’t see that.” Many people are uncomfortable being criticized and it will bend over backwards to defend their play, even if it means fudging the details of what they were thinking about in the game.
On the other end of the spectrum are players who beat themselves up incessantly. Immediately after the game is over they run it through the engine and berate themselves for the smallest errors. “How could I be so stupid?! I can’t believe I didn’t see that!” It could be that the moves the engine is pointing out wouldn’t be found even by a grandmaster, but for these players it’s just another excuse to beat themselves up.
This is one of the toughest balances to achieve, yet it’s incredibly important. In order to improve you need to see your mistakes with clear eyes, not glossing them over or making excuses, but at the same time not beating yourself up or holding yourself to an impossible standard.
Until next week, may you find a balance that works for you!
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Nate: and where in the mix are chess games for fun (e.g. faster time controls)? Interesting post!