Training Chess : Things to Consider

For example, let's say we need to practice chess openings. One day we practice at 8:00 p.m., the next day at 6:00 p.m., another day at 2:00 p.m., if we do it in such a disorderly way, it will only lead us to stop doing it, because it is not automated in our brain, but rather we have to think at what time we will do it, we think "today I will train at 3: 00 p.m." or "I will train after watching the series", the more we think about it, the more likely it is that thoughts like "I don't want to train today", "I am lazy today", or "I won't train today, but I will train twice as much tomorrow" will appear.

If we train at the same time, our body and mind will tell us “It’s time to train", we will feel restless if we do not stick to what we have been doing for a while, the idea is that if we start training chess at our usual time, it will be as automatic as waking up to go to work without needing an alarm clock.

This is so that when we sit in the place where the books, the board, the computer with the chess database, etc. are, our brain already knows that it is time to train, just like when we lie down in our bed, our brain and our body know that it is time to rest (if we train in our bed, we will most likely get sleepy 😴).

To equip a place for chess, the only thing we need is that all the things that have to do with our training chess are in that place, the books, the chessboard, that the things we use for our training are there, that we do not have to move a lot to look for things and arrange them, but that it is as simple as possible, just walk to the place we have equipped and we start working.

As we can see, we can equip any place of our house for our training, we only need one square meter and our material to work.

When we are learning, it is the same thing, if we concentrate on many things that we want to learn, our brain will know a lot, but master very little, and for a skill to really become something that we can use, it is necessary to master it.

It is recommended that we devote more or less a month (depending on the topic, whether it is relatively simple or more complicated, we can increase or decrease the time we devote to it) when we want to master a new chess topic, this does not mean that we have to neglect other areas, we can also train other topics at the same time, only that our understanding of these topics has to be deeper, we have to master them better.

For example, if we want to learn chess endgames, we will devote a whole month to training this topic, but at the same time we can train tactics or strategy, which are topics that we master better than endgames.

The idea is that we devote ourselves to learning only one new topic at a time during our training, and when we already understand it, we add a new one.

In chess, if we jump from activity to activity or topic to topic, we will end up knowing everything but mastering nothing.

There are days when we win everything, days when no tactic escapes our understanding, simply days when we are enlightened, these days of good streak feel very good, but these days are only half the work, there are the other days which are darker, where it is the opposite, nothing goes right, we experience a kind of blindness in chess, we see absolutely no move. This bad streak is even more important than when everything goes right for us, because in these bad streaks is when we are more likely to give up.

The great results in chess are the sum of all the days, they do not distinguish between bad and good days, only the work we have done. For example, in a marathon, reaching the finish line is the result of all the steps we took to get there, not just the last step across the finish line.

In order not to depend on motivation, we have many tools, such as habits, that your mind and body get used to training chess with or without desire, as we have mentioned above in the article, additionally and very important is the environment, this will simplify the task of sticking to our training without fail.

"Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated".

What is your favorite training?

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