How to Succeed eBook

Remote Chess Academy

Chess-teacher.com 1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Grandmaster Igor Smirnov Igor Smirnov is a chess Grandmaster, coach, and holder of a Master’s degree in psychology.

He’s the founder of the “Remote Chess Academy” company that has helped thousands of students worldwide to improve their results. GM Smirnov has developed lots of chess video lessons, articles, webinars and training courses, including the famous courses “The Grandmaster’s Secrets”, “The Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding”, and “Calculate Till Mate”. 2

ABOUT THE BOOK

How to Succeed in Chess ‘Nowadays it is quite easy to find information about almost anything on the internet, including chess. However, not all the information out there is of high quality. We have selected for you all of our best lessons about succeeding in chess so that you can directly spend your time and efforts wisely instead of trying to find those secrets elsewhere, where they might not be revealed at all!’

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1

The Value Of Chess ................................................. 5

2

The Value Of Chess (Part-2) ................................... 9

3

The necessary factor of your chess progress ....... 13

4

Creativity in Chess .................................................. 17

5

4 simple ways to deal with time trouble! …………………………………………............................. 21

6

The Secret of Success ..............................................27

7

Stages Of Improvement ..........................................30

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Your Chess Goals.......................................................34 Bonus Video lessons.................................................37 4

1 CHAPTER ONE

The Value Of Chess

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The Value Of Chess General principles one should follow in the opening stage First off, a word of warning: this lesson is NOT for everybody! Instead of giving you answers, I’ll keep asking you questions. This isn’t some passive reading stuff. You’ll need to keep THINKING all the time…Sounds frightening? Are you still here? Yes? Perfect. Let’s move forward. Socrates asked a stranger: – If you need flour and oil, then where will you go? Young man smiled and answered slickly: – On a market, certainly! – If you need wisdom, then where will you go? – asked Socrates then. The young man was somewhat dumbfounded and didn’t know how to reply. – Then follow me, – said Socrates – I’ll show you! Does chess help you in your common life? Does it develop your mental skills? I’m pretty sure your non-chess playing friends are asking you these questions quite often. Perhaps you were thinking about it yourself too. It’s really important to answer that question. Think about it – if it’s just for having fun and killing time, then perhaps it’s not worth going through years of training to get better at it. BUT if it’s MORE than that, if it indeed develops your mental and psychological skills, then you can be confident that all of the time you spent training and playing chess isn’t wasted.

So, does chess help you in your EVERYDAY life?

Chapter-1: The Value Of Chess

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There are 2 obvious answers here: (1) YES – Chess helps improve our mental skills… the same skills that we use in everyday life. That said, it should also help us succeed in other facets of life as well. (2) NO – There are no REAL interactions between chess and other facets of life. Think about it: will knowing certain lines of the Sicilian Defense help you in, say, managing your workforce? Well, if the million-dollar question in a quiz show you’re in is chess related, then maybe it could help. BUT how remote is that?! These 2 answers seems the most natural, but they are mutually exclusive. Why this happened? First, let’s think why chess game should be useful. •

This is training for our brain. Physical sport trains your muscles. Chess trains your brain

•

Chess is NOT just a game, it’s a model. By studying this model, we can discover some general rules. Then we can spread these strategic principles to any other spheres of life

Let me give you an analogy. By the way, Socrates told it about 2500 years ago. How do you understand people as a whole? This is too huge and difficult of a task. Instead you can understand yourself, which should lead to a better understanding of people in general since you are a typical representative of the latter. Deeply knowing yourself will lead to knowing everybody else around you.


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In the same way, we can use chess (model) to understand general rules (in life). Thus these are 2 main benefits that chess can give you in common life: Chess develops your mental skills. Chess gives you deep strategic understanding. Both of which are VALUABLE in everyday living and decision making. That’s why I strongly believe that chess players should be WISE personalities! • • • •

They should have developed this habit of THINKING, analyzing the situation and finding the right solution (when most people make impulsive decisions often). They should be able to predict the consequences of their actions for many “moves” ahead. They should have good concentration and think effectively. They should create long-term plans, based on their strategic understanding.

All in all, chess players should have a habit of THINKING. This should make them “modern philosophers”, successful in chess as well as in any other area! This brings us to the final question: “Why this usually doesn’t happen in reality?” Please, think about it.


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2 CHAPTER TWO

The Value Of Chess (Part-2)

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The Value Of Chess (Part-2) In the first part of this lesson we were talking about a positive influence of chess on you: Chess trains your mental skills. Chess gives you deep understanding of strategical principles. If that sounds logical, then why is it that MOST chess players can’t seem to apply their trained mental skills in reality? Read on! Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is? Narrator: It’s a comforter… Tyler Durden: It’s a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the huntergatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then? Narrator: …Consumers? Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. Chuck Palahniuk “Fight Club” That’s it! That’s the reason why! We are so accustomed to and reliant on ready-made solutions, that we forget to think independently. If you are unsure about something in chess, then what do you do?

Chapter-2: The Value Of Chess (Part-2)

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You open a book, search in a database or turn on a computer engine, don’t you? And there’s nothing wrong with it. Information is easily accessible so we ought to take advantage of it. That’s how MOST chess players roll in this day and age of computer and internet. But don’t we miss something? Yeah, we forget to think by ourselves.

Maybe you are thinking: “Oh thank you Captain Obvious. You just saved the day by stating what’s so apparent.” Really? Well, read on.

I’ve had a lot of different pupils. When I’ve just started to train someone, I often was shocked about how MANY obvious mistakes he/she made. By the way, lots of those obvious mistakes were suggested by their previous coaches. I’ll mention only a few examples (otherwise this lesson will be endless ). Chess player spend quite a lot of time getting his openings in shape. While analyzing his/her games, I see that the evaluation of a position changes many times during 1 game. That said, the final result has no relation with his position after an opening! The conclusion suggests itself: openings are not very important for this player now; he should eliminate his more significant weaknesses first. Why didn’t he/she understand it by himself?

Chess player spend time on learning theoretical endgame positions, BUT they never happened in his real games. Perhaps this is not the most effective training for him, isn’t it? Chess player solve thousands of tactical puzzles, while he almost never make combinations in his real games. This should have forced him to change something in his training, right?

Chess player wants to change his results. At the same time he/she does NOT want to change his way of training/thinking/playing. Isn’t it obvious that the 1st thing is a consequence of the 2nd one? Chapter-2: The Value Of Chess (Part-2)

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Einstein once defined insanity as ‘doing the same thing over and over again… and expecting different results’. Perhaps it’s about time we cure ourselves of that insanity and change the way we approach chess training?

The list may go on and on… Such mistakes look obvious (especially after I explained them ). BUT then why do people keep making them? Please, think about it.

Chapter-2: The Value Of Chess (Part-2)

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3 CHAPTER THREE

The necessary factor of your chess progress

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The necessary factor of your chess progress. In this lesson I would like to discuss an important aspect of chess, which can determine one’s success or failure in a game. I believe strongly that this will have a great impact on your chess development. I am referring to OBJECTIVITY. Maybe you think to yourself, “Come on, what is so great about playing objectivity?”

Let me explain. Chess players often wonder “why can’t I make any progress?” Let’s think about this question. It has great practical value. First, progress inherently is change. So it follows: if you are getting better, it means that you are changing. So if you want to make progress, you should be ready to make changes in yourself and the way you think about the game. This seems obvious, however you should ask yourself: “Am I REALLY ready for change?” Am I ready to change my opening repertoire? Am I ready to change my playing style? What about my thinking habits? If you honestly answer “Yes!”, then there is a good chance you have what it takes to succeed in chess! Let’s go forward. The next logical question is: “what exactly should you change?” Of course you should change your weaknesses. You will work on them and it will bring you the progress you desire.

Chapter-3: The necessary factor of your chess progress

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This brings us to the last question: “How to begin this process?” Here is the answer: you should admit your mistakes. Everyone understands this in general. However, we don’t do it really, because it hurts. Though it can be unpleasant, it is the only way to make real progress.

Now it is time for you to ask yourself “Am I really objective? I know that you will all answer “YES!” This is the first indicator of partiality!

Examples of personal bias in chess Let me give you some examples of personal bias in chess. Please, read carefully, just to ensure that these statements don’t describes you 1) Chess players often try to find an excuse of their loss. It usually goes something like this: – “Today I didn’t feel well.” – “I had a winning position, but lost my concentration and played carelessly.”

Chapter-3: The necessary factor of your chess progress

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– “I slept badly/not enough” – “I’ve had some personal problems.” – “I was tired because of a trip/something else” This list can go on… and these factors can have an influence on a chess player. Let me tell you something though. I know a lot of titled players, who take part in tournaments not only to get prizes and to make chess progress, they also go to have a good time! And they do! These players then show up the next morning for chess…and their condition is… well, not so good They almost didn’t sleep and woke up with a hangover. Of course this is not the best example of a sport routine. HOWEVER, they still find a way to win!

What am I trying to illustrate with this example? I want you to admit one simple thing: your chess results depend on your chess skills. That is just it. All other arguments are mainly lame excuses! 2) Here is another example of partiality: a chess player starts thinking that he understands chess at a much higher level than he actually does.

I receive a lot of feedback (e-mails etc.) from my pupils and customers. Some of them write something like this:

– I play at an expert level in chess. – I am an advanced player. – I play on the master/fm/gm level. – I play well and now I only need to improve some openings to reach fm/im/gm level. – I know all the basic chess ideas already. When I ask such person about his rating, he usually answers: “It is not so high now, but…” I stop reading right after the word “but”. Your rating is the most objective indicator of your skill. All other evaluations of your skills are just your dreams.

Please, hear me out, it is not my intention to offend you. I want to help you to be more objective and stimulate your chess development! Chapter-3: The necessary factor of your chess progress

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4 CHAPTER FOUR

Creativity in Chess

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Creativity in Chess Do you remember Pareto’s principle? 80% of your efforts bring you 20% of results. You can spend a lot of time on chess and get a very little progress. Unfortunately it happens with most of chess players. At the same time you have a great alternative: you can focus on those 20% of your efforts, which bring you 80% of results. Therefore your progress will be huge and fast. Here we come to the 3rd item: “How to make your future training (progress) more effective than it was previously?” It is the key point for your future success/failure. Therefore let’s talk about it in more details. Here is the answer: you should imitate successful players. It is a great mistake to try to find your own way. I’ll give you more specific example. Let’s say you want to create a good opening repertoire. What do you do in such a situation? You start thinking about it (you start testing different openings and so). However, it is a mistake! Thousands (maybe millions) of chess players have thought about it already. They have tested different openings. They spent many years on an extensive training and practice. And they came to the final conclusions already. Now you can skip this long way and take the final conclusions immediately!

That’s why you do NOT need to think. You need to imitate successful experience.

Chapter-4: Creativity in Chess

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I’ve told you about an opening repertoire, but the same idea is right for all other stuff as well. I can tell you that 95% of players have very similar problems. Therefore most of your problems in chess are very typical. A lot of players have experienced these problems; and some of them have found the solutions! You don’t need to make all the mistakes by yourself. I’ll continue the example with an opening repertoire. Look at the top players. They all play the same opening lines; while every weak player has his own, unique, losing openings You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. It is not creativity, it is stupidity. An importance of creativity is overrated nowadays. Imitation is often simpler, faster and more effective.

Let me show you some customers’ feedback. ======================

I gained 237 points since starting your course in August. Thank you!! Michel. ======================


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In September of this year I bought your video courses,Grandmaster secrets,Grandmaster openings lab and your winning plan. I took two of our pupils from the high school and taught them the principles I learned in your courses. The result is Melvin won gold in the u/20 team. Breyton won silver in the u/18 team. It was the South African Junior Chess Championships. It is a prestiges national event for juniors in South Africa. This is the first time our children from Greenpoint won medals at the SAJCC. It was always a dream of mine that we win medals at SAJCC. Can I take this opportunity of thanking you for sharing your knowledge with us, without you it would not be possible to have achieved all this success. Loyd. =================== I receive a lot of such e-mails regularly. A lot of customers report 200300 points rating increase in several months! Such results are unbelievable for most chess players. Do you know what the secret is? They don’t invent the wheel, but imitate successful experience instead.


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5 CHAPTER FIVE

4 simple ways to deal with time trouble!

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4 simple ways to deal with time trouble! Recently, I have received a couple e-mails from my students who are having a hard time dealing with time trouble. And if you are one of those chess players who experiences problems with this dilemma often, then you are in for a treat. Right here, I will lay down certain tips and tricks that will help you combat this over-the-board (OTB) problem. Very often, we see the following situation: a player plays a good game, gets an advantage, but then appears in a time trouble! Under the time pressure, he makes an annoying mistake and even loses in the end!

Such a situation is certainly frustrating. And the recommendations I’m about to give will help set yourself free from the chains of the time trouble. 1) First and foremost, there is a great difference between thinking and having doubts: In most cases, a chess player THINKS only during the first few minutes after the opponent makes his move. After that, he starts to check the SAME variations again and again. Not contented, he starts to worry about the consequences, and try to find 100% ideal move, and the cycle goes on and on.

Chapter-5: 4 simple ways to deal with time trouble!

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Guess what? This cycle doesn’t help at all! This only creates chaos in his head and totally mixes things up. Finally, after going through the same variations, worrying about the consequences, and vainly searching for the perfect move, he does something ridiculous… and you should know what happens next. What to do? To avoid this typical, VERY frustrating, and game-breaking scenario, keep these in mind:

• •

Do NOT calculate 1 variation 2 times: You may not be the BEST calculator around but when you sit at the board, you only have yourself to trust. In most cases you should NOT spend more than 3 minutes on 1 move. You may need to spend more time on crucial and highly tactical positions, but 3 minutes is the average for every move.

This also brings us to the next advice:

2) Use your intuition: Look, even a computer – whether it’s Rybka, Fritz, or even that supercomputer Hydra, CANNOT calculate all of the lines until the end and come to a 100 percent correct conclusion. Having said that, we may conclude that trying to judge the outcome of the game for MANY moves ahead is a wasted effort.


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Oftentimes, you will find yourself in a situation where you have 2 or 3 logical moves and there’s no way you can calculate the lines until the end or come to a certain conclusion. What to do? Use your intuition! This means you should choose a move, which came to your mind FIRST (which seemed good for you at first sight on a position) and then do only the needed calculation to verify that the move is tactically good. This is a very powerful advice! Check it in your practice, and you’ll see that it works great!

3) Make normal moves:

Most often, a game is decided by a mistake of one player (NOT by a brilliant play of his opponent). Thus, it’s more important to avoid mistakes, than to find 100% perfect moves all the time. Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Don’t try to make 100% correct moves all the time. NORMAL move is good enough in most cases.

Even the greatest players like Karpov follow this advice! The former World Champion, when faced with a branching point in one of his games, go for the sound, normal, and generally good move… the one that requires the least amount of calculation. He didn’t win ALL of his games, BUT he won MOST of them. Heck! He is a former World Champion. You’d do great by following his footsteps.


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Before getting into the fourth advise, let me tell you one little story. Recently I got a message from a chess player, a close follower of my blog to be precise. He explained his chess problems, and one of them was constant time trouble. I recommended one of my chess courses, which contains the answers to most of his questions. He answered: “Yes, I was thinking about your courses since the last month, but couldn’t decide which one to start with!” I could not hold the smile and laugh a bit. It’s not surprising that he has a time trouble in chess, isn’t it? He thought about one simple decision during more than a month!!!

In an old manual for Samurais, I found the following quote (chess is a model of war by the way, so samurai’s wisdom is suitable for chess): “Man should make a decision during 7 breathing in. If thinking takes too long, the result will be lamentable.” So the fourth advice is…. 4) Decide and act quickly!

If you have time troubles in chess, then you probably have problems when it comes to making decisions in life. Procrastination is a habit you want to get rid of.

Chapter-5: 4 simple ways to deal with trouble!

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I know many people who spent tons of time to decide which of my courses to order. Meanwhile, they lost the most important thing – TIME. It was much better to make ANY decision, but to make it quickly and to start going forward. ANY decision moves you forward! If your decision was wrong, then you will know that this thing does not work. You learn something from it, and it’s going to be useful in the future. Then you will start finding another solution and you will always keep going forward! On the other hand, the one who doesn’t make a decision (or postpone it) will be stuck on his current place. He’ll have no progress whatsoever! That person who goes forward (who makes a decision and learns from it), will easily outrun him!

Chapter-5: 4 simple ways to deal with trouble!

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6 CHAPTER SIX

The Secret of Success

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The Secret of Success One of the major characteristic features of successful players is their SERIOUS attitude towards learning. There is a huge difference between educational and entertainment materials.

–> When you read a book (or watch a film etc) at your leisure – you read it once, have some joy and forget it. That’s OK because you achieved your purpose.

–> When studying educational materials we automatically use this method too. However, this method is not suitable for learning. Probably you will have joy, but not the positive practical results.

When you study the chess material (book, video etc) for the 1st time, you familiarize yourself with new ideas. You are far away from a real understanding still! You can’t understand something deeply until you have PRACTICED it for some time. Here is a mini-plan for proper studying of new chess material: 1. Study it. Here you familiarize yourself with this information.

2. Tr y to apply it practically. Now you will REALLY understand what the author talked about. Of course, you will also face some unexpected problems/questions. Chapter-6: The Secret of Success

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3. Study the material again. This time, you will understand the material much better and will notice some new useful ideas. Also, you will find the answers to your questions (from the 2nd item).

Some of the previous moves may look strange. However, this is a popular variation and has been played many times by strong Grandmasters. I guess this is the reason why the Black player decided to implement it. Now let’s pass the opening stage and come to the position where opening theory ends.

Maybe you think that your chess training is serious enough. Then I can tell you one thing. I receive quite a lot of questions about my training courses. 95% of these questions were answered in the course already! However, people overlooked it, because they did NOT study the material SERIOUSLY. I can’t resist from quoting my student’s e-mail, which I received a few minutes ago:

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“Hello Igor, I hope everything is well with you. I really enjoy your Breaking Stereotypes series. I was happy to see the first one about playing h3, I had asked a question about it during your recent survey. I am now going through the 300-spurt stage of your self-taught GM course. I was a 1300 player for 10 years and now reached 1600 in about 6 months. My next goal is 1800. Kind regards, Michel” ============================

That’s what a SERIOUS study can give you! I recommend that you repeat my past lessons (from paid courses or from this blog). Pay attention to the topics from your problem areas. Perhaps you have seen these lessons already. Nevertheless, I strongly recommend that you study them again! It will be useful for sure.

Chapter-6: The Secret of Success

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7 CHAPTER SEVEN

Stages Of Improvement

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Stages Of Improvement In this lesson, I’ll discuss and outline the typical stages of improvement that a chess player goes through. But, why do you have to read this? Simple. By knowing the stages of a chess players development, you can understand YOUR situation better – where you’re at in the hierarchy and what you need to do to realize your potentials more objectively. This is especially important for those who train rather on their own – chess players who live in a small city; don’t have a chess coach or a lot of chess friends, etc. If this is true for you, sometimes you may feel confused. Your chess progress isn’t as great as you hoped for and there are many bumps and difficulties along the way.

You may start having doubts: “Maybe I’m not as talented as others?”

“Maybe I’m doing something wrong?” and the list of unclear questions go on.

You think that something is wrong with you, while in fact MOST players experience the same problems. As a chess coach, I’ve observed many players’ progress. I can tell you that, while you may be unique as an individual and chess player, your problems are not.

Chapter-7: Stages Of Improvement

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Stage 1: Beginner

You are just a beginner and you are excited about the game. You start reading tutorial materials, playing games with friends, etc. Most probably your study goes in a haphazard fashion. Nevertheless, you experience a good progress (since your knowledge is almost zero, any new information is valuable for you). You have won some nice games, and that motivates you to keep learning! Stage 2: Intermediate Player At this point, you face some stronger folks, who always give you a spanking. Your progress slows down significantly compared to the previous stage. And you come to realize that your training should become more serious and structured if you want to get to the next level.

At this stage people usually start creating some kind of training plans (split the training to opening/middlegame/endgame study, learn strategy and tactics). All in all your training becomes more solid and systematized. This leads to rather solid progress – it’s not fast but it’s sure (GRADUALLY). You obtained some pleasant victories against opponent’s who previously was too strong for you.

Stage 3: Advanced Player You reached a certain level (which is not that bad, but of course you want to gain much more). Your progress suddenly stopped. You keep training, but it doesn’t change too much.


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Perhaps you experience the following problems:

• • • • •

•

You play quite a lot of moves rather intuitively (based on rules and what you understand), but sometimes, it doesn’t pan out well. You already know a lot of rules and principles about chess, but rather than help, it makes your thinking random (not well systematized). These two problems lead to unstable results. Sometimes you can enjoy winning against a significantly stronger player; but on off-days you suffer from annoying losses. You can get a dominating position, but have problems with a realization of your advantage. Sometimes you make annoying blunders, which spoil a well-played game. While facing stronger players, you feel that they play in tougher style. They exhaust ALL possibilities, they start pressuring you right from the opening etc.

First, let me bring up some good news: you are not alone! Most players out there experience similar problems. So don’t worry: there’s nothing wrong with you. Quite the contrary, this is a very typical situation. At this point, you need to make your game TOUGHER and more DYNAMIC.

•

• •

Relying on your intuition (understanding) is not enough anymore. You need to calculate variations CONSTANTLY, use all of the chances and opportunities at the board, and always keep an eye on opponent’s possibilities. Start playing more solid and more aggressive opening. Your chess knowledge (which is quite wide already) should be wellsystematized. Otherwise, they will only confuse you.


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8 CHAPTER EIGHT

Your Chess Goals

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Your Chess Goals let’s think about your chess goals for the next year. I have 2 recommendations for you: 1. 2.

Your goals should be realistic. Your goals should be a bit more than realistic.

Perhaps it sounds illogical. Let me explain.

First, your goals should be realistic. For example, you may expect 10 points augmentation of your rating per every tournament. Therefore you may calculate how many tournaments you need to play to gain 100 rating points. Then you may calculate how many tournaments you play per year (based on your past experience). Finally, you can calculate how long will it take for you to reach your goal (to gain 100 points). Of course your planning may be different. I just gave you an example of a REALISTIC planning. You may say: “I want it all and I want it now!” Unfortunately it doesn’t work like this practically. Your goals may be very HIGH, but it should be your LONG-TERM goals. Then everything is fine. Secondly, your goals should be a bit more than realistic.

Chapter-8: Your Chess Goals

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Your goals should motivate you to work hard! One of the key ideas concerning a training is any sport is “the principle of a high, but surmountable difficulty”.

That’s why your goals should be a bit higher than you expect normally. They should thrill and inspire you! Have you set your chess goals for this year already? If no – then do it now! Here I’d like to give you another useful advice: make this work in written. When you need to write something, you have to formulate it clearly. This will help you to clarify everything. Also you will save these goals and will refresh them sometimes during the next year. Finally, writing your goals is like giving a self-promise! It becomes “a document”, an obligation. I gave you 2 tasks so far: 1. 2.

Make a sum up (analyze your chess progress in this year). Set your chess goals for the next year.

Here we come to the most interesting part: How to make your future training (progress) more effective than it was previously? Probably you’ve heard about the 80/20 rule (Pareto’s principle). “20% of your efforts give you 80% results” . An opposite rule is fair as well: “80% of

your efforts bring you only 20% of your results”.

It explains why some players progress much faster than others. Therefore you need to focus on the most effective ways of training and forget about all other stuff.

Chapter-8: Your Chess Goals

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Bonus Videos

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1. Win Easily - Part 1

2. Win Easily - Part 2

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3. How to use tactics in YOUR games?

4. The most common mistake

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