These Experts Ain't Shit...

I seem to have more trouble with other 'A' players than those over 2000 recently. In the last Boca Raton club tournament that just finished, I beat two experts, drew one, and the only game I lost was to another guy rated under 1900. My last round game was on the black side of a Colle against a guy I'd lost to in the same opening in the last tournament.

I really hate losing to offbeat lines like the Colle, Torre Attack, Morra Gambit, etc. It's not that they're so bad, it's that I feel a moral obligation to at least draw. I think it's because I write most of these openings off and so if I get beat by them, it feels as if all my work learning and playing main lines is wasted. I mean hell, if I could get just as good a position playing the London system and the English defense to everything, then I've been studying for nothing. But I don't think that is the case. Playing something offbeat with black can get you beat in the opening, but with white you certainly have bit more latitude. Most of these guys don't have study time, and so they just want a playable position out of the opening. While I can respect that, it's not for me. I do like to press in the opening, as I feel it's one of the strongest parts of my game.

Returning to the main point of all this, I lost to him last time from a very drawable position, and this time I was determined to at least draw. As it happened, he made a few errors (mostly subtle) and I won. The tournament raised my rating to 1899 (I couldn't have gotten one more point?!?), which is basically my goal for the end of 2010. I think I need to reassess my goals. New goal: get to 200o before starting business school. That means before fall of 2010...basically, I have a year. That's a pretty tall order if I get a job anytime soon, but otherwise I think it's probably attainable. Expert level has always been my goal in chess. If I could really do it, wow. I'd feel like I'd accomplished something. In any case, here's the game:

Dima-Rampley_0.pgn


My opponent seems like a really cool guy, which was nice because it meant that I could talk to him about the game afterward. Post mortems are almost always valuable, even if you're quite a bit higher rated than the person you're playing. If nothing else, you end up giving a mini-lesson which helps you articulate what you were thinking at the board, always a useful way to retain knowledge.

So beyond the game, I've recently gotten the book Excelling at Combinational Play by Jacob Aagaard. I normally like Aagaard's writing and ideas but he has a horrible habit of disrespecting other authors which I find totally unnecessary and offensive. In this book he stays away from that (and actually makes a reference to not doing it, showing that he's aware of the criticism) and manages to focus on combinational play. If you've ever read a book of combinations, you know that most of them start out with some general advice on how to solve problems, the utility of doing so, etc. Aagaard is no different, and most of what he says is pretty standard for this sort of work. There was one thing however that really stood out, showing that Aagaard is still an active and practical player. He advises the reader to not just get the main line or see the idea of the combination, but to look so deeply into it that you know all the lines, such that if you were playing a game you could respond to any of your opponent's moves instantly. This is a tall order, and more work than most of do when solving problems. But think about it...if you're playing a game, you don't just want to play some sacrifice that gets refuted four ply down the line because you didn't look that deeply. You want to see to the end.

There's a connection here to the Hertan book Forcing Chess Moves which I reviewed recently. The way to know when you've analyzed enough is when you've analyzed all the forcing moves for both sides. You can't stop until you have, or else you risk a nasty surprise at the end of your combination. Any non-forcing replies are by nature non-critical, and so you don't have to analyze those. Certainly it's not always easy to even know what the forcing moves are four moves down the line, but that's a matter of board vision not the effort you put into solving. I find that if I do problems as Aagaard recommends, even four can take me an hour. When you think about it though, 15 minutes is not unreasonable for a critical tactical move during a game. I will go so far as to say that if you don't solve using this method of consistently looking through all the lines, then you're training yourself to overlook possibly critical responses during your games, like I did when I lost to Yin two weeks ago (see the archive for the game). If I'd looked at all the forcing responses he had, I wouldn't have miscombined like I did and would probably have retained the great position I gave up by miscalculating.

Returning to Aagaard, the problems in here almost all come from fairly recent games, and interestingly enough they're all from Sicilians. If you play 1.e4 or the Sicilian as black, then this book is definitely worth getting. Otherwise, it's just a good book on combinations with a few gems of advice amongst the boilerplate.

Final topic: I've changed the way I study openings. I used to spend a lot of time playing through one or two games trying to guess the moves of one side, thus forcing me to analyze the tabiyas of various openings. Not a bad method, but very slow. What I've been doing lately, and it seems to be working, is collecting a lot of annotated games (thanks chesspublishing.com !) in specific openings and play through them rather quickly, stopping to analyze only moves I don't understand. I find this gives me a good general feel for the opening, especially the differences between various branches of the opening tree. For example, I've been studying the Krasenkow (also called the Makaganov) variation of the KID, featuring an early h3. In this line sometimes you attack on the kingside, sometimes the queenside, sometimes you throw your g-pawn forward, or not, sometimes the bishop belongs on g5, other times on e4, etc. It's really hard to memorize all these variations, and it would take me a long time to learn the opening by playing through game after game in that slow, guess-the-move style. By playing through many games quickly (with pauses for deep analysis if I don't understand the point of a move), I'm starting to understand the differences between the systems and the underlying reasons for the moves the GMs play. The reason I can do this is that by looking at many games in a row I have the advantage of comparison, which is lacking when you just analyze one game very deeply. Give it a try. It's a lot easier mentally too, and would be much easier to make yourself do after a long day at work than trying to guess move after move.

Until next week. Peace out.

The Reign of Inconsistency

The story of every class players life, right? You play a great game, then you blunder a piece on move 12. You concentrate hard and get an overwhelming position, then one careless move and you're drawing or worse, losing. I've been told I play at 21oo strength. If you looked at some games I've lost recently, you'd conclude I played at 1400 strength. Not surprisingly, my rating splits the difference.

I don't really know how to become more consistent. Practice, I guess. I notice that mood makes a big difference for me: if I don't feel much like playing, I may as well not because I'm probably going to blunder. If I could wave a magic wand and improve anything about my game, it would be consistency. Not least because it's the only part of my game I don't know how to fix through hard work.

As you're probably guessed, I have some up and down games to show. The first is a very nice effort against an expert (the first one I've beaten) played in Boca Raton. The game is an f3 Nimzo-Indian. It's funny that with since I moved up to the premiere division at Boca I've played 3 Nimzo-Indians out of 4 white games. I have always read that the higher your rating goes the more Nimzos you play, but it's funny to find it so true. It seems that after about 1800 there's a big move away from the QGD and the King's Indian to Nimzo/Queen's Indian and Slav systems. While that's not so surprising given the greater complexity involved in playing the latter systems, it's also enjoyable to start seeing a broader range of defenses. It certainly validates all the time I put in studying them when I was ~1600. In any case, here's the game:

Rampley-Wang.pgn


Not a perfect game, but I saw a lot and played with energy. I was very happy after this one. Not so much the next game. In this one my opponent also played the opening passively, but I got way too eager to punish him and over-reached. I blame studying tactics. I've spent so much time lately on tactical puzzles that I've started seeing almost every position as a tactical puzzle. While this might help me find some resources that I'd otherwise miss, it also makes it hard to step back and look at the larger picture. Sometimes you have to play with restraint. In this game I saw what looked like a good sac (it wasn't) and once I realized it wasn't good the only option I saw was to sacrifice more material (also incorrectly). When I analyzed the game, I found that a quieter continuation leading to space gains would have given me an overwhelming advantage. I didn't even look at it.

To my opponent's credit, I didn't just lose because I played badly. I set him some hard problems, and he found excellent solutions to all of them. I thought he played extremely well after the opening. Take a look:

Rampley-Yin,E.pgn


That one really hurt. I also blundered a game in Margate last week that I'm not going to show here, because I literally lost a piece to a one move tactic around move 20 (and to a guy I don't like too, which made it even worse).

Moving to study, I'm finding it harder to study openings. They simply aren't as interesting as they used to be. I suppose that's not such a big deal since my opening repertoire is already much better than most players at my rating, but it's odd since the opening has traditionally been my favorite thing to work on. I don't have an explanation, though the pleasure I'm getting studying advanced tactics and endings may have something to do with it. Or it might just be a case of diminishing returns. I mention this because I've been toying with the notion of playing some 1.e4 again, though to do so means a lot of opening work. I'd just rather keep working my way through Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual and Forcing Chess Moves. It'll be interesting to see what helps my game more. I certainly do get some significant advantages in the opening. I hope I don't lose that during the process of improving other parts of my game.

One last note: I will be at the US Open in August. 6 day schedule. I'm super pumped. If anyone reading this is going to be there, leave me a comment and we can play some blitz. Peace out.

Two Games and a Lesson

So I went to the Miami Chess Academy for the first time. Had a lesson with the owner, IM Blas Lugo. It was very productive. It never ceases to amaze me how very strong players can just look at a position, any position it seems, and quickly come to a conclusion about the proper plans and ideas for both sides. If you're in Miami and you want some chess lessons, I'd highly advise the Academy. It is a little pricey, but chess lessons are expensive everywhere. One funny note: Blas told me $50/hour, which is pretty normal. I got there, and we sat down in a room without a clock. I had assumed we'd go an hour, even though Blas hadn't said anything of the sort. I think I assumed it because that was how the price was quoted. Anyway, we went through some games and then did some problems, and I was thinking 'this is more than an hour, is he giving me some extra time because it's my first lesson, or what?' only when I went to the bathroom and saw that three hours had passed did I realize that the rate was in fact, as Blas had said, an hourly rate and not a rate per lesson. For an unemployed guy (me), $150 is a lot to spend on a chess lesson, but it was extremely instructive. My wife insisted, by the way. She just laughed at me when she heard the price, because she knew it would bother me more than her. In the future I'll probably just stick to game analysis since problem solving involves lots of (expensive) time in which I just sit there and analyze. It's great to do it with a strong player there, but I can't afford that. $100 every 3-4 weeks wouldn't be so bad though. I plan on going back when I have enough questions to fill 2 hours. Not every game is worth going over with an IM, after all.

Speaking of games, here are two that I played recently. Both came down to endgames, which is a new thing for me. Think about it: when you are ~1600, your games are often effectively over by 30 moves or so. Someone drops a piece or otherwise blunders, and the endgame (if there is one) is usually just mopping up. Now that I'm getting good enough where I don't drop pieces or pawns that often, I'm starting to reach endings in almost every game. I really like the endgame, but I'm not so good at it yet because I've played so few.

But I have been (as I usually do) studying my ass off with Dvoretsky's endgame manual. I think one of the things I like most about it is how hard it is. The exercises are very challenging, and it's like having a teacher with high expectations. You get a sense for how hard you really have to work to get to a high level, and depending on your penchant for study that either excites you or scares you. I get excited because as I work and study I realize that I can in fact do it, I can see deep enough and calculate accurately enough if I really put in the effort. It's tough but rewarding (that could apply to almost any activity worth doing I suppose). I think it's already payed off, as you'll see from these two games. In the first, played in Boca, I made some mistakes in the middlegame and got into a clearly worse ending. I ended up sacrificing the exchange to maintain a passed pawn on the 6th rank which distracted my opponent enough that I was able to draw. He made some mistakes in the later stages, but they weren't obvious and it just goes to show how hard the endgame is to play well.

Goss-Rampley.pgn


I really should have lost that game, but I feel I defended well and I'll always take a draw in such a position. I do feel that endgames tend to favor the defender. In the middlegame the attacker often has natural squares for his pieces and a variety of tactical threats, while the defender is forced to walk a razor's edge to avoid defeat. In the ending this situation is often reversed, and the side that's better has to find 'only' moves to avoid turning a win into a draw. If you have pressure in the middlegame, it's often sustained whereas in the endgame one inaccurate move can completely change the evaluation of a position. What makes things worse is that mistakes are often not obvious at all. I must say the subtelty of endings is one of the things that attract me to them the most. The next game is not so high quality in the opening or middlegame (especially on my part...my opponent played the middlegame well despite a pretty bad opening), but the ending is a pretty example of how strong, subtle threats can get you a win without your opponent making any obvious mistakes. I am somewhat proud of my endgame play in this one. I didn't miss a beat, and that's something I can hardly ever say about my games.

Kutikoff,B-Rampley.pgn


I feel that Bruce played above his rating in this game, which makes it even sweeter to get the win. I believe it was Spielmann that said "play the opening like a book, the middlegame like a wizard, and the endgame like a machine". I've got the opening part down (at least for my level), and I'm rapidly improving on the third part. I wonder where I go to learn magic..?

A Book Review and ...I Swear This Isn't Erotic...

...but I really love chess. I've had many loves (other than people) in my life...in order, I think they were baseball, classical cello, Magic: the Gathering (because I was a big nerd 7th-1oth grade), rugby, Korean martial arts (Hapkido primarily), Judo, and now chess. The big ones were music, Judo, and chess. I got pretty good at the first two, and I'm improving at the third. What I love about chess is the way intricate, detailed calculation combines with fantasy to produce beautiful ideas. Chess is no different than anything else: to really appreciate the beauty of it, you have to be somewhat good at it. You have to give enough time and effort to it to understand its subtleties. Once you do understand them, they become beautiful. The better I get, the more positions I understand, the deeper I can calculate, the more I love the works of great chess artists like Fischer and Tal, Capablanca and Kasparov. The different ways in which they weave masterpieces are as unique as fingerprints. The simplicity and directness of Fischer and Capa, the imagination of Tal, the naked aggression of Kasparov. I really love them all. I strive to create the same beauty in my games, though at best I only play one or two beautiful moves every 20 games or so, and I still haven't played a truly beautiful game. I'm not good enough, and neither are my opponents in most cases. We make too many errors. A truly sublime chess game should be close to error free, and what errors there are should be subtle.

It is funny what people think makes a beautiful game. As I implied before, I think it's a combination of exacting calculation (i.e. chess 'truth') and fantasy. An unexpected and original idea supported by valid analysis is the recipe for beauty. It's not necessarily a brilliant attack or a deep combination, though those can be beautiful. Many attacks can be formulaic even if they involve multiple sacrifices. The beauty for me lies in the originality of the conceptions involved. That's why Tal's games are so pretty. Not because he sacrifices material, but rather the way he sacrifices material. The positions in which he does so, the unorthodox (but so often exceptional) compensation he recieves. Anyone can sacrifice. To do so in a position where no one else would even consider it but yet it's still valid is where the beauty lies. Another player whose games I am astonished by is Petrosian. He had as much appreciation for the possibilities of a position as Tal did, but rather than exploiting them directly he prevented his opponent from taking advantage of them. Playing through some Petrosian games is like watching Shaq play one on one versus Vern Troyer. He doesn't have to hurry and he doesn't seem to work particularly hard, because his opponent can do absolutely nothing to stop him from doing whatever he wants.

After that extended soliloquy, here's a game I just played which is not beautiful in the least, though it's an example of reasonably good play by both sides. Note to everyone: I hate the black side of the French. Really. Hate. It.

Saliva-Rampley.pgn


There you go. And now for a book review.

Forcing Chess Moves: the Key to Better Calculation, Charles Hertan

So this book won the Chesscafe.com Book of the Year prize for 2008. After getting it, I'm not surprised. This is an excellent educational tactics manual, which is a pretty hard thing to do. This tome goes beyond the standard review of a few typical combinative themes followed by problems. Way beyond.

Well, 'way beyond' may be an exaggeration. The chapters do consist primarily of many examples of tactics, followed by a set of exercises. I suppose it seems so different from a standard tactics book because it's so much better. I haven't seen any of the combinations before, and writing is enthusiastic, and then of course you have COMPUTER EYES.

I wrote the phrase in all caps because that is how it appears throughout the book. Just so you know, computer eyes is the phrase Hertan uses to describe the search for non-obvious but forcing, winning moves. Other reviewers have complained that it's a silly term repeated too often in the book, but I happen to find it a very useful concept. As I believe repetition is the mother of learning, I also think it's good that Hertan repeats it over and over. Truly, the idea of looking at forcing moves first even if they don't look initially promising is worth remembering. You can probably tell I really like this book, and I recommend it to anyone. I would add that if you're under ~1700, don't expect to get the exercises right. The examples will still help you though, and the idea of examining all forcing moves will probably raise your rating anyway if you apply it consistently.

New tourney at Boca starts Friday. Peace.

The Return of the One Day Tournament...

...for me at least. Even though I was on a steady diet of these in Indy, it's been a while since I played one. This particular tournament happened to be G60 5/inc, with four rounds. The first round was dirty.

Ibarra-Rampley.pgn


I'd beaten this guy two times in a row despite our rating differential, but I screwed this game up badly. What can I say? It was early, I miscalculated. I don't really enjoy playing these coffeehouse guys so much. They launch a crazy attack and either win or lose, play really fast, and their style is almost completely based upon tactics. I'm not saying that because they beat me...I usually do well against these types of players. I just don't feel like it helps my chess as much to play these guys as it does to play someone with a more classical style. This is not to say that coffeehouse players are patzers, because that isn't the case. Some very strong players play in this manner to a greater or lesser extent, I just don't have much respect for the style. I like chess that makes positional sense.

So the second round went better. I played Jon Haskel whom I've played twice before (all whites), and he seems to have trouble with me even more than our rating disparity would suggest. I've seen Jon play some good games, but when we play I always seem to roll him. I guess it's some sort of karmic justice since his son always kicks my ass.

Haskel-Rampley.pgn


I misnamed the file, but I promise I was white. Jon and I went to analyze and eat at Panera, and when I got back for the third round I found myself paired with Sergio Liberatore. He's an 'A' player who I had not played against before. I actually consider this my best game of the tournament even though I lost. It was very hard fought and only the short time control prevented a good finish.

Libertore-Rampley.pgn


A tough loss, though I didn't feel nearly as bad about this one as my round one loss. This was a good game, not a blunderfest. The fourth round saw me paired against another player I'd not played before, a medium strength 'B' player. He played a classical Dutch which I've never studied, and he got a good position from the opening. Unfortunately for him he blundered and gave me a nice tactic which resulted in a totally winning position. The game didn't last much longer after that.

Rampley-Becker.pgn


This wasn't a horrible tournament for me, though I will lose a few rating points. I was only unhappy with my play in the first game, which is not so bad considering how self critical I tend to be. I played one more game this last week in the final round at Boca, and it was very frusturating. My opponent had no pretensions in the opening and I was at least equal, but I blundered into a losing endgame. The worst part is, I saw the drawing move and played a blunder anyway. I simply didn't realize that the position was critical. Those sort of oversights really piss me off.

Dima-Rampley.pgn


I was not pleased at all with myself after that one. In other news, I went to the Miami Chess Academy in search of lessons. While I liked the owner IM Blas Lugo quite a bit, it's a very long drive for me. We'll see. I did get to meet Julio Becerra (sort of. He nodded and went back to ICC) and play some blitz with a master, so it wasn't a waste of time. I even won one of those blitz games. Peace out.

Sicilian Reflections

The Sicilian is an interesting and singular opening within chess, and I've spent a lot of time studying it and thinking about its various branches. One thing that has always interested me is the mindset of open Sicilians versus 'anti' Sicilians. Examples of open Sicilians being the Dragon, Najdorf, etc. 'Anti' Sicilians are the Closed, Grand Prix attack, the Moscow, basically anything where white's second and third move aren't Nf3 and d4. Top 1.e4 players all play open Sicilians the majority of the time, though there are a few 2600+ GMs who consistently employ some of the 'anti' Sicilians. The best example of this is probably Tiviakov, who in fact maintains that the Alapin (charactierized by 2.c3) is a better try for advantage than the open Sicilians. When I used to play 1.e4, I always played the open Sicilians. I thought of it as a point of honor in a way to play what I thought were the 'best' moves, rather than cede equality to black by playing some inferior 'anti' Sicilian system. Now I'm not so sure.

For one thing, I used to play 1...e5 as black in response to 1.e4. Having no experience on the black side of the Sicilian and having never played the white side of any 'anti' Sicilians, I really had no basis for comparison other than what the top guys play. Since I've been playing the Sicilian as black, I've gained a lot of respect for the various systems at white's disposal. I find that I have more trouble against some 'anti' Sicilians that I do against open Sicilians. This is partly because I play the Classical variation of the open Sicilian, against which the Richter-Rauzer is the most testing response. However, nobody at my level plays the Richter-Rauzer because it's very theory intense and not a weapon they're going to use much (the Classical pales in popularity to the Najdorf and the Dragon at amateur level). People who play open Sicilians against me usually get a look of slight confusion on their face when I play 5.d6 and revert to either the English attack or play 6.Be2, neither of which are that scary. The 'anti' Sicilian players on the other hand know exactly what they're doing and often have a lot of practice doing it. After all, they get to play the same system every time an opponent answers 1.e4 with 1...c5. Open Sicilian players on the other hand may only see a given variation once in a blue moon. Think about it. If you as white play 6 Sicilians in a tournament and play 2 Najdorfs, a Dragon, a Sveshnikov, an Accellerated Dragon, and a Kan, you have to know so much more and be comfortable in so many more positions than someone who plays the Closed Sicilian.

Another thing to consider is that you really shouldn't go by what top players play. I don't mean that it's bad to play what they play, because it isn't. What I mean is that you shouldn't automatically play what the best play because their situation is completely different than ours. Two big things jump out when you start assessing the variations of the top guys. The first is that they have a lot of time to learn as many systems as needed. They're professionals who usually have seconds, plus they're so good that they can play any position they're given well. The second consideration, tied closely to the first, is that the top guys have the advantage of knowing what their opponents play. They can look in a database and see 'Hey Kasparov plays the Najdorf, and against the English attack he plays the Ng4 line'. This is a huge advantage because it means they only have to study one or two systems for each opponent. If you read match books (Tal-Botvinnik 1960 for example) you can get a feel for how much of a guessing game it is for top guys to figure out what their opponents are going to play. At that level it's also incredibly important because getting an edge in the opening really matters. Not so much at the class level.

Where I'm going with all this is that I think soon I'm going to start playing 1.e4 again and I think I'm going to play the Grand Prix Attack. Not because I think it's better than the open Sicilians, but because it entails so much less study time and I like the positions I get when I play it online. Here's a 5/0 blitz game I played using it on ICC. The game is of course not perfect, but it gives you an idea of how natural and strong white's play is:

Grand Prix Example.pgn


There are something like 4-5 legitimate answers for black against the Grand Prix, as opposed to hundreds of possible playable lines black can choose in the open Sicilian. It just cuts down on the number of things for white to study, bringing the Sicilian in line with the French or Open Games in terms of preparatory time. Frankly, I have a lot of trouble with the Grand Prix as black and I think it's a good system for white. I've also had my share of trouble against the Closed Sicilian and the Alapin, while the Bb5 variations are almost as main line these days as the open variations. A year ago I might have thought you were a little bit of a bitch if you didn't play the open Sicilians. Now I'm starting to wonder why any non-professional does so at all. Now if I can just find a way to get an attack against that damn Scandinavian, I'll be back to 1.e4 for good...

And So It Goes...

A loss, and not only a loss. A really horrid, detestable loss. Losing a competitive game against an opponent who plays very well is one thing, just not showing up is another. The game I played in the last round at Margate was one of the most pathetic I've played in the last year, certainly my worst since coming to Florida. I simply didn't feel like working hard at the board, and I didn't work. At all. And I got rolled. Blunderville.

Veluz-Rampley.pgn


I did win a game against a strong A player, but it was marred by his being a dick and not resigning for many moves after being a piece down with no compensation.

Rampley-Rashas_0.pgn


So those are my recent games. I think I'm going to take a break from playing twice a week for a while. I need to recharge.

On another note, I was asked in a comment what has led to my recent rise in strength. I didn't want to answer in the comments, so here are the reasons I think I've been playing better:

1. Studying. I've been studying a great deal, and that helps. My opening repertoire is much more solid than most players my rating, and my endgames are coming along.

2. Working. Working is different than studying. Chess is math, not history. What I mean by that is that to be good at chess regurgitation is not required, or at least it is not the main thing. Playing chess, like doing math, is the process of solving problems. The problems are novel, but are usually similar enough that practicing solving problems will help you a great deal in you own games. To play chess is to analyze. Practice in analysis makes it easier to go deeper, and imprints patterns that act as shortcuts when you are trying to solve problems OTB.

3. Analyzing. Analysis is not just a question of solving tactical problems, but also looking at positions and analyzing possible moves for both sides. This part of my chess work is closely tied to opening study, as the positions I usually choose are transition positions between the opening and middlegame (though I need to look at middle-to-endgame transition positions more). Solitaire chess is a good exercise at this stage.

4. Critically assess your own thinking process. After analyzing my own games at length, I found that I often did not take enough time to look at my opponent's possibilities. This led to me getting surprised by his responses to my moves. Once I started looking more broadly at the other side's chances, as well as trying to figure out what his plans were, I started playing much more consistently. This has also helped my planning, as often if you are at a loss for a plan then prophylaxis is a good option. Dvoretsky has said that consistent prophylactic thinking bring steadiness to your play, and I agree. You will have to find the flaws in your own thinking process, these are just some examples of mine. This step probably did more to improve my results than anything else.

5. Time. I put in the time, played a lot of games, and really got a handle on how hard you have to work at the board. While natural talent plays some role in chess, it's not that big of a deal for most of us. We lose because people outwork us, both at home and OTB. If you want to get better, assess your play critically and work hard to fix your deficencies. Chess will give back to you what you put into it (like everything else in life).

6. I've never had a teacher, but I have had friends and traveling companions who were stronger than me, and I can tell you that having stronger players assess your play makes finding your weaknesses much easier. I would love to have a titled instructor, or even a USCF master. It can be done on your own, but it's harder.

So that's about it. Work on your openings (though not too much), analyze positions from different points in the game, solve problems, and take the time to really examine your thinking process. If you need some help getting started, www.chesscafe.com hosts a column by the excellent Dan Heisman called Novice Nook. Don't let the name fool you-it's a great column on thinking processes and everyone should read it. Go the Chesscafe archives and read them all. At the very least, they'll make you think. And for those of you who don't know why I've written all this mildly self indulgent prose, my rating has risen from ~1700 to ~1850 in about 6 months, and rose ~100 points the year before that, so I feel that I can pontificate just a bit about improvement at the class level. Can't help you make master though. Sorry.