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Here is my second lesson with IM Fernando Valenzuela Gomez. We dive into my opening weak point. Black against 1. d4. It was nice to get a better sense of the different ideas against 1. d4. But it is still clear that I need to study the course material in depth, which has been a bit hard because I also have had to read The Amateur’s Mind for the book clu…

The voting has now ended and the book chosen was a clear winner! The Amateur’s Mind will be the book we will read together, which I’m excited about. How to Reassess Your Chess made a big impression on me, so I’m looking forward to seeing what this book has to offer.

If you join you will have the next week to go get the book. If you want it quickly there is also a Chessable version available. We then start reading a chapter each week with a discussion thread each Sunday. I also have ideas for possible Zoom calls or a podcast with participants if things align. So the first discussion thread will be posted on the 2. June. Here we will cover the following chapters:- The Imbalances- The Battle Between Bishop and KnightsIf you already own the book you can go ahead and start now. Remember to take notes, so you can share interesting thoughts or questions in the discussion thread.

If you need a little more convincing before joining I have included the book introduction by Silman:

INTRODUCTION

Every chess student dreams of finding the perfect teacher—someone who magically knows what’s going on in the student’s mind and is able to surgically remove the flaws contained there. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in reality. The well-meaning master, not being a movie character or a psychic, thinks it sufficient to look at the student’s games, ask questions and give pat answers to the problems that appear before his eyes.

While this is a good technique, I often wondered what would happen if a teacher could really get inside the student’s head. To accomplish this, I played games with my students (always starting them off with a good position), had them talk out loud before they made a move and after I made mine, and wrote down their thoughts. To my amazement, I was soon seeing problems that I never imagined they possessed.

To add to this, I also had them annotate a series of Grandmaster games. Their responses to the Grandmaster’s moves and plans showed me which concepts they were able to understand and which ones were absent from their make-up.

The Amateur’s Mind is the result of these sessions. It is a road map of typical thinking errors that turn out to be reflections of your own thoughts as much as they are the thoughts of the people that originally shared them with me.

Within these pages you will find much of interest: easy-to-understand rules and recommendations, new strategies, surprising insights—all designed to help you eradicate the “chessic” doubts and fears that reside within you. Study this information carefully and spend some time thinking about it. Hopefully, it will be your first step in turning the chess misconceptions that you’ve owned for so long into the chess mastery that you have always dreamed of attaining.

/Martin

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

Hi!I’m happy to announce that you can now get your hands on my latest book and challenge yourself with solving some insanely hard mate in two problems:

If you live outside the US you can buy it here:

* UK

* DE

* FR

* ES

* IT

* NL

* PL

* SE

* JP

* CA

* AU

If you want to read more about the project you can find the parts here:

If you want access to the PDF it is available for paid subscribers of Say Chess.

/Martin

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

Hi!This week I talked with GM Noël Studer. Besides being a grandmaster Noël has specialized himself in helping adult chess players with breaking bad training habits and getting into shape. He writes an excellent newsletter with weekly chess advice. If you decide to sign up you get a free eBook from Noël with training advice: https://nextlevelchess.blog/

It seemed natural for me to invite him to talk about how I get back on track with my training and improve my habits. We talk about common difficulties for many adult improvers. Time, energy, how to deal with the downfall after a rating peak, and common bad habits. Something I of course also struggle with. Noël has also challenged me to do a 4-week training challenge.

Say Chess is a 100% reader-supported publication with no paid ads.

The Training Challenge

From Monday I will do 6 weekly training sessions. Week 1: 30 min. sessionsWeek 2: 45 min. sessionsWeek 3: 60 min. sessionsWeek 4: 60 min sessions

My main focus will be calculation training, but I will also have sessions with rapid games/analysis and some strategy or opening work (I have not yet decided). I was advised to schedule the sessions in my calendar, take notes about how the sessions go, and rate them from 1-10 in regard to focus.

Noël has promised to check in on me after 4 weeks for a follow-up podcast, so I better follow his directions!

If you want to join the challenge feel free to do so. You can adjust the number of days and sessions length to fit into your life situation. Leave a comment if you are doing it! The main idea is to get some high quality training sessions vs many low quality sessions.

Things That Came Up..

At the beginning of the year, Noëls course inspired me to set up a special corner for my chess training. We talked about how I need to work on keeping distractions away since it is something that I have been struggling with when I sit down at my chess study corner.

We also talked about how to find time for chess training when you are a busy adult with (4) kids. Noël mentioned the idea of tracking your time for a week to find out what you actually spend time on and what you want to cut away. I actually did this experiment some years ago, so if you are interested you can find the video here:

I hope you will find the podcast interesting and useful, maybe you can relate to some of my problems too.

/Martin

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

Spotify | Apple podcast

I have for many years been listing to the Perpetual Chess Podcast hosted by Ben Johnson. The podcast has been a weekly highlight and Ben has interviewed some of the world’s best players, coaches, and adult chess improvers. I have somehow also been lucky to sneak into two episodes.

When Ben revealed that he is working on a book with the purpose to distill the hundreds of hours of chess wisdom into a book I naturally wanted to know more. I took the chance and asked if he would join me for an interview about his project, and he agreed. The interview also features a couple of questions from the paid subscribers, who I asked before the interview if they had any questions for Ben. If you want to support my writing and podcast consider upgrading your subscription.

Finally, we also talk about tactics and the puzzle rush/storm challenge that some of you are participating in right now.

Enjoy the podcast!/Martin

Links you might want to check out

Ben actually also has an excellent newsletter here on Substack where he shares the week’s most interesting chess articles. Often a lot of good stuff on chess improvement.

During the interview, we talk about Ben’s favorite chess books, and he mentions this collection on his webpage: https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/book-recommendationsIf you want to listen to the two times I appeared on Ben’s podcast you can check them out here:

During the interview we also mention this inspiring interview:

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

This week I interviewed Ono, who is an adult improver, chess blogger, and chess coach. He has an amazing chess blog on Lichess, where he just published a post on blunders.

If someone tells you to quit an addiction that is really hard to do, because it is not an action. It’s the opposite, it’s a non-action. The same goes for the blunder or safety check, which basically says: "make sure you don't blunder".

Better advice would be to start doing press-ups. Sounds ridiculous right? But if every time you feel a craving you drop and do five push-ups, you're more likely to succeed than if all you have to do is... resist. Because that isn’t doing anything. It’s a non-action destined to be about as successful as “don’t think about a pink elephant”.

— Ono, What the Fork is a Blunder Check?

You might remember that I wanted to investigate and get a better understanding of why beginners blunders in last week’s post. Ono was not so long ago a chess beginner and has climbed to around 1800 Lichess rapid/classical.

Ono started up coaching last year. He is helping beginners get a good understanding of the fundamentals of the game and help them stop blundering, so I thought he would be perfect to talk to about this subject.

We had a really interesting talk, which I hope you will enjoy. During the interview, Ono mentions a method he calls the Alex Crompton method. If you want to read more about it you can find it described on Alex’s blog.

Some notes I took away from the interview

* Chess is a very complex game. When you are a chess beginner everything needs to be very simple. It helps if the student appreciates or acknowledges that chess is difficult and you need to study it to improve.

* When the chess beginner starts out they are starting to build their own engine. The first engine needs to be very simple. Then you slowly can build on the engine. Every time you make changes to the engine you will have to expect setbacks before the engine starts running smoothly again. You cannot start with evaluating space advantage as a beginner. The engine is not ready yet.

* Is advising a beginner to blunder-checking really good advice? You need to give actionable instructions.

* When you see the opponent move ask: 1. What does the move do 2. What does the move no longer do

* You need to train this as a habit.

* Skills like tactics need training, while chess knowledge can be acquired from reading a book.

* Ono’s takeaway from Jacob Aagaard’s ‘Potional Play’ for finding a move: 1. What is my worse-placed piece? 2. Where are the weaknesses? 3. What is my opponent’s plan?

* Endgame tips for beginners: promote a pawn or win a pawn.

I hope you liked the interview and please leave a comment if you have any questions.

One last thing before you leave. As a special bonus for paid subscribers, I have added ‘Blindfold Endgame Visualization’ to the list of free ebooks you get when you sign up, so if you want to join click below.

/Martin

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

This podcast includes an interview with Braden Laughlin, 23, from Canada. Braden is working really hard on his chess and aims at NM. As you can see on his rating graph he is taking steps in the right direction each month.

The interview focus on his most recent tournament and how it went, and the lessons learned.

Last year I also lost two 20+10 games against Braden, which we briefly talk about during the podcast (I need a rematch soon).

We also talk about John Nunn’s Puzzle Book. Braden is currently working on it. I have previously written an article based on the difficulty of the book (it is hard!), and if it is beneficial to solve really hard tactics vs. solving easier tactics.

Braden is also documenting his OTB games on his YouTube channel, which I can recommend following and subscribing to. Here is his first-ever OTB game:

I hope you will enjoy the episode, and if you have any questions for Braden please ask in the comment section:

/Martin

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I talk about the new Chess Training Accountability Group and announce a few updates. A new addition to the group will be accountability partners. The group is already +150 members and we do not know each other yet. I can recommend that you press the purple icon on the left and join the chat and introduce yourself.

However, to help people connect and stay accountable I will create smaller teams of people — of course only if you wish to! You will be teamed up with players of similar strength and training goals. The idea is that you share your weekly training plans/goals and follow up each week. I will set up specific channels for each training team on the Pumble-chat (the Purple-icon on Clockify).

If you are interested in joining please fill out the form (again):

Secondly, I have looked at the training data for the first week. This Saturday we had 467 training sessions with an average duration of 34 minutes. Five people have tracked over 15 hours of chess training! Wow!

It has been requested that I dived the chess training category into several sub-categories. I think this is a good idea. After looking at the entries I have decided to add the following:

* Opening review and preparation

* Lessons with Coach

* Game analysis and annotation

* Puzzles, Visualization, and Calculation

* Chess Training (misc.)

I hope you agree with these new categories. Please ask in the chat if you are in doubt about anything.Finally, if you have any chess friends who you think could benefit from joining the group, please feel free to invite them./Martin

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

If you haven't already subscribed to my newsletter you can join for free at www.saychess.substack.com

I had the pleasure to have a talk with Neal Bruce about his return to OTB chess after a 4 year pause from tournament chess. Neal has posted a long thread about the tournament on Twitter which was a good reference point for our talk.

Neal is a real chess grinder and is one of the persons I have followed the longest on Twitter. We are part of the initial #chesspunks-group, which we also reflect on.

I hope you will enjoy the podcast. Please share and leave a comment with feedback.

Final thing. Remember to add my podcast to your favorite podcast player.

/Martin

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the 89 new subscribers who joined since the last newsletter.The newsletter now goes out to 1,249 people!

If you haven't subscribed yet you can join for free. New subscribers get a 50-page pdf with the 14 annotated games from Capablanca’s classic book ‘Chess Fundamentals.

The Tactics Ladder — A Chess Tactics Book For Expert Players (2000 FIDE Level)

It is time to give you an update on my very ambitious chess tactics book series. The Tactics Ladder. If you haven’t heard about the project check out this post:

I successfully published the two blue books for the 1400 FIDE rating range in February. My original plan was to work my way through the 2000 puzzles in the blue series myself. However, they were a little too easy for me to be challenging. So when I made a poll to get an indication of what book I should do after the 1400-level and it turned out evenly, I decided to pick the 2000 FIDE rating.

That is the rating goal I want to attain, so why not make some training material to get me there. I started working on the book in March. One problem occurred to me quickly. The number of puzzles drops when we go up to the 2400 puzzle rating on Lichess around 7400 puzzles had a user rating above 80, which I decided to be the minimum I would accept for the book. Originally I had planned two books for each step in the series, one on openings and middlegame positions and one on endgames. The relatively low number of puzzles made me change my mind and I will now publish only one book for the expert level. This also secures that the puzzle popularity rating will be higher compared to a two-book series.

Popularity rating = (upvotes - downvotes)/(upvotes + downvotes)

The average popularity rating for the book will be 91,8! The next decision was to select some relevant themes for the 10 chapters. Here is what I ended up with:

* Opening tactics I

* Opening tactics II

* Crushing in the middlegame

* Pawn endgames

* Mate in X

* Minor piece endgames

* Advantage in the endgame

* Sacrifice

* Rook endgames

So a slight pull towards the endgame, but I also think that it is something most chess improvers, me included, forget to work on.

Soon to be published!

The process of editing and aligning everything in Word has been a bit tedious and frustrating and has taken some time to overcome. Imagine creating a word document with 1000 pictures!

However, I think I have won the battle against Word and will be ready to publish very soon!

Free stuff to members?

Finally, I’m thinking about enabling the membership function here on Substack, which would make it possible to support the newsletter. I still want to keep the newsletter free, but like many other content creators with Patreon or other similar solutions, I would be able to offer special perks to members. A perk could be the PDF of ‘The Tactics Ladder’ when it is released.

Did you solve the two puzzles?

/Martin

Solutions

* Solution no. 1

* Solution no. 2

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saychess.substack.com/subscribe