Update 12.25.09

Here’s an update post on a quick overview of what I’m thinking and doing so far:

The program is going to consist of 3 phases, each phase lasting 60 days. The first phase will focus on tactics and the following phases will be on endgame and strategy. At the end of each phase, I will participate in a tournament to help gauge my progress. I am compiling positions and content to go along with the program, but I have just recently started doing this and it will take a while.

Right now I am on week 1 of the tactics phase, and things are going well. A draft of the schedule looks something like this:

Monday

Tactics Trainer – consists of doing 1 hour at chesstempo.com

Tuesday

Play a standard game and analyze it afterwards

Wednesday

Stoyko Tactics – consists of doing 1 hour of positions from Imagination in Chess. These are tough, so taking up to 15 minutes per position is not unusual. I am also using a tactics checklist based on Heisman’s ‘Seeds of Tactical Destruction’ Novice Nook.

Thursday

Play and analyze

Friday

Speed Tactics – Consists of doing 1 hour of easy tactics. I am using positions from Bain’s Chess Tactics for Students. The idea is to do as many as you can in 1 hour. I am averaging about 120 positions per hour from the Bain problem set.

Saturday

Core Tactics – consists of doing positions from the Alburt’s Chess Training Pocketbook.

Sunday

Open day – idea is to have fun, take a break or work on any one of the exercises above as extra credit.

I plan on elaborating much more on this new program with much more to follow, and remember in the meantime to visit the chess.com ECT group.

Original Post 12.21.09

I’m currently brainstorming a new chess training program for adult beginners rated 1200-1600 USCF. I have created a group on chess.com for this purpose which you can visit here: http://www.chess.com/groups/home/extreme-chess-training.

I’m still in the early stages of setting this up, but I will be posting more about it in the next few days.

Stay Tuned…