Thoughts on Practice
An interview with GM R.B. Ramesh on Dojo Talk
Hi everyone!
I just want to share some thoughts on chess practice. Today I listened to an interesting interview while working. It was an interview with GM R.B. Ramesh on Dojo Talk, which you now can listen to as a podcast. It aired some time ago on Twitch, but I missed it. There are many small nuggets throughout the interview, but my main takeaways are the following:
Have a plan and stick to it
Most players do not have clarity on this. We solve puzzles online, play blitz, and maybe work on our openings, and that's it. So we don't have a plan for what do I need to practice at my level and where you should grow.. As a result they are not growing as fast as they should be.
GM R.B. Ramesh
I can recognize this in my own practice. I have managed to stop the mindless blitz-games, but falling back on doing openings and solving puzzles is always a strong tendency for me.
Focus on middlegames
Many players are also confused about the importens they should give to opening, middlegame, and endgame. My recommendation would be to give more importance to middlegame, but most players prefers to give to much importance to the opening. Most of the time they will worry “does this opening suite my style, is this the right opening for me, should I change my opening.” When ever they lose a game in a specific opening they immidiately conclude, that I should proberbly move to another opening. So they are always thinking more about the opening aspect. Instead I would suggest to focus on your middlegame skills. By middlegame thinking about the analytical ability. To be a good chess player I should analyse any chess position well.
GM R.B. Ramesh
There is a lot of truth to this quote, I think. When we lose a game it is natural to look for the first point where things slipped away for us. This often is somewhere in the opening, where we made some small concessions leading to weaknesses. The next step is then to convince oneself that you would fix the problem by finding a new and better opening. I have done this many times, especially when I lose with the French exchange I want to switch opening for some reason.
Another reason for this tendency is also the many new opening courses being produced promising winning positions and great attacks tempting us to learn a new opening instead of staying with the repertoire we have. Also, something I have talked with my coach, IM Attila Turzo, about since I too have switched openings a lot in the past.
Knowledge and skill is not the same
If I want to learn swimming and don’t know how to swim. I buy some DVDs from a famous swimming coach or swimming world champion, who has done a 10-hour course. So I watch this course every day for one month, so I know all the theory, right, and what needs to be done, but if you push me into a swimming pool I will drown.
GM R. B. Ramesh
So we should not only be collect information about the game, but actually, practice those skills by playing, train hard, calculating, and analyzing our game.
Leave a comment below and let me know what you think about the interview!
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Thanks Martin: For middlegame practice, for the average player 1200-1600, what do you recommend for that? Any thoughts would be great!
So many truths in that passage Martin. I suffer from the same complaint. Always blaming the opening. I think it is a way of not blaming yourself for losing.
There is an old saying , "a good workman never blames his tools"
Most of think of our chosen opening as our tools. A way to get into the game proper.
Of course this isn't the case.
I wish I could be more disciplined and work on my tactics and visualisation more.