Improve at chess – 10 “secret” obstacles

If you are serious about your chess improvement, you should know the top 10 reasons for stagnation:

1) Too much play

Playing chess – practice – is very important for improvement. When you play chess (over the board, at tournaments), you put into practice what you have learned, you use your brain to think chess, you are in the testing environment, you test your accumulated knowledge and skill against another person.

However, too much play and too little study holds you back. You can repeat the same mistakes over and over. You will tend to follow your own old patterns and not have time to develop a different, correct thinking process, and to learn proper strategy and new ideas.

In this case, you should take a long break from playing and concentrate only on study for several months. You will make a significant improvement.

2) Incomplete knowledge

It’s so simple: an incomplete study of theory leaves you with weaknesses and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

There is no shortcut; a necessary task for serious improvement is to have COMPLETE knowledge of chess theory, of chess strategy. Then, you will know what TO DO in any situation on the chess board. It makes no sense to re-invent the wheel when there are full blueprints available.

3) Too much training

The idea is to optimize your time for study.

Too much information on the same subject becomes superfluous.

Too many exercises of the same kind will only hold you back.

Too much theory without enough exercises or too many exercises without essential theory is also counterproductive.

Too much of anything may hold back your creativity and diminish your joy for the game.

You do not need Quantity but Quality! Save yourself time and study and train only with the best materials, not with ALL materials.

4) Disorganized study

Disorganized study habits are another reason for stagnation for even the most serious learners.

via How to improve at chess. Top 10 reasons for stagnation..