Chess Sample Study Plan
Now that I have explained the various aspects of my chess study plan, I thought it would be worth showing an example of what this looks like in summary.
I allocate around two hours per day to chess and a typical week of study would look like this:
Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday:
- Endgame: 45 minutes
- Work through one or two sections of Nunn’s Understanding Chess Endgames
- Do 2 problems on ChessTempo’s endgame trainer
- Work through one or two sections of Nunn’s Understanding Chess Endgames
- Tactics: 15 minutes
- 5-10 problems on each of chess.com and ChessTempo
- Read 3 or 4 pages of Predator at the Chessboard and do the example problems
- Opening: 30 minutes (60 minutes on Saturday)
- Watch, study and make notes of a video on GM Davies’ Tiger Chess Building an Opening Repertoire course (25 minutes)
- Play through one or two lines of my opening repertoire (5 minutes)
- Strategy: 20 minutes (45 minutes on Sunday)
- Watch, study and make notes of a video in the Strategy Course on Tiger Chess, or in the Members’ Clinic series on the same site
- Visualisation: 5 minutes
- I did not specify this as a separate aspect in my study plan overview, but will make a post about what I do here, later.
Wednesday:
- Tactics and Visualisation only: 20 minutes
- Play Over The Board competitive chess game: Around 3 hours if it goes to the flag, which it often does.
Thursday:
- Endgame: 30 minutes only
- Tactics and Visualisation as usual: 20 minutes
- Review Wednesday’s game: 60 minutes
Two hours per day make fourteen per week, make 728 per year. At that rate, 10,000 hours is a long way off, but I feel I use the two hours per day well. Only time will tell what effect it has on my quality of play. Watch this space!
This is my training plan that made me gain 100 points. You might want to try it out, maybe not.
Everyday:
1. 30+ mins of tactical study (puzzles).
2. 30+ mins of positional chess/strategy with Chess Strategy Move by Move and My System
3. 60+ or 30+
This step is the hardest because it will constantly change.
Monday and Tuesday: Endgame study with Silman’s Complete Endgame Course, you should read the section where your level is and a section above your rating. Keep rereading this section every week so you gain a good grasp of the knowledge of chess endgames.
Wednesday and Thursday: Look at your own games and analyze them with yourself followed by your computer analysis. Remember to always analyze your games by yourself first. Look at your own games and other games of masters. If you have a favorite chess player or opening you might want to look at games that cover that. You should also look at games with annotations(words) because they will help you benefit from the game the most.
Friday: Opening Study
Saturday and Sunday: Study more tactics if you don’t have a chess tournament.
Hi. Thanks for the comments. It is always good to see what other people do and how that might influence my own developing plan. Good luck with your own plan too. All the best.
100 points in how much time?
Did you have Malcolm Gladwell in mind, when you chose 10,000 hours?
I mentioned the 10,000 hours with tongue in cheek, as of course it isn’t quite that simple. I am interested in how to make best use of time though, hence the ‘Mastery’ section on the blog. Although Gladwell popularised the idea that 10,000 hours should lead to mastery, it is the work of Anders Ericsson which is at the root of it. I am currently reading Matthew Syed’s Bounce on the topic and will be posting on it in the near future.
I was referring to chessattackman’s comment. I placed that reply under his comment. (It is indented under his comment, for organization, too.)
Thanks, yes I noticed afterward and then deleted my comment. Sorry about the confusion.