The Original Study Plan

Two people that have really influenced my ideas on how to study are NM Dan Heisman and Michael de la Maza. Specifically, I am going to go through De La Maza’s Seven Circles program, and while applying the ideas that Dan has presented in his Chess Cafe article “Novice Nook: An Improvement Plan.” Specifically, I’m going to play long slow games (60 5) twice a week (against a Chessmaster 10 personality) in addition to my normal play on Chess.com’s facebook interface. Since I am a student with a lot of time on my hands, I’m also going to be reading through the books that Dan recommends in his plan, roughly in the order that he recommends.

My goal is to spend an hour each day studying chess, with the most of that study going towards studying tactics. I’m going to take up everybody’s recommendation and start with CT-ART 3.0, but while I’m waiting for it to arrive in the mail, I’ll be using Polgar’s Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations & Games. I am only going to do the one and two move mates for now, so only the first 3,718 problems. I’m not sure how long this will take me but the one move mates are quite easy.

My first chess tournament will be January 17th, 2009 roughly eight years after my first.