Do What You Enjoy

Information Galore

Living in an era with so much content online we would not be surprised to find chess players suffering from information overload.

In fact looking at the data "In the history of sport — and publishing — it’s not even close: one sport has had more books (and for that matter, magazines, tracts, pamphlets and handbills) published about it far more than any other: Chess." was statement asserted by Kevin DiCamillo on publishingperspectives.com.

Now how is an aspiring chess player meant to come to grips with the vast array of knowledge out there - especially with conflicting advice from different sources?

The age old debate is whether openings are important for beginners and club players. It's definitely an interesting topic which deserves its own blog post, but it shows how divided the chess community can be at times.

Where Our Focus Should Be

Improvement advice is never the same for anybody. That is why what is best for one player is not necessarily an area of the game another should focus on. I'm a big proponent of focusing both on your strengths and weaknesses. So at the end of the day you should just focus on what brings you joy.

If you love middlegames and want to work on them then by all means check out a couple middlegame books/courses on pawn structures, strategy etc. or look at games by players who were well known for their strategical brilliance.

The area of focus is not so important in my opinion, but rather the effort put into studying. There is a time and place for "light study" like watching youtube videos, but more active learning, where you are fully concentrated, is where most of the improvement will end up coming from.