My concrete study plan is based on Michael de la Maza’s circles method, which involves repeatedly studying tactics problems to improve your chess game by great leaps and bounds. Man de la Maza used a method which involved studying 1000 problems seven times (the seven circles) over the course of about 127 days.
My program is based on this circles method. I am currently going through Chess Tactics for Beginners doing sets of 120 problems each. I do twelve circles per set. Every other circle I enable CTB’s randomizing functions to keep things from being too monotonous. After I have completed CTB, I will move on to CTI. After that, I will move on to CT-Art.
I complete, on average, two to three of these circles per day. That means I effectively am solving at least 240 tactical problems every single day (1680 a week!), and I can tell it is working.
You can find my progress graph on this blog. It shows my average PlayChess ratings by the month so we can actually see how I am progressing. Any comments on my blog are, of course, appreciated, and thanks for reading!
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