Chess Players improve Faster thanks to Educational Software

Hello everybody!

Quite often people people ask me who plays/played better chess in absolute terms, modern players from the 21st century or classical champions from the 19th and 20th centuries, and how has the level of chess evolved through time. They ask me how it could be that players are now becoming Grandmasters at a much younger age. Is the title of Grandmaster devalued in some way, or are people becoming smarter?

Chess software such as that from Chess King Training

helps improve at chess fast and in an organized way

I believe the difference is that now computers and chess software are helping chess players to improve at chess considerably faster. Previously analyzing an opening chess variation would take weeks, single positions were being studied by Grandmasters for days on end. Karpov was often said to have dozens of Grandmasters helping him for opening preparation and for analyzing adjourned games. Nowadays, powerful computers have forced the chess world to abandon the practice of adjourned games, as chess software can give a winning line in a few seconds. Learning opening theory is also hundreds of times faster! One can go through opening lines on the computer at such a speed, that it is now feasible to get a good idea of an opening in a few hours, with the main lines and possible plans, as played by thousands of high level chess players, enormous databases of millions of games at our fingertips.

Another category of very useful chess software is the educational type of interactive CD-ROMS, such as the new series from CHESS KING TRAINING. These types of software are extremely useful to raise your level of play, and they do it in an organized way, perfect for parents or coaches to monitor progress, or for tournament players to quickly get into shape.

While training me when I was a kid, my Dad has always insisted on TACTICS Training, providing me with dozens of chess puzzles to solve. The puzzles were on cards, and I had to solve them one at a time and he would write the date and time it took to solve them on the back side of the card. It was a big work, as much for him (to find the puzzles) as for me (to solve them), and we used to spend up to 5 hours a day solving such puzzles. That helped me get very high in chess, but it was an enormous effort, for sure, for the whole family.

My Dad Konstantin coaching me and my sister Oxana

I still use TACTICS Training as my main practice before tournaments, as it is important to have a well-practiced mind before an event. That's a little like stretching before a race.

CHESS KING TRAINING has come out with 3 Tactics CD-ROMS, that are a challenge for the very beginner chess players (Volume 1), for club players who want to improve (Volume 2), to experienced players and even masters (Volume 3). I use volumes 2 and 3 before tournaments, set up "tests" of up to 50 puzzles, and try to solve them as fast as I can. I can easily see how I score thanks to the immediate feedback I get from the program. The volume Tactics 1 is perfect for kids, as it has an enormous number of Mate in 1 and in 2 moves (1000 puzzles), adapted to kids of any age, who after working on all the puzzles will never any more miss simple checkmates, guaranteed.

The 3 TACTICS volumes by Chess King

adapted for beginners all the way to masters

Also very useful software has come out to help in studying Chess Endgames, Chess Strategy and Chess Openings. Chess Endgames is the most overlooked area of chess education, which I view as critical to getting good practical results in tournaments. Strategy is the most "forgotten" area of study as students don't know how to study strategy. Chess King gives a good base of knowledge in that area. And we talked about openings, in which software are critical to help go over many lines in very little time. The Openings section has for most main opening lines tests to see if you can find good series of moves (plans) that go well with the openings in question.

All software give full feedback, with rating for each user (Can have unlimited number of users per program), as well as full tests results. Ideal for parents and/or coaches who want to keep their kids busy in a useful and controllable environment. And for club players or intermediate and advanced players, it's a must to brush up on TACTICS on a very regular basis to improve.

You can find out more about the new software on this page. There is a limited time 20% discount as well as a COMBO special pricing that you won't want to miss. The discounts are available until the end of May, 2011.

Happy chess training!

Alexandra Kosteniuk's chess blog

www.chessblog.com

www.chessqueen.com