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Do you have the desire to improve at chess but don’t know HOW to go about studying the game and improving on your own? I’m sure you do, but where do you begin? Maybe you play a few games during the week, watch some chess videos on YouTube or check out a book. It all feels disconnected though. You want to get better but don’t know how to structure and plan your study time. That’s what I’d like to help you with.

The definition of “study” is “the devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, especially by means of books”. So, studying chess in kind of like a math formula where “time + focused attention = knowledge and improvement”.

Now, it’s one thing to understand that studying chess is important in an academic sense but it’s another thing to understand WHY studying chess is beneficial as well as WHAT to study and HOW to study properly.

When I ask many of my personal students if they study chess outside of actually playing the game or of the lessons we may do together, the answer I get a lot of the times is “yeah, I do tactics every now and then” or “no, I just play the game” or “I do some studying just during the weekend”. Which leads me to discussing with them the benefits of a regular, daily study program.

I am a big advocate of a regular, daily chess study program compared to what many players do (zero study / study every now and then / study only on weekends). What I like to compare it to is going to the gym. If you are wanting to lose weight/gain muscle by working out at a gym, the recommendation is to follow a consistent program. Go to the gym for a bit each day or every other day rather than having a haphazard schedule or going to the gym one day each week and trying to stay there for 5 hours. With chess study, it is much better to have a consistent schedule where you do a bit each day (even if it’s only a small amount) rather than skip a bunch of days and try to cram in a lot of information one or two days each week. Aside from being more beneficial in the long-term and not burning yourself out, you’ll also find that having a consistent study schedule can also help you to have more consistent results in your own chess games.

So, we understand that studying chess is important and beneficial. The next step is to figure out WHAT to study. In your own experience, what kind of things do you look at when you are studying chess? And even if you are not doing any studying right now, what kind of things do you think would be most important to focus on studying?

Many people recognize that studying is important but they don’t know exactly what to do when studying. They may do a few tactics, watch a chess video or read a book, play some more games online, maybe read an article on chess.com or another website but they just kind of jump around without focused study. I’m going to help you to get that focus here through these study programs.

In each of these study programs, there will be a focus on five key pillars of chess study:

1. Practicing tactics
2. Analyzing your own games
3. Learning from the games of master-level players
4. Studying endgames
5. Memorizing and understanding openings (for stronger players)

I feel that these five things are vital to any good personal study program. In all of the various study program options available here, you will receive:

• Day-by-day breakdown and checklist of what you should work on (examples: how many tactics to solve, how many games to play, which videos to watch, which books to read, what endgame drills to do, which opening resources you should use, etc.)
• How to practice tactics in the most effective way to become a tactical beast (many great recommendations that 99% of players don’t know about)
• How to analyze your own games correctly so that you can identify your own weaknesses to work on (with and without computer use)
• How to play “guess-the-move” so you can compare yourself to chess masters (my favorite study exercise to increase active learning!)
• The best drills and positions to work on to improve your comprehension of the opening, middlegame and endgame (sourced from my personal lesson archive as well as the best books, articles and databases available)
• Written and video instructions on HOW TO DO EVERYTHING correctly in each study program (I walk you through every part of the study program myself with detailed explanations)

In addition to everything listed above, the specialized, custom study programs will also include:

• Questionnaire to find out your daily/weekly schedule and availability, what your skill level/rating is, what chess resources you have along with what your goals and weaknesses are (all of this is done to further tailor the custom study program to your own individual needs)
• Weekly 15-minute Skype/phone call to talk about your progress, answer any questions and also so that we can modify the study program if it’s too easy/difficult or if you want to focus on a new topic
• 24/7 email support for basic questions

The two types of study programs available are “theme-focused” and “customized”:

THEME-FOCUSED:

• Focuses on a specific chess theme such as “tactical thinking”, “visualization”, “calculation”, “pawn structures”, “defending tough positions”, “endgame activity”, “attacking the opponent’s king”, etc.
• Each of the five pillars of study is still focused on, just skewed towards the theme of the study program (example: in a study program focused on “endgame activity” the tactics suggestions would focus on “endgame tactics” and the guess-the-move games would focus on games with educational endgames)
• No customization; each 4-week program focuses on a general theme according to your rating category

CUSTOMIZED:

• The study program prioritizes things from the questionnaire and discussion we have during the Skype/phone call (example: maybe you want to work on something as specific as “bishop vs knight endgames”. I will tailor the large majority of the tactics, guess-the-move games, video and book recommendations, drills and positions towards bishop vs knight endgames)
• Customization is available; if you find that a different topic than the original one becomes more important for you to work on, then I will discuss this with you during one of our weekly calls and modify the study program
• 24/7 email contact for basic questions

If you are interested in a study program, click on the “Buy Now” button for the study program that you would like to purchase. If it is a customized study program, then contact me using the link at the bottom of the page as well so we can schedule the 15-minute introduction call. Thank you!

Customized Study Program Prices:

SOLD OUT $210 for trial lesson and 4-week customized study program (A saving of $10!)
SOLD OUT $170 for a 4-week customized study program

Theme-focused Study Program Prices:

$30 for the “4-Week Essential Study Program” (click here for more information)
$30 for the “4-Week Visualization Study Program” (coming soon)
–New theme-focused study programs coming soon!

Click here to contact me so we can schedule a day and time for a call