Smithy’s Training Plan

 I’ve written a lot on chess training, but it has all been theoretical: how to train and what to train, but not what I am actually doing right now. In truth, I have not been training. I’ve simply been treading water, staying connected with chess but not actively putting in work. Because I’m balancing a new career with other competing priorities, this was fine, but I’m now preparing to dive in.

Therefore, what follows is my training plan: what I intend to do, why I will do it, how I will do it and when I will get it done. All chess players are unique, so the details of the plan likely won’t help you, but hopefully seeing how I set it out and what I intend to do will give you an example on how you can structure your own plan.

Also, frankly, writing this gives me accountability. I will write monthly updates and rely on readers to keep me on track if I start slacking. Well, without further ado, let’s go.

The Theory

I will start by training the most foundational skills first. What do I mean? Look at sports: soccer involves a lot of running, basketball a lot of jumping. Just training running or jumping only impacts one sport … but improving your leg strength improves virtually all sports. Lower body strength is foundational.

Similarly, rather than focus on one aspect of chess, such as the endgame or attacking, I will focus on the most foundational chess skills. I’ll have more detail below, but in essence, it’s calculation, visualization and the thinking system.

Once I’ve strengthened the foundation, I then want to work backwards. I will start with the endgame and really immerse myself here. Then I will look at various middlegame topics, and then finish with the opening.

Why go backwards? This matches received chess wisdom: start with the endgame.  I look at it this way: if the endgame is your strongest phase, then the longer the games goes on the stronger you get.  Conversely, focusing on middlegames and, especially, openings means you actually get weaker during long games, right when things matter most.

Also, of course, endgames are my big weakness, so might as well tackle it head on.

0.5: Blindfold for the Rest of 2023

The year is basically over, so I want to use the final few weeks to ramp into 2024. My absolute main goal is to play blindfold chess; that is, play a game without sight of the board. Besides being a cool parlour trick, this will improve my visualization, a relatively weakness, and allow me to read chess books without setting up a board. That is a huge benefit and unlocks my library of chess books that are otherwise gathering dust.

Outside of sporadic attempts, I’ve rarely trained my visualization and I can’t remember ever trying blindfold. For much of November I've been experimenting with various visualization techniques, and I plan to do that consistently until January.

I will not learn this skill in just a few weeks (or maybe I will! Who knows?) The point is to get back into the habit of chess training, of doing something every day, and fully preparing me to rock 2024.  I'll have more detail on what exactly I'm doing here in a future post, but for now let's move on.

1: Building the Foundation in 2024

General

I realize that “building the foundation” might sound odd from someone routinely around 2100-2200 online. Still, the basics are the basics, and my years of martial arts training should remind me you can never train these too much.

My overarching goal remains developing my blindfold abilities, gaining the full ability by the end of 2024 (ideally sooner, but I’m being conservative with the timeline). I will have dedicated visualization sessions, and even when I work on other things, I will repeat exercises without a board.

Beyond this, my “foundation” will consist of ironing out my thinking system and focusing heavily on calculation. Specifically, I want to improve my handling of the initiative and keeping the tension, two things I frequently flub in time pressure.  My training material will directly address these areas.

The Process

As a daily warm-up, I will go through some easy blitz problems on either ChessTempo.com or ChessPuzzle.Net. This will have the added bonus of maintaining my pattern recognition, something I’ll be otherwise neglecting in favour of raw calculation.

As for the actual content, First, I will go through GM Smirnov’s “Grandmaster Positional Understanding” again. This is my favourite chess course ever, giving me my biggest sustained rating increase. Several years have passed, though, so cementing the ideas and re-learning forgotten themes makes sense. I first learned the idea of a "thinking system" through Smirnov's courses, so this is the ideal place to start.

No mysteries here: I will do the exact same thing I did the first time. Before, it took me three months to get through it all. I’m confident I will be faster now, but I also have a much more demanding job, so I still expect this to take roughly three months.

Second, I will complete Smirnov’s “Calculate Till Mate”. I got through 75% of it previously before stopping (I don’t remember the details, but I definitely didn’t finish it, for whatever reason). Obviously, this will focus on calculation, and I will follow the course to the letter. As this has hundreds of difficult problems, I’ve scheduled 3-6 months for completion.

Finally, the remainder of the year will bounce around various other calculation resources, depending on my mood. For example, I have two Dvoretsky books, the “Analytical Manual” and “Attack and Defence”, that would provide excellent training. I also have GM Shankland’s “Shankland Method” from iChess, which is similar. There are also various online sites, such as Chess-Tempo, ChessPuzzle.Net, and the CT-Art program, all of which offer calculation training. Maybe I’ll find something new as well. Anyway, I’ll have no shortage of calculation training to keep me busy.

Ideally, I spend 30-60min on most days, 5-6 days a week. That’s the most I can commit, though I’ll inevitably have to miss time here and there. Even more ideally, I would like to have one day a week where I do more, but that’s a stretch goal.

I don’t have to do seven days a week, giving me some rest time. In addition, I’ll likely take a few rest weeks, where I do much less or even no chess. That will depend on my motivation and energy levels. This has rarely been a problem, but as this is the first time I’ve tried to train chess and develop my career, best to build in some leeway.

The End Goal

As mentioned, I want to play blindfold. That’s number one, the ultimate. More than that, I want to improve my calculation. I’ve written before that my calculation skills are okay, but I frequently avoid calculating in a game. I’m lazy, I prefer easy moves rather than doing the hard work. I’m hoping that all of this time will help me calculate in game. If not, I will have to include training games where I only focus on calculation, similar to how I describe it in my soft skills article.

I’m curious to see how this works. This will be the longest prolonged period of calculation training I have ever done, and it will be further enhanced by my increased visualization abilities. I know that GM Shankland thinks calculation basically trumps everything up to 2300 FIDE or so. That’s my paraphrase of his interview, but either way, I’ll be putting that to the test.

2: The Year of the Endgame, 2025

General

Yes, I fully expect my calculation and visualization training to take a full year, and I expect my endgame studies to take even longer. If all goes right, I will do the following:

1. Review most if not all positions entirely in my head, blindfold, and
2. Calculate all positions from the beginning.

This keeps my previous skills active while I now seek to improve my weakest link, the endgame. I have no shortage of material.

The Process

First, I will go through Smirnov’s “Endgame Expert” course. Yes, I am going all-in on Smirnov’s teaching. I have watched the videos before (and enjoyed them, I must say), but I have not done the exercises. This will take at least two months, and it should provide an excellent practical endgame foundation.

Second, I will read the classic “Endgame Strategy” by Shereshevsky. Unlike many endgame books, it contains far more words than moves. Chessable has a digital version, but I will use my own personal copy.

Third, I will turn to a trio of Karsten Muller books: “How to play Chess Endgames”, "Secrets of Pawns Endgames" and “Understanding Rook Endgames”. I bought these on Kindle years ago and never touched them. The exact order is still to be determined, but it’s probably the order that I gave.

During this time, I will do more than just read these books and solve the puzzles. I will spend time sparring with the computer: setting up positions and trying to win (or draw, as the case may be) against Stockfish. ChessTempo also has an endgame mode that looks interesting. Both methods will improve my practical abilities as the courses increase my knowledge and theoretical abilities.

Also, my goal isn't to just get through these books but to absorb them.  I want to learn these core ideas, and that likely entails multiple reads, either of whole books or specific chapters.  All told, this likely takes me through all of 2025, honestly. If I complete all five books, I will have increased my endgame ability by … 500%.

At this point, I will have a choice. If I have enjoyed my endgame study, I will keep going. I have many more resources: IM Kotronias’s “How to play Equal Positions,” Chessable’s “Timeless Technique,” GM Kuljasevic’s “Winning Endgame Strategies” and, of course, the grand-daddy of them all, Dvoretsky’s “Endgame Manual.”

I also have a long-term goal of tackling GM Aagaard’s esteemed work, both “A Matter of Endgame Technique” and his two-volume work on Rook endgames with GM Shankland. These are very ambitious, probably even more ambitious than the Endgame Manual, and I will only entertain these if a) I have gone through all of the above, and b) I still enjoy training endgames.

I call this the Year of the Endgame, but this is years of content here. That said, I am only committed up to the Karsten Muller books. If I can’t stand the endgame any longer, I can move on to middlegame training instead. I’ll figure out what that means when it gets closer. Heck, I’ve likely got two years until I need to worry about it.

The End Goal

Obviously, I want to play endgames better. It’s a big weakness, one I have never studied, let alone in a systematic way. The potential for unlocking big rating gains is very much on the table.

More importantly, though, I want to enjoy this phase of the game. I have never liked endgames, and most symmetrical, even positions put me to sleep. Learning to enjoy this, to find these positions interesting, will not only improve my chess but will improve my enjoyment. I will literally like chess more. The best way to do that, I imagine, is through immersing myself in the endgame.

And the ultimate end goal, of course, would have me playing blindfold, calculating like a machine and never blowing an endgame… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Conclusion and Next Steps

This might sound ambitious, but is it? It basically amounts to seven books across two years. That’s nearly four months per book. That’s very doable, and it gives me certainty. For the next two years, when I sit down to train chess, I know exactly what to do: a quick tactical warm-up, some visualization exercises, and then whatever the current book is.

Starting in January, I will give monthly updates on my progress. This will document my training and keep me accountable, and it will help me to see what worked and what needs improving for the next training sessions.

Finally, I reserve the right to change this plan. If it’s not working, if I’m just banging my head against the wall, then I will stop and make a change. This will be interesting to see as well, though: how well can I stick to what I “think” I can do versus what I can actually do?

This should be fun. I’m really looking forward to diving back into training chess, as opposed to just writing about it. This does mean I will likely slow down my blogging somewhat, as time previously spent on writing will now be for chess training.  Hopefully a stronger Smithy will eventually provide higher-quality content if at a slightly slower pace.

Anyway, here goes. Wish me luck.