What Separates a Chess Master From The Rest of us

[@macnolds4145]

Isn't the answer obvious? 1 - They study. They don't just "play" the game. They study it. They memorize openings (moves and ideas), middle game strategies, and endgames. Furthermore, they analyze both their wins and losses after games. Studying improves your active decision-making during games. 2 - They train. Again, "playing" is not training. Training is learning visualization skills so you can play without looking at the board. Training is solving chess studies and puzzle positions. Training is doing lots and lots of tactical exercises, until they become second nature. Training improves your subconscious, reflexive abilities. 3 - They are more passionate about the game. If you just play lots of blitz online, you'll eventually hit a wall. When you're passionate, however, you will be highly motivated to improve. 99% of chess players just play, but never "study" or "train". Even when they watch/read educational chess material, they do so for entertainment and don't treat it like a school assignment. For example, they'll watch a video about chess puzzles, but won't actively challenge themselves to practice puzzles independently in a serious way.

[@adamphelan450]

This was great Kostya, thanks so much! My goal is CM Title so this really helped!

[@kmunson007]

Solid gold. Thanks!

[@mitchellfabian7694]

A great story about taking responsibility for your own progress and life

[@Joe-nh8eq]

@9:30 the funny part is I use this same method for studying for my medical boards. The question get split up by easy, medium, hard, and I would find going through the hard questions to be really demoralizing so I started sneaking in easy questions into the pile. Gain back a little confidence after getting 5 in a row wrong…

[@zwebzz9685]

I am convinced med school is the hardest form of school because med students are the only ones who show up in the mnemonics community. They are desperate for solution because they study huge numbers of hours but still fail. I know one medical fact from the memory forums. The sinoatrial node is in the right atrium and the mnemonic image I used is Frank Sinatra taking a right at a red light.

[@Joe-nh8eq]

@@zwebzz9685 There's so much stuff... people literally make flash cards just to study the mnemonics...

[@vladys5238]

@@zwebzz9685 well that's subjective in ky opinion factual recall is a lot less impressive then the thinking you have to do in maths or natural sciences but they're all important so no need to compare!

[@rickerwinsor7623]

Very excellent interview/discussion. Unusually good teacher and very appealing personality.

[@Mike-cp1tj]

right mood right move 100%

[@medhanshkaushik383]

Highly informative

[@darrylkassle361]

This is great a lot of competitors won't have anything to do with other competitors in the same field whether it be chess or anything else. This is great because most people use multiple resources anyway so their fear is somewhat unfounded.

[@zwebzz9685]

The story of blowing the winning advantage resonates. I am not intending to play OTB until my opponents online gift me games out of winning positions more than I gift to them. Poor tactical vision blowing a game is so demoralizing especially when you can tell your opponent studies way less but being outplayed without major blunders feels fine. It is naïve to expect to never blunder but having your opponents pitch games to you more than you pitch games to them seems like it would be a huge psychological boost and realistic with serious calculation training I need to focus a lot more on.

[@acsu96]

I think your sentiment is a good one to try to blunder less than your opponents, but I'd say not feeling ready for OTB never goes away. And blundering such an OTB game feels different from online... In my experience the only way to deal with that and the pressure is to just lose a lot OTB. More than anything i think that's what I gained from playing OTB as a kid - losing in every way imagineable

[@zwebzz9685]

@@acsu96 I plan to play beginning in January regardless but I don't do any daily tactical training at all right now. I want to be investing significant time to calculation practice before I am investing huge time in OTB tournaments and doing this daily tactics practice is kind of a pre-req for me.

[@fmismydream6520]

Thank you Kostya for that. Can you mention any "easy" Studies? I thought all of them are up 2200.

[@JoseFlores-du4my]

This channel is goated!

[@TheBluePhoenix008]

I thought this was gonna be a video essay ngl

[@Swishead]

The truth hurts

[@fraternitas5117]

I would like a video on hand and arm physical preparation. Has anyone ever had their hand make a move that their brain said not to do? That has stung me more than once. It's weird and it's stupid but I am weird and stupid and it happens all the time. I find I have to verbalize to myself the move 2-3 times before I move my hand and or sit on my hands before moving.

[@ChessDojo]

Do you have a lot of experience playing over the board?

[@fraternitas5117]

@@ChessDojo I stopped going to tournaments during covid and 98.9% of my training was online except for week prior to a tournament I would drill opening lines over the board. I plan on focusing on calculation otb in my next training cycle to at least get back into rapid tourneys. I saw you in STL last week.

[@ChessDojo]

Important to practice playing OTB! Especially training games

[@giovannicole5561]

Great video! I would like to ask something off topic. I may have not understand it completely.. When you say "road to 1400" (regarding the training program) does this mean that the individual student actually achieves this rating (or equivalent on various platforms) before proceed to the next? Furthermore, the classical games that are required are played in any platform?

[@ChessDojo]

it means that if you do the work you will likely get the result. OTB games are best but any platfrom is ok.

[@giovannicole5561]

@@ChessDojo Thank you so much for your reply!

[@iamstarfox87]

You mean besides the thousands of hours of study/hard work?? LOL

[@galador8089]

What is that ctr thing they mention?

[@totleariss]

CT-ART, there's various ones for different ratings

[@ChessDojo]

Yep! Kostya reviewed it for this channel

[@fb2062]

How do you spell the name of the puzzle app that’s mentioned around 11:18?

[@buddythompson5284]

CT-Art 6.0

[@fb2062]

@@buddythompson5284 Thx

[@rokastverijonas8721]

The title is very much misleading. Only you can tell, if that happened by accident, or in order to have a click-baity title. Either way, no bueno. Still a fan of you guys.

[@ChessDojo]

Interesting most others seemed to like the video!

[@ishanr8697]

Yeah, I also don't see the link between the title and the talk. I thought it was gonna be about relative strengths of titled players, not about bouncing back from a tough tournament.

[@chessvoyage]

@@ChessDojo Rokas didn't say he didn't like the video. I agree, the title does seem like clickbait.

[@fpvillegas9488]

"Unless you become like little children......you will never enter the kingdom of God" Matthew 18:3