Chess Improvement Ways

10 Things Chess Students Do — Ranked by What Actually Makes You Stronger

Most chess students aren’t stuck because they lack effort. They’re stuck because they spend effort on the wrong things.

If you strip away the noise, these are the 10 most common chess activities—ranked by how much they actually improve your strength.

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1. Playing Random Online Blitz/Bullet

Effectiveness: 2/10

Fast games feel addictive and productive. They aren’t.
You’re not thinking deeply—you’re reacting. That means you’re training habits, not improving them. If your habits are flawed, you’re just making them permanent.

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2. Watching Chess YouTube Videos

Effectiveness: 3/10

It feels like learning. In reality, it’s mostly passive consumption.
Unless you pause, calculate, and engage actively, you’re just watching someone else think.

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3. Watching Others Play (Streams/Friends)

Effectiveness: 3/10

Same trap, different format.
You sit back while someone else does the hard work. Improvement doesn’t happen by observation alone.

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4. Memorizing Opening Lines

Effectiveness: 4/10

Memorization without understanding is fragile.
The moment your opponent deviates, your preparation collapses—and now you’re on your own, unprepared.

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5. Solving Easy Puzzles Quickly

Effectiveness: 5/10

Good for pattern recognition and confidence.
But if it’s too easy, you’re not calculating—you’re guessing based on familiarity.

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6. Playing Long Games (Without Analysis)

Effectiveness: 5/10

Better than blitz because you actually think.
But if you don’t review your games, you’ll repeat the same mistakes again and again.

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7. Studying Openings with Understanding

Effectiveness: 6/10

Now you’re getting somewhere.
Understanding plans, pawn structures, and ideas matters. Still, for most players, this isn’t the highest return area.

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8. Solving Difficult Puzzles (Calculation Training)

Effectiveness: 8/10

This builds real strength.
You train visualization, discipline, and accuracy. It’s uncomfortable—and that’s exactly why it works.

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9. Analyzing Your Own Games

Effectiveness: 9/10

This is where growth accelerates.
Your mistakes are personal and specific. When you study them, improvement becomes targeted instead of random.

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10. Studying Master Games

Effectiveness: 10/10

This is the highest level of learning.
You don’t just see moves—you understand how strong players think, plan, and execute. Over time, that thinking becomes yours.

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The Reality Most Students Miss

Most players spend the majority of their time on low-impact activities—blitz, videos, passive watching—and very little on what actually works.

Flip that balance, and everything changes.

Improvement in chess isn’t about doing more.
It’s about doing what matters.

10 Truths from a Chess Coach

What Every Chess Parent Must Understand – 10 Truths from a Coach’s Perspective

1. Talent Is Nothing Without Effort
   Every child has potential. Only disciplined work turns it into strength. Laziness disguised as “playful nature” destroys more talent than lack of ability ever did.

2. Consistency Beats Intensity
   Two to four hours of focused training daily is better than endless scattered effort. Long classes can’t stay intense. Short, sharp, and regular always wins.

3. Analyse Every Game
   A game not analysed is a lesson wasted. Each game must be written fully, reviewed the same day, and understood—without using engines. Real growth comes from self-correction.

4. Think, Don’t React
   Fast play and excitement show emotional instability, not genius. A good move played slowly is better than ten blunders made quickly. Thinking must become habit.

5. Solve Daily
   Tactics are the gym for the brain. A player who skips tactical training will freeze under pressure. Solve positions daily. Build calculation muscle.

6. Respect the Body
   Chess is mental war. Nutrition, sleep, and energy management matter. A tired or hungry brain can’t calculate. Nap 20–30 minutes, not more. Eat clean, rest right.

7. Detach from Results
   Trophies come and go. Progress stays. Play each move with care, analyse after, forget the outcome. Mastery begins when the child stops chasing medals.

8. Let Consequences Teach
   Shielding a child from failure weakens them. Pressure and responsibility forge champions. Fear isn’t an enemy—it’s energy to be channelled.

9. School and Chess Must Coexist
   If there’s no obsession with immediate results, let school continue. Chess complements education—it should not replace learning discipline in life.

10. Love or Fear Doesn’t Matter—Work Does
    Whether the child works out of love for the game or fear of missing out is irrelevant. Improvement has one condition: do the work, every day, without excuse.

Closing Note:
Parents, your role is to support process, not to soften the path. A child who learns to think, work, and face consequence will win—on and off the board.

Crafted by Sa Kannan, the Immortal Coach!

Chess Coaching Truth

Chess Coaches Are Cheating Their Students

In today’s chess world, many coaches are taking shortcuts. They package “chess improvement” into tactics drills, opening files, or casual playing sessions without supervision. On the surface, this looks like training. In reality, it is negligence. It is cheating.

The Illusion of Progress

Tactics are flashy. Openings look attractive. Playing games feels active. But none of these, by themselves, build true chess strength. Students may feel they are improving because they get quick wins or memorize traps. In truth, their foundation remains shallow. They collapse once the opponent resists.

The Real Core of Chess Learning

Chess is not built on short-term tricks. Chess is ideas, strategy, and long-term understanding. This foundation does not come from puzzles or memorized lines. It comes from master games.

When a student studies how masters think—how they build positions, transform advantages, and convert wins—they absorb the essence of chess. They see patterns of harmony, not just fragments. They learn when to attack, when to defend, when to exchange, and when to wait.

Why Coaches Avoid Master Games

Showing master games takes patience. It demands effort from the coach to explain complex ideas in simple terms. It requires guiding the student through the slow process of thinking like a master. Most coaches avoid this. They choose the easy path: tactics apps, opening dumps, and unsupervised play.

This is not teaching. It is entertainment disguised as education.

The Honest Path

A real coach does not cheat students with shortcuts. A real coach builds chess understanding step by step. That path runs through annotated master games. Tactics, openings, and playing practice have value—but only after the student has first absorbed strategic truth from the classics.

Final Word

If a coach is not showing you master games, they are holding you back. Improvement in chess means entering the minds of the masters. Anything else is surface-level training that wastes time and money.

Stay Alstoned!

Glory Regained

This is a Poem, which I wrote 6 years ago, when Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was the President of India.
I was hoping that this poem would reach Kalam, as he was attending an event in our neighbourhood and our School Principal was invited to it.
I gave this poem to my Principal in the hope he could deliver it to the President himself, if possible..
I don't know whether the poem reached him or not, but here it is..

Glory Regained

The Rain of Glory started drizzling
On the Land with dryness so far,
With you as the First Citizen,
Claiming back its past glory.

The success wave started waving
For the Nation with billion citizens,
With you as the Ideal King,
Claiming back its lost glory.

The Dazzling Future started nearing
To the Country with striving students,
With you as the mentor,
Claiming back its vanished glory.
       We, as students, will toil hard for our Nation's growth,
       And will soon restore its Dazzling Glory.


Signing off, Randy Alstone!

Stay Alstoned!