Train Like A Chess Champion
By Ray Gordon
Welcome to the future of chess publishing! Thanks to the internet, my renewed interest in chess, and my partnership with ChessGenius, I can bring to you this high-quality chess training book, designed to teach you how to train at chess the same way the champions do. With tens of thousands of chess books on the market, and with most of them not worth the paper they are printed on, it's easy for the newcomer to be led astray and to develop bad habits. Publishing this method also helps me to focus my own training and remember more of what I've learned, since I have to explain it.
I am a former USCF-rated Expert, now rated 1900 (my floor), and have recently improved to about the Expert level on various chess servers. Since this book is free, since it was designed for the beginner, and since I train constantly, a lot of what you read is going to become outdated as I improve. This is natural. Players at all levels make analytical errors in their writing, only to have future authors correct them. My goal here instead is to show you how to train at chess with full intensity, from the perspective of a player who once took the game as serious as humanly possible, and who has put the same method back into practice, updating it to account for the computer and internet revoltion.
As you will see throughout this book, this site is sponsored primarily by ChessGenius, which is offered for sale through this site at its regular price of $25.00 (US), but if you purchase it through me, you also get a free copy of my personal opening book in a format which is compatible with ChessGenius. ChessGenius also has a free version that you can download, but most of the features are disabled (it will play blitz chess but not allow you to save the games, and you can't customize the opening books). When you purchase ChessGenius, you will get a license key that unlocks the program and allows you full access.
Computers and personal opening books are almost required for any player who wants to be serious now, especially since you can play against world-class competition online at any time of the day or night, save your games to your PC, and analyze them for any tactical mistakes or failure to play your book moves. My opening repertoire is responsible for most of my wins, including many miniatures. I win many of my games in twenty-five moves or less, sometimes fifteen or less, and throughout the book I'll show you how to build a super-sharp opening repertoire that has your opponent hanging on for dear life from the very first move.
As computers have shown, even Kasparov had a lot to learn about chess, and this should be comforting. History is never kind to chessplayers, as it has unlimited time to pick apart their ideas. The player who gloats in 2005 about finding an error in a game Fischer played in 1972 misses the point: you don't get three decades on the clock to refute poor play. While it is true that your opponents now have access to state-of-the-art technology, you have access to it as well. Chess theory has exploded in the last decade, with even club-level players playing opening lines that even GMs were scared to venture into before computers showed us the way. This trend will not reverse, and thirty-move opening variations that lead to hundred-move games will be the norm in the future. Only rapid time controls will save us, as we are forced to play more and more complicated games with less and less time. Successful players of the future will be those who adapt rather than those who complain about having to.
The blog section will contain the most current information on the site, including any games I find interesting (mine or those of other players. The Required Reading section is designed for beginners who want to know which chess books I've found useful over the years (in the 1980s I purchased over a hundred of them so I became familiar with which ones were useful and which authors were good), and for today's authors, in many cases I know them personally and have played against them, so I know what to expect from their writing. The books are linked to Amazon.com, so I get anywhere from a 5-15 percent commission on any books purchaed through my links. It should go without saying that any money generated by this site will give me more time to train seriously, and result in better content. Regardless, this book is free and there is no obligation to purchase anything or to donate, although all patronage is appreciated.
