It is funny you should mention this book I got it 2 Weeks ago at The King's Island tourn. on the recommendation of a much stronger player. From what i can see so far it looks like a really good book, can't wait to get further into it. Hope it indeed helps me pump up my rating
Pump Up Your Rating by Axel Smith
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I like it a lot too. His emphasis on pawn levers as the central part of planning was an eye opener for me. It's a seriously insightful and inspiring book. Loved the chapter on opening analysis too, the details on how to use computers with it.
But I'm not studying it seriously, I still feel I should finish Yusupov's series first (and at my pace, that'll take three years or so...), so I put it away for now.
I have had for a few days the book Pump Up Your Rating. I think it is outstanding and truly useful. I think rather poorly of a lot of Chess improvement books that have received high rating from others but not this one. Those others typically seem to, but do not really, communicate much of value. This one does. The chapter on calculation is truly useful. Tisdall's discussion is not useful. Aagard's not very useful. Kotov's to go back a large number of years perhaps useful but rather cumbersome. Axel Smith is to the point in his description and advice.
More after I have had more experience with the book
most books by chess quality are amazing
rooster85 wrote:
Hello everybody,
I'd like to start a discussion about this (IMHO) fantastic book by a young Swedish IM about training methods he uses on himself and in his coaching of other players (most notably GM Nils Grandelius and IM Aryan Tari).
What do you think of the book and its two parts? One is about "thinking chess" (not "thinking about chess", as in "speaking english" vs. "speaking about english") and methods of positional play, calculation etc.; the other part is about training methods themselves (how to analyze games, train tactics, work on openings and endgames) and various practical tips about goals, attitude, time trouble etc.
Does anybody use his methods, especially "the Woodpecker method" for tactics and "List of Mistakes" for analysing games?
Any rating jumps happening, yet? :-) (The author states that he only started to train seriously as an adult and when he started using methods described in the book, jumped from 2093 to 2205 in a year and then to 2458 in the second year - as his FIDE rating card confirms)
For anybody thinking about buying the book - I can wholeheartedly recommend doing that; it is my most perused book since I bought it and is well written and delivers on everything it promised. Jacob Aagaard described it on QC blog as "reminding him of his own Excelling at Chess, only better", and I would agree :-)
Please note that I am not associated in any way with the author nor with the publisher, and would only like to discuss the methods and various aspects of the book here.
I think you can tell that I am a fan of the book, though :-)
I believe the chess field is full of snake oil salesmen. Nobody wants to use science and statistics to prove their statements.
The author jumping from 2000 to 2200 doesn't say anything on how many hours a day he studied, how many tournament games he played in one year, or from how many years he was stuck at 2000.
Let's click on his FIDE rating: Axel Smith was 2145 in January 2003, did he forget to mention that?
By January 2006 he went down to 2094. then July 2007 he reaches 2451.
Summarizing in more than 4 years, he progressed of about 100 points a year, going up and down, which is common for every player who studies chess at least 200 hours a year (no, i don't mean playing bullet for 200 hours).
By the way, Axel Smith was never under 2400 from September 2009.
Now is 4 years stuck at 2400, let's see when he writes: Pump up your rating 2, how to reach 2500 in 20 years.
If we include his improvement from 2003 to 2013 we have: 2495-2145 = 350 divided 10 years = 35 points a year.
I'm not impressed, also if maybe his book is good, and if you follow his system for 10 years, you will too reach 2400...
I just ordered this book.Hopefully it does the trick....I've been in a plateau for quite some time.Traditional chess books don't do it for me anymore....chess knowledge isn't translating into chess performance for me anymore.Since the author of this book discusses training methods it should be a breath of fresh air.
I received the book today! Can you believe it? I will improve of 400 points by the end of 2014!
I was watching the first game he presents, what do you think?
The book has won chesscafe.com Book Of The Year award... Congrats to the author
http://www.chesscafe.com/Reviews/boty.htm
What exactly is so nice about pump up your rating,there has been much hype. But I am still considering if I should buy it or not
SuperFishy wrote:
What exactly is so nice about pump up your rating,there has been much hype. But I am still considering if I should buy it or not
It is not hype. Most chess players here will not tell you the truth. If you buy this book you will gain at least 400 points! The author is a renowned coach, and in it tells you the secrets on how to improve your tactics, and many other things.
However, you will need to study the book, and make the exercises!
I have the book, and to be honest i didn't like it much, but to be fair i didn't look at it deeply, i was reading abt all the good comments abt the book in this thread and they all sound nice but the comment that really got my attention was luigia comment, i think he analyzed the guys' rating and performance nicely, and should be taken into consideration what he said.
There are so many books out there you can go CRAZY. The bottom line is can you play chess ? Rote learning does not help. Studying the TACTICS of champions well that is the answer, NUNN's book on chess openings is mind boggling it does not help in the end. Maybe to learn blocking tactics its helpful. Playing the " computer chess " is frustrating coz you are deafeated 99.9 % of the time. Look you can play for YEARS and not improve. You either are good at it or you JUST AINT. Fair dinkum mate !
kikvors wrote:
I like it a lot too. His emphasis on pawn levers as the central part of planning was an eye opener for me. It's a seriously insightful and inspiring book. Loved the chapter on opening analysis too, the details on how to use computers with it.
But I'm not studying it seriously, I still feel I should finish Yusupov's series first (and at my pace, that'll take three years or so...), so I put it away for now.
Yusupov trying to leave Dvoretsky's shadow... lol how cute! ^_^
"I just ordered this book.Hopefully it does the trick....I've been in a plateau for quite some time.Traditional chess books don't do it for me anymore....chess knowledge isn't translating into chess performance for me anymore.Since the author of this book discusses training methods it should be a breath of fresh air."
Are your openings correlating with your strengths? I tend to be good at queen theoretical endings and strategic endings, especially with many pawns left... yet am working on the Berlin Wall, which is a natural enough opening to adopt (until after Kxd8, then you need a theory for proper development in a way that keeps the bishop pair.)
I've tried 9.Nc3,Be6?! 10.Ng5! losing the bishop pair
9...Ke8?! moves the king twice losing a tempo (do not hurry?)
9...Be7! looks best and most natural 10.h3 is sometimes seen, annoying since g4 is just about the only good square for it
So yeah, you need a theory for connecting your rooks in an optimal way. Studying master games in it should help.
luigia wrote:
rooster85 wrote:
Hello everybody,
I'd like to start a discussion about this (IMHO) fantastic book by a young Swedish IM about training methods he uses on himself and in his coaching of other players (most notably GM Nils Grandelius and IM Aryan Tari).
What do you think of the book and its two parts? One is about "thinking chess" (not "thinking about chess", as in "speaking english" vs. "speaking about english") and methods of positional play, calculation etc.; the other part is about training methods themselves (how to analyze games, train tactics, work on openings and endgames) and various practical tips about goals, attitude, time trouble etc.
Does anybody use his methods, especially "the Woodpecker method" for tactics and "List of Mistakes" for analysing games?
Any rating jumps happening, yet? :-) (The author states that he only started to train seriously as an adult and when he started using methods described in the book, jumped from 2093 to 2205 in a year and then to 2458 in the second year - as his FIDE rating card confirms)
For anybody thinking about buying the book - I can wholeheartedly recommend doing that; it is my most perused book since I bought it and is well written and delivers on everything it promised. Jacob Aagaard described it on QC blog as "reminding him of his own Excelling at Chess, only better", and I would agree :-)
Please note that I am not associated in any way with the author nor with the publisher, and would only like to discuss the methods and various aspects of the book here.
I think you can tell that I am a fan of the book, though :-)
I believe the chess field is full of snake oil salesmen. Nobody wants to use science and statistics to prove their statements.
The author jumping from 2000 to 2200 doesn't say anything on how many hours a day he studied, how many tournament games he played in one year, or from how many years he was stuck at 2000.
Let's click on his FIDE rating: Axel Smith was 2145 in January 2003, did he forget to mention that?
By January 2006 he went down to 2094. then July 2007 he reaches 2451.
Summarizing in more than 4 years, he progressed of about 100 points a year, going up and down, which is common for every player who studies chess at least 200 hours a year (no, i don't mean playing bullet for 200 hours).
By the way, Axel Smith was never under 2400 from September 2009.
Now is 4 years stuck at 2400, let's see when he writes: Pump up your rating 2, how to reach 2500 in 20 years.
If we include his improvement from 2003 to 2013 we have: 2495-2145 = 350 divided 10 years = 35 points a year.
I'm not impressed, also if maybe his book is good, and if you follow his system for 10 years, you will too reach 2400...
This would be a useful criticism if he had been using the same training methods since 2003. Has he?
I'm currently reading this book and I have to agree with what (most) professional reviewers are saying: it is outstanding.
SilentKnighte5 wrote:
luigia wrote:
rooster85 wrote:
Hello everybody,
I'd like to start a discussion about this (IMHO) fantastic book by a young Swedish IM about training methods he uses on himself and in his coaching of other players (most notably GM Nils Grandelius and IM Aryan Tari).
What do you think of the book and its two parts? One is about "thinking chess" (not "thinking about chess", as in "speaking english" vs. "speaking about english") and methods of positional play, calculation etc.; the other part is about training methods themselves (how to analyze games, train tactics, work on openings and endgames) and various practical tips about goals, attitude, time trouble etc.
Does anybody use his methods, especially "the Woodpecker method" for tactics and "List of Mistakes" for analysing games?
Any rating jumps happening, yet? :-) (The author states that he only started to train seriously as an adult and when he started using methods described in the book, jumped from 2093 to 2205 in a year and then to 2458 in the second year - as his FIDE rating card confirms)
For anybody thinking about buying the book - I can wholeheartedly recommend doing that; it is my most perused book since I bought it and is well written and delivers on everything it promised. Jacob Aagaard described it on QC blog as "reminding him of his own Excelling at Chess, only better", and I would agree :-)
Please note that I am not associated in any way with the author nor with the publisher, and would only like to discuss the methods and various aspects of the book here.
I think you can tell that I am a fan of the book, though :-)
I believe the chess field is full of snake oil salesmen. Nobody wants to use science and statistics to prove their statements.
The author jumping from 2000 to 2200 doesn't say anything on how many hours a day he studied, how many tournament games he played in one year, or from how many years he was stuck at 2000.
Let's click on his FIDE rating: Axel Smith was 2145 in January 2003, did he forget to mention that?
By January 2006 he went down to 2094. then July 2007 he reaches 2451.
Summarizing in more than 4 years, he progressed of about 100 points a year, going up and down, which is common for every player who studies chess at least 200 hours a year (no, i don't mean playing bullet for 200 hours).
By the way, Axel Smith was never under 2400 from September 2009.
Now is 4 years stuck at 2400, let's see when he writes: Pump up your rating 2, how to reach 2500 in 20 years.
If we include his improvement from 2003 to 2013 we have: 2495-2145 = 350 divided 10 years = 35 points a year.
I'm not impressed, also if maybe his book is good, and if you follow his system for 10 years, you will too reach 2400...
This would be a useful criticism if he had been using the same training methods since 2003. Has he?
Hi,
No he has not, I would say. He doesn't describe how he trained in 2003, but in the introduction he says he started using methods described in the book in 2006, when he started training seriously. 2006 is also when the rating jumps started to happen for him.
But of course the fact that something has changed in one's routine is logical and understandable, if you're not trying to calculate arbitrarily to prove that nobody does really improve and is only trying to fool you :-)
Indeed he did change his training considerably in th year 2006. He explains this in the book... mainly that as you read the book you're supposed to listen to this on a loop without fail.
Congratulations to Axel Smith...
He is now a GM!!
Hello everybody,
I'd like to start a discussion about this (IMHO) fantastic book by a young Swedish IM about training methods he uses on himself and in his coaching of other players (most notably GM Nils Grandelius and IM Aryan Tari).
What do you think of the book and its two parts? One is about "thinking chess" (not "thinking about chess", as in "speaking english" vs. "speaking about english") and methods of positional play, calculation etc.; the other part is about training methods themselves (how to analyze games, train tactics, work on openings and endgames) and various practical tips about goals, attitude, time trouble etc.
Does anybody use his methods, especially "the Woodpecker method" for tactics and "List of Mistakes" for analysing games?
Any rating jumps happening, yet? :-) (The author states that he only started to train seriously as an adult and when he started using methods described in the book, jumped from 2093 to 2205 in a year and then to 2458 in the second year - as his FIDE rating card confirms)
For anybody thinking about buying the book - I can wholeheartedly recommend doing that; it is my most perused book since I bought it and is well written and delivers on everything it promised. Jacob Aagaard described it on QC blog as "reminding him of his own Excelling at Chess, only better", and I would agree :-)
Please note that I am not associated in any way with the author nor with the publisher, and would only like to discuss the methods and various aspects of the book here.
I think you can tell that I am a fan of the book, though :-)