New Year’s resolution of chess players

EVER since I can recall, New Year’s resolutions were popular among young adults. Unfortunately for almost everybody, it usually fails.

The main reason is that the new resolutions take a lot of effort and we usually always take the easy route by force of habit. New resolutions should not be of change in order to succeed but of hoping to be better.

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It is the same for chess. The utmost resolution of a chess player is to be better, or to be precise, to gain a higher rating.

How do you achieve to increase your rating by say, 100 points? By studying more, of course. If you say you cannot devote more than an hour a day because you are too
busy, forget it.

Another way is to hire a good teacher, which is the best option, but a good coach is not easy to find and it is usually expensive.

The best way is to find a good training partner, preferably one who is better than you.

If you are finding it hard to find a sparring partner who can play as often as you like, there is always the Internet.

If you read this column regularly, then I suppose you are as addicted to the game as I am. If you are addicted to this game, there is usually no problem improving your game. As for me, I play only for fun and have stopped playing in tournaments other than Cepca events.

Frankly, I am rated quite high in the official NCFP ratings list, but that was a long, long time ago in the old PCF. I am just an average chess player who is fonder of chess trivia than playing the game.

There are several things to consider in order to improve your game. The most important is expenditure. How much are you willing to invest?

Learn how to play with a chess clock or some form of time control in the Internet. Computer programs are a tremendous help and buying a computer is even better.

The best way to improve is to buy chess books. There are so many chess books that it staggers the imagination. Almost all chess books have their own unique strengths.

However, it is not necessary to buy many, just a few. Ask your fellow chess players what they recommend so you will not waste your time. Try to find out what category you belong--beginner, intermediate or advanced.

Study tactics, tactics, and more tactics--basic items like the fork, discovered attack, the pin, skewer etc. The more tactics, you know, the higher will be your rating.

Here are some recommendations from Dan Heisman: 1.) Learning from your mistakes is the best you can do. 2.) Take it easy one step at a time 3.)Ask a higher-rated player to help you with positions you don’t understand.

Use the wonder of the modern age--the Internet. A good site to learn the opening moves is www.eudesign.com; and for tactics training, www.emrald.net.

Here is a nice observation at Steve Pavlina.com: Changing a habit is like playing a game of chess. In chess there’s an opening, a middle game, and an endgame. The same is true for habit change.

Many people try to change their habits by skipping straight to the endgame. They dive in and commit themselves to making the change happen right away. This is what people do when they make a New Year’s resolution. It hardly ever works.

SERGING OSMEÑA MEMORIAL. Here are the final results of the knockout tournament held at Deep Blue Club in SM.

Those who qualified to the round of 16 were Tony Cabibil, Peterson Sia, Kim Steven Yap, Kyle Sevillano, Allan Salientes, Norman Montejo, Joel Pacuribot, Carlos Moreno III, Rommel Ganzon, Rommel Asoque, Melven Morelos, Richard Natividad, Anthony Makiniano, Roy Vincent Caballes, Erwin Ababat and Joel Fernan.

The champion was Ganzon, who over Kimkim Yap.

(boypestano@chess.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com)