I was told by a GM that in truth tactical aptitude and vision cannot be significantly improved by studying tactics and calculation exercises. Hard work will result in improvement BUT the issue is degree and extent. There is no clear easy metric for determining aptitude so people unware of their potential work at improvement unaware of what their upper range actually is.
That seems a bit pessimistic and also flies in the face of the literature. There's evidence that with the right approach, IQ can be increased. It's not fixed. As I believe the same for chess ability.
I appreciate your response and hope for my own improvement you are correct.
@nvasquez said in #3:
> That seems a bit pessimistic and also flies in the face of the literature. There's evidence that with the right approach, IQ can be increased. It's not fixed. As I believe the same for chess ability.
I'm not sure there's disagreement here, just emphasis. Surely it's true that, for a fixed time studying, everyone has a cap, which depends on age, aptitude, etc. (And, unfortunately, it seems some people's caps are a lot lower than others.) But, if you're below your cap, then studying will help. This article sounds like a very reasonable study plan.
For spaced repetition, is there a reason you focused on Anki instead of Chessable? Over the years I've used Anki, Mnemosyne, and Chessable. I think are three of them were good in different ways, but Chessable seems to be the most convenient for chess. At least if you have a pro account, it's easy to create your own cards, either by importing PGNs or using their editor.
> That seems a bit pessimistic and also flies in the face of the literature. There's evidence that with the right approach, IQ can be increased. It's not fixed. As I believe the same for chess ability.
I'm not sure there's disagreement here, just emphasis. Surely it's true that, for a fixed time studying, everyone has a cap, which depends on age, aptitude, etc. (And, unfortunately, it seems some people's caps are a lot lower than others.) But, if you're below your cap, then studying will help. This article sounds like a very reasonable study plan.
For spaced repetition, is there a reason you focused on Anki instead of Chessable? Over the years I've used Anki, Mnemosyne, and Chessable. I think are three of them were good in different ways, but Chessable seems to be the most convenient for chess. At least if you have a pro account, it's easy to create your own cards, either by importing PGNs or using their editor.
I like Anki a little better since you can make multiple decks. Also, you have to recall the information from the current position with Anki. It's not interactive like Chessable where you can make moves. That's the key I took from reading Make It Stick, was retrieval was the critical part not repeated exposure.
I'm not saying Anki is superior to Chessable but rather I find it helps me focus on retrieval where I haven't had the same experience with Chessable.
I'm not saying Anki is superior to Chessable but rather I find it helps me focus on retrieval where I haven't had the same experience with Chessable.