How many hours have you wasted studying chess the wrong way? “Wow, I’ve wasted so much time and money on non-important things,” is the most common reaction from my new students. Just this week, two separate students realized that what they thought was 20-30 hours of study time on chess per week was, in reality, about 5 hours of study time and 15-25 hours wasted.
This is a very painful insight because they will never get these hours back. But on the other hand, they are hopeful now that they can spend less time on chess and get better results. This also means more time for themselves, their families, or their successful careers.
If you are spending tons of time on chess and don’t see appropriate results, this newsletter is for you. But attention, you too might realize you’ve spent hours and hundreds of dollars on things that don’t really matter.
It Has Nothing to Do With Intelligence
Before diving into why so many chess improvers waste dozens of hours, I want to debunk a myth. This has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, nor is it an occurrence for only unsuccessful people.
The students I work with and those who buy my course Next Level Training are usually well-educated, successful people standing with two feet in their lives. Some of them are doctors, lawyers, CEOs, investors—you get it. These chess improvers have proven themselves in other fields and are attracted to chess because they want a new challenge. With high expectations, good motivation, and the readiness to spend time and energy, they get into chess… and suddenly hit a big plateau.
There are two main reasons for this.
Problem #1: Information Overload
I hated learning in high school, but now love learning on my own. However, the clear guidance one gets in schools and universities has some very big upsides compared to today’s chess learning environment.
Universities:
- Clear curriculum
- Guidance from an expert
- List of books/resources you should study
If you compare that with chess, you’ll see a big difference:
Chess Study:
- No clarity on what you need to learn, when and why
- Many people giving advice have absolutely no clue what they are talking about
- Way too many books/courses, most of them of low quality and did not stand the test of time
Going deeper with this comparison, I feel most chess improvers would benefit from a primary school approach, but they are reading books meant for a master’s degree. Imagine learning math by diving right into advanced calculus before you’ve even done basic arithmetic. The result would be a waste of time, a hit to your self-confidence, and tons of confusion. Sounds familiar?
In this sense, I would say that people who are successful in academic fields, especially if they got successful before everyone was trying to learn stuff on the internet, aren’t used to skimming through lots of crappy information to find the hidden good ones. Sure, corporate life works differently, but there is a separate problem with that.
Problem #2: Grinding Hard, Not Smart, Doesn’t Work in Chess
I in no way mean to be derogatory toward people with huge successes in the corporate world. So take this with a grain of salt if the nerd focusing 15+ years of his life on a game played on 64 squares tries to teach others about what you might need to study better.
What I observe in most of my successful students is that they have a “grinding” mindset. They are ready to work long hours, know it won’t be easy, and will try to put everything from work to family and chess improvement in their 24 hours. Lawyers, for example, can bill per hour of work, and law firms usually put pressure on them to bill a minimum number of hours. How, with what focus? Well, as long as you bill those hours, they don’t really care much…
People like New York Times bestseller Cal Newport counter this trend by focusing on what he calls deep work. My understanding from his and other writing is that most people in corporate life aren’t used to sitting down without distractions and focusing for 30-45 minutes on a single task.
Here’s the problem: you can answer a few emails without full attention and probably won’t mess up too much. You can sit in a conference and, as long as you don’t have to speak, get away with thinking about lunch instead of the topic at hand.
But in chess, these same habits will come to bite you soon. You will realize that if you don’t study chess with full focus, you might not remember a single thing a week later. And if you play mindlessly, all the study you did in your past years won’t matter because you blunder a piece.
More Does Not Equal Better
I’m pretty terrible at marketing. And I’ve started to think that good marketers have a hard time studying chess the right way. I’ve heard countless podcasts and read books about people who cold-called dozens, maybe hundreds, of potential customers a day. The idea was that more = better. Even if they got 1-10% of clients from these calls, it was a super successful day.
If you have a 10% sign-up rate, every 10 calls, you get 9 no’s, but you also get a new client. While these 9 no’s sting, they don’t hurt your business. Now, imagine using that same approach for chess.
Coming home an evening, you quickly play 10 games. One of them you played great in and managed to win—congratulations. But if you blunder away 9 games, your rating goes downhill massively.
On the other hand, my “do everything with absolute focus and be sure to never ever upset anyone” mindset is what many marketers would probably call a “weak” or “small thinking” mindset.
So, What Is the Solution?
Before I take on any new students, I ask them to fill out a form with a few questions. One of these questions is:
“How many hours do you currently invest in chess training (scrolling Twitter, watching your favorite streamer does NOT count) per week?” Roughly 50% say they spend more than 10 hours weekly training chess. I know very well that in most cases, according to my definition, this number will drop. Here is what I do with every new student and recommend in my Next Level Training course.
Step #1: Start Small
When I start working with someone and write their first training plan, I plan between 30-50% of the time they claim to study chess for their first week. When they read what the training consists of—focused puzzle solving, playing and analyzing games without distractions, and maybe a few hours studying a book or course—they have the reaction I opened this article with.
By starting smaller than what they think they can do, my students will rack up positive results in the first few weeks of our training. Sometimes, I realize that even these 30-50% of the total is a lot. For some students, just playing two games with full focus and analyzing them afterward might be all they should do for the first week.
Step #2: Build a Habit of Focused Training
The main focus in these first few weeks is for the student to create a habit of training with the right focus. This might be frustrating to some because they realize that properly focusing for 30-45 minutes on one tough topic has become increasingly rare nowadays. Two major issues stand in the way of fully focused training:
- Distractions Are Everywhere: Be it kids running around the house, your digital devices, or colleagues at work, being on your own for a little under an hour has become rare.
- Constant Mind-Wandering: Your mind is jumping around all the time—not used to doing only one thing properly.
Creating a “chess zone” is an ideal way to eliminate distractions during your training. Getting up early and studying chess before the kids wake up is a common way my students handle the additional difficulty of having enough family time but also being able to focus when studying chess.
And slowly exposing your mind to harder things and bringing attention back to chess when it drifts is the best way to expand your ability to focus properly. You can also try reducing digital inputs, meditation, and taking long walks without devices to improve your attention span.
Step #3: Celebrate Small Steps – Stay Patient
Mindless grinding might work for a while, but at some point, you need to be able to focus properly to make improvements. If you have very limited experience with it, it’s super important to give yourself time and be patient.
If you want to embark on the journey of long-term chess improvement, every little step in the right direction is something to be celebrated. I’m never expecting a student to go from haphazard, random chess study to super focused and never ever playing a mindless game anymore in an instant.
Some students also want to play mindless games from time to time, just not as often as when they hire me as a coach. The only way to see proper improvements in your game is to realize you need to change something, start small, get the right habits, and be patient.
If you want to learn how to train chess the right way, with the right focus, and avoid spending money on books and courses that don’t matter, check out my Next Level Training course. In under 10 hours, you will learn everything you need to know to stop wasting time when studying chess.
If you are in it for the long run, this is the right investment to make in your chess.
Transform your chess game by focusing on what truly matters. Start now.
PS: This article was initially sent out to my Newsletter list. If you want to get chess improvement advice for free in your inbox, join 17,000+ chess improvers by signing up for Friday Grandmaster Insights here.
Whenever you’re ready, here is how I can help you:
- Want to know How to train chess well? Check out Next Level Training – The Chess Training Blueprint for Adult Improvers. This course taught 800+ students the How of Chess Training. Create your high-quality chess plan and learn how to study each part of Chess, from tactics to openings & endgames. Click here to learn more.
- Rated below 1200 Chess.com? Need to refresh your fundamentals? Check out my course, Beginner Chess Mastery. You’ll learn all the fundamentals, from strategy to how to get the most out of your pieces, tactics, and endgames. You even get a full opening repertoire for free. Click here to learn more.
