Hey guys! I'm reading about this method with the seven circles and stuff. It says it's good for us who are learning the game on our adult life, and seems to give real improvement on the tactical view of the game. I want to know if any of you practices it, what programs do I need to start, or if you know some other methods that you consider better.
Thanks in advance!
See here for Jermy Silman's review of the Del la Maza method:
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Rapid-Chess-Improvement-p3511.htm I strongly agree with Silman. It seems to be more important to follow the simple principle "easy tactics with repetition" and not the obscure "seven circles" Personally I've found Laszlo Polgar's tactic book a great one to use. It has over 5000 tactics half of which are very clean and clear and the other half are taken from real positions.
I know Acetaminophen, he's a great guy I've fought him once before. Great player. Thanks!
Thanks for the reply friend! Silman is quite often right about whatever he talks about, so I'll give that article a read.
Study from a book could be very useful, for it would help me also with the orientation on the real board. I'll download it. I've heard some of the seven circle practitioners use books instead of programs, so one thing won't exclude the other.
And well, I don't know about me being such a great player and great guy, but it would be really nice to meet you again on the board whenever you want!
De La Maza is a hack who got expert in order to sell his book. If you want to really improve as an older player you should take books like "Play winning chess" by Yasser Seirawan more seriously. De La Maza did a lot of work to get his chess down. A lot more than he eludes to in the book he wrote. If you analyse your own games with people stronger you can improve similarly to how he did. With less work. I honestly wish his book would just fade away. But since it's about tactics and promises rapid improvement there will always be fish who want to bite at it. Hopefully you are not one of the many fish.
Yeah, seems like the guy is just selling shortcuts and obvious solutions, Silman has a very poor concept of the book of this man, same as you fellows do.
I'm currently studying the DVDs from Igor Smirnov and they are quite amazing, very simple stuff and great on the practical part. I'm not the kind that studies from many books and have read not more than 3 chess books (Nimzowitch, Liptnisky, and another one with just tactics). I'm an enthusiast of modern and new training methods, so I saw this novelty lurking around on the internets and wondered what was all of that about. I'm glad I asked here, because I can be very impulsive and could be falling for it right now. It has many shiny names like "the seven circles" and some internet brotherhood that practices the method and shares results, it's indeed hard to resist.