Let's Make Chess Improvement Simple Again with Intro Outro
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[00:00:00] Welcome

back to Next Level Chess Podcast. I'm Grandmaster Noel Studer and I help chess players train deliberately with what I call the Simplified Chess Improvement System. Deliberate chess players live by three rules. Do what matters. Do it well. And do it consistently. If you're tired of training randomly and want to follow a simple, proven system, this podcast is for you.

The biggest myth in chess improvement is that it is complicated. I've worked with players at all levels and time and time again, the simple plans, done right, lead to the most incredible results. By the way, guys, just because something is simple, doesn't mean [00:01:00] it is easy. Because that concept is so important to understand, I've recorded a podcast episode just on simple, but not easy.

It's one of the first podcast episodes of this podcast. If you break it down, only three things really matter to improve your chess, and I realized that. Really, when I worked again on my course when I re-filmed my course Next Level Training, it's going to be called differently once it releases with all of the new footage.

So it's completely renewed. And when working on this, I try to make it even simpler. And I realized, actually just three things matter, and in the course and whatever I write and talk about now, I will call this the three do's. And they are: do what matter, do it well, and do it consistently. If you do these three things, you will [00:02:00] improve your chess.

So, chess improvement can be simplified. Let's dive into each one a little bit deeper. Let's go to the first one. Do what matters. You could learn a thousand things in chess. Even I, as a grandmaster, have so many things still to learn. The best engines are more than a thousand points stronger than me.

You heard that correctly. A thousand points. That's insane. If you jump right in and just do something, you will likely spend dozens of hours without seeing progress. That's because you're not distinguishing what really matters. In practical terms, something matters if there are three points that are really important here.

Number one, it causes you to lose games or miss winning opportunities. Point number two, it happens frequently in your games. And point number three, that's super [00:03:00] important. Many people miss that a little bit. You can learn it and apply it to make a difference. I'll repeat that because that's so important.

In practical terms, something matters if: Point number one, it causes you to lose games or miss winning opportunities. Point number two, it happens frequently in your games. Point number three, you can learn it and apply it to make a difference. Here's the thing, a lot of things we get excited about don't make it through this test.

Let's take huge opening courses, for example. Many people have way too many opening courses and opening knowledge in general. So let's take them through the three things, right? Openings rarely decide games, except for either super perfect preparation, which happens very seldomly, or just you're falling for the same opening trap every single time, an opening doesn't really decide games. [00:04:00] 

Then point number two, does it happen frequently? Most opening lines will never happen in your games, right? There are grandmaster-made opening courses and some of these lines, yes, they happen on grandmaster level, but on your level, you'll never see someone actually play the opening theory the right way.

So it doesn't matter if you know it or not. And also what happens with openings is you feel like, well, an opening is in every single game, right? But you play white and black and then your opponent can play e4, d4, et cetera, et cetera. So if you go down to this line that I'm studying right now, how often will this happen?

More often than not, the answer is one out of 50 games, one out of a hundred games, one out of 150 games. And then point number three, even if they do happen, remembering everything is basically impossible. So we have openings rarely beside games. Most of the lines will never happen, and even if they [00:05:00] happen, having studied so much that you actually remember it at the moment where one out of a hundred games the opening is happening is very unlikely.

The second thing, and I went viral a few years ago when I tweeted, back when it was still Twitter, that nobody should waste their time studying the knight and bishop checkmate in the endgame. And I got a lot of heat for that, because many people said, Oh, well, this might happen. And then I'm so frustrated.

Okay, let's take it through these three things again. Knowing it will decide games, that's true, right? So it makes a difference. But, point number two, does it happen frequently? No. I think I never had it. I can't remember any single game, not a blitz game, not anything, where I had it. I've played tens of thousands of games in my life, and I never had it.

So, super infrequently. And also, if it ever comes up, you'll probably be in time [00:06:00] trouble. And it's super hard to actually fully remember everything. It might be that even if you study it, you can't fix it. Depending on the time controls you play, how much time trouble you have, you might need to study it so much that it's really getting a waste of time.

The question is what really survives the test of really mattering again, it should cause you lose game or miss winning opportunities, should happen frequently, and you can learn it, improve it and apply it to make a difference. There are basically two things that survived this, which are tactics.

Tactics happen in every single game. Tactics decide most of the games. And yes, you can get better at tactics, especially if you do them the right way. That's a big thing. We'll get to that later on. And then point number two is playing games with good focus. Whenever you play a game, you play a game and you need to have good focus.

This [00:07:00] is the skill that will decide games. Now, many people think, well, I'll just try to get good focus. No, you don't have to try it. You need to work on it. Because that's the thing that will every single time matter. If you have a lapse of focus, you get distracted, you'll blunder a piece, you'll lose the game.

It's the ultimate skill that matters. So two things that matter: tactics and playing games with good focus. If I go through these three steps for both of them is: tactics are the cause of most lost games. Tactics appear in almost every game. I would say in every game actually. And avoiding big tactical mistakes is achievable with simple focused training.

And then for the focus, many blunders happen because of a lack of focus. And do they happen often? Sadly, yes, we all blunder too often. And then, improving focus is really possible, and by the way, as a side note, if you improve your focus, you can focus better in the training, so you will improve more in training, [00:08:00] that's great, and if you improve your focus, you will be better at work, you will be better at anything else that you're trying to improve, so that's amazing.

So what's the conclusion for Do What Matters? Spend most of your time playing with proper focus, then analyzing your games and solving tactical exercises. These are the things that really matter in chess improvement. If your training plan includes these things, you're already on the right track and you should spend a lot of time on them.

Trust me, if you only focused on these two, playing with good focus and then analyzing your games and solving tactics, you'd see improvements. It's really that simple and if you just need a simple framework, you can follow the one third rule. Super, super easy. It sticks with you. If you don't know what it is, I probably have a podcast episode on it or at least an article.

Just google one third rule, Next Level Chess, and you'll find it. Let's go to the [00:09:00] second point. Now we talked about do what matters. I specifically mentioned playing with good focus, because doing the right thing in the wrong way is just wasting your time. Even if you're doing tactics and you're playing games, but you're doing it the wrong way, doesn't really help.

Once you start training with real focus, you'll be amazed at how little time it takes to start seeing improvements. The hard part is that most of us struggle to focus properly, especially with the fast paced, distraction filled world we live in. Make it a priority to train with good focus. One hour of focused training beats five hours of random mindless training every single time.

But don't just take it from me. Here is what a student, I'll try to mimic his voice, of Next Level Training, the course, has to say. So that's not me, that's Fletcher now. [00:10:00] Using the techniques in this course, I cut my study time at least in half and have started making progress again. The course doesn't just teach you what to study, it also teaches you how to study.

Which, it turns out, made all the difference in the world for me. End of quote. That's me again. I think my voice acting is not really good, that wasn't the difference at all. But I hope you got it, what was from Fletcher, what was from me. So, how can we do it well? Most of us need to just eliminate distractions and then there are a lot of other things like increasing your skill to actually focus, doing one thing at a time, et cetera, et cetera.

There's a lot of stuff and I could do 20 podcast episodes only on improving your focus. And there are separate modules in the course that actually help people improve their focus. But the most important one for everyone is: eliminate distractions. Cut out distractions, don't multitask when [00:11:00] studying chess, and create your chess zone.

If you don't know what the chess zone is, also go google it, I'll have an article on it. It's super helpful. Commit to giving 110 percent when studying chess. Example. When solving tactics, many players use a guess-the-move technique. What does that mean? You're just looking at a move, the first move that looks good, you'll just execute, oh yeah, there's a double attack, let me do that.

That might work in puzzles because you know that there must be a tactical sequence. When you look at a move, very often students of me will say, If it's a tactic, it must be this, right? And that's a horrible habit. And I had that as well in my youth, but my coaches have worked with me on the right way of doing things.

And then it slowly faded out. Because this might work in puzzles. But what you're doing is you're training your brain that when something looks tempting, you just go for it, right? You're [00:12:00] not fully calculating. You're just, Oh yeah, that looks tempting. Boom. So you do it in your games and then oops. You made the move that must be the right move and you hung your queen and you lose the game.

What you should do instead, we need to think about, okay, we train tactics because we want to improve them in the game. So we need to train tactics. And treat them as it's a real game, as it's a position in a real game. Solve each position with the same intensity to control your process. Write down your solution before executing a move.

By the way, writing down is one of these habits that I can talk about a hundred times. Nearly nobody does it, but the ones that do it, they skyrocket their improvement. It's really a differentiator, because it's annoying, we all feel like, ah, I don't need it, but once we do it, at least then we really realize the difference of calculating, okay, I would now play this, let me write it down, [00:13:00] and then I execute.

This forces you to think through the line fully before making a decision. You will solve way fewer puzzles. I'm talking about 10 to 15 instead of 50 in some sessions. But here's a payoff. You'll go from blundering pieces every other game to avoiding 90 percent of those mindless mistakes because you're training your brain to have the right habits that work for you during a game and not against you.

I would say, doing a little bit harder work, but blundering 90 percent less is a pretty good trade off, right? So let's go to the third do, which is do it consistently. Even when you're doing what matters and doing it well, plateaus will happen. It happens to everyone, it happens to chess improvement, it happens in life, it happens in business, it happens everywhere, okay?

Nobody can just not have plateaus. It just doesn't exist. If [00:14:00] somebody tells you that, probably they'll sell you something scammy. Chess improvement and improvement in anything meaningful is never a straight line. Many players don't have what it takes to break through a plateau because they get off track when their rating stagnates.

They stop doing things well, they stop doing what matters, or worse, they stop training altogether. The only way to break through a plateau is to stick to the process, to stick to the three dos, do what matters, do it well, do it consistently. I've yet to meet someone who consistently does what matters, does it well, and doesn't improve.

If you think you're the exception, you can send me your chess.com or Lichess profile and tell me how you study. I bet I can pinpoint whether you're missing one of these elements. Just by the way, guys, if you're sending me your profiles, you're agreeing that I will use them on the [00:15:00] podcast, in my newsletter, whatever, to show people what is going wrong.

This is not to mock you, but this is just to show people that really, if you follow the three do's, you will improve. So how can you stay consistent, especially when a plateau hits? It's all about mindset. Right now, you might be thinking. Plateaus suck. I want to avoid them, and if I hit one, I want to get out of it as quickly as possible.

I want results, and I want them fast. As long as you have this mindset, it's going to be super difficult to stay consistent, especially if you're having a plateau. Guys, I think many of you don't really fully realize what a plateau means. When I was a professional chess player, I had a plateau of 2.5 years as a professional chess player, when my rating basically didn't move. Now, this is on grandmaster level, that won't happen for you guys. But I'm [00:16:00] just telling you, if you want to stay consistent, you need to be able to stay consistent for quite some time. It's not, Oh my God, I'm plateauing for one week.

Let's freak out. Let's do everything different. No. Let's stick to the plan. The mindset that will not get you frustration, but will get you through plateaus, is the following one. When you hit a plateau, try to think like this. This plateau is just part of the process and it's where I can make a real difference.

Most people would give up right here, right now. But I'm going to enjoy the process and stick with it. I know I'll come out of this with a real breakthrough. I don't know when. But I know if I follow the three dos, I will break through a plateau. That's the mindset I try to adopt whenever I face a plateau.

It helps me stay positive, focused, and eventually break through it. And I use this, again, you can use it in chess, You can use it in business, you can use it at work, you can use it [00:17:00] wherever you want. This is the right way to face a plateau. I've hit many plateaus in my life and certainly the most painful one was with my traumatic brain injury.

For a little over seven years, again you've heard that correctly, seven years, I suffered from headaches, concentration issues, nausea... Do I say it like this? I never know how to pronounce this word. And tension in the neck shoulder area. And it was so bad that at some point in my career, I had to lie down during a chess game because sitting straight was creating me like everything was turning and I couldn't basically sit straight for a few hours.

So I would play a move, lie down on the sofa, come back, play a move and so on. Whenever I made improvements, I got exaggerated expectations. I thought now I'll soon be healthy. Then I hit another plateau. Frustrated by the lack of progress, I started to feel helpless and stopped doing the things that helped my health.

No more meditation. No more [00:18:00] hypnosis, no more physiotherapy, no more stretching, no more sport. Because I felt, well, it's anyway useless, I'm plateauing, what the heck, why am I doing these things? I finally made the biggest breakthrough when I stayed consistent for over two years. Again, two years with most of my good habits.

Good or bad, I went to the gym, stretched, meditated, saw therapist, work on myself, try to reduce the stress in my work, etc. I further committed and changed my surroundings. And then suddenly, nearly from one day to another, my health issues disappeared. So now you might say, oh, that's an overnight success.

It might seem that way, but in reality, that sudden breakthrough was the result of two years of consistent habits, even with bad weeks and months in between. This has taught me the importance of doing things consistently on a totally different level. It's subconscious now for me. And it's why I stress it [00:19:00] so much.

It's really the only way to make meaningful progress in chess and life, in my opinion. To sum it up, you need to follow the three do's, and then you can make chess improvement very simple. Do what matters, focus on the areas that will actually improve your game and have an impact on your results.

Point number two, do it well. Commit to quality practice, not just quantity. One thing I talk about a lot is quality over quantity. So first, fix that you're doing something very well. And then you can say, okay, I'll do 30 minutes more every day and so on and so forth. And then the third point, do it consistently.

And I hope you got a new kind of framework of what consistently means. It doesn't mean one week. It doesn't mean two weeks. It can mean months and years. Then you really have these results where people are saying, Oh my God, how did you manage to do that? And you'll know, hmm, yeah, well, I just worked for the last two years while you were just watching Netflix, right?[00:20:00] 

It's not such a huge surprise that I'm better, but to you, it might seem like a surprise. So these three simple habits are all you need to make progress. They've worked for countless players and they'll work for you too, if you stay focused and committed. I'm really excited to see you and just more chess players in general, more people in general, embrace the three do's in your journey. 

If you do them, you'll start seeing results. And soon, you'll wonder why you ever thought chess improvement was complicated. We made it simple. Let's make chess improvement simple again. And that's all from me, follow the three do's, I promise you, it might take some time, but you'll break through whatever plateau you're in right now.

Hey guys, just two quick things before you take off. If you enjoyed this episode and want more structured [00:21:00] chess improvement tips from myself, check out my newsletter at nextlevelchess.com/newsletter. It's totally free. It will always remain free and it goes out every single Friday with the best latest chess improvement tips that I have.

Most of the podcast episodes that I record are based on a previous newsletter. So getting the newsletter, you'll get the advice earlier and you'll get it directly into your inbox every single Friday. It's totally free, as I mentioned, and you can unsubscribe any time. So go to nextlevelchess.com/newsletter to sign up. 

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That's super helpful. Podcast growth is really just working through mouth by mouth recommendations. So thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you for spreading the word about the Next Level Chess Podcast. Now, that's all from me. Thank you for listening and see you next time.