The reason for most plateaus
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to Next Level Chess Podcast. I am Grandmaster Noel Studer and today I have a very important episode for you guys, because I believe it's an episode that will help nearly everyone listening to this, because it's a problem I see with basically all my private students, with all of my listeners, with all of my core students, just basically everyone in chess.

nowadays has this problem. What is the problem? Is that you're basically only working on your chess knowledge, but you're never working on your chess skills. Okay. So in this episode, I will talk about my definition of the two. I will draw some, comparisons with other sports and see that it's just super normal to work on your skills in other sports, [00:01:00] but somehow in chess it's not.

And then at the end of it, I also gave you the solution. What do you actually have to do? How can you, take what you know and put it into your games and not feel like you're never able to show off your knowledge in your game. Okay, let's start with the definition. In my course Next Level Training, I make a distinction between learning something, so that would be the knowledge part, and then improving something, that would be the skill part.

So learning something It's very easy, right? You're just opening a book and you read something from someone else. You learn something new. It might be that you've never looked at tactical puzzles or tactical motifs and somebody is showing you, Hey, this is a fork. Okay. You've learned what a fork is.

Well, the problem now is if you just stop at this, just with the knowledge of what a fork is, [00:02:00] you will not find it during a game. So what you need is learning and then improving. So you need the skill. How do you, improve the skill? Well, improving would be sitting down and solving tactical puzzles, right?

First, you might do, just some fork puzzles. You know that the fork is required, but you need to train yourself that you actually find the fork in that puzzle. And then later on, you will be able to find that fork in a game, hopefully. Without that part of you trying this out in your training, there is no way you will be able to put into practice what you learned.

It's very important to understand also that one of the two is easy. and available everywhere. And that's the learning part, right? You can go to YouTube, you can buy books, you can go to watch courses, [00:03:00] basically anything nowadays on the internet that is offered from people either free, but also, paid is going into the learning category.

basically nobody makes you, improve your skills. They just teach you something. Hey, in this position, do this. Hey, in this opening, do this. Hey, in this, do that, right? It's always just teaching. It's passive. You can do it on your devices. You can do it when you're a little bit tired. You can do it even if you're not fully focused.

So it's also way easier. It's more accessible. That's why everyone is doing it. But the problem is If you're stuck, that's probably the reason because you have a lot of chess knowledge and I've really seen that. I've taken on new private students, all of them have the same problem. They know a lot about chess, they have countless books, courses, this, that, but they have no idea how to apply it in their games.

And what I'm now working on is [00:04:00] just reducing this whole knowledge part, this whole learning part and just putting a lot of effort and emphasis in the skills, in the improving part. So the improving part on the other hand, right? If we have the accessible way of learning, we have the easy way, we have the, you can be on your sofa, watch on your phone.

Why is nobody improving their skills? Because it's hard because it's tough because improving your skills requires that you fail at some exercises. Improving your skills. requires that you're actually focused when you do chess. You can't, be with your head somewhere else if you try to solve a difficult puzzle.

If you try to play a game with full focus, you're not supposed to be distracted. So it is super difficult and it's super hard to improve your skills and that's why nearly nobody does it. But if we're comparing chess with other sports. It's insane to me how in [00:05:00] chess, nobody tries to improve their skills, because if you're looking at, let's say football soccer for my American friends , if you're just watching Messi play, , you're not going to be a better football player.

For sure. You understand which pass you might have to play, but if you have no experience actually passing a soccer ball or a football ball. You won't be able to bring that pass to your colleague, to your friend, to the player of your team. So you need to go on the court yourself and you need to make a lot of passes.

Same in basketball for example, right? I know in theory how you should do a shot like a free throw. But if you would put me on a court and give me a basketball and say, Hey, make a free throw. I might hit one out of 10, maybe not even because, well, I've basically never trained hitting a free throw, throwing a free throw.

So how am I supposed to do it? Even if I [00:06:00] watch hundreds of hours, I can watch Kobe Bryant , on repeat. , I can do that, but that won't improve my skills. So somehow. In other sports, we don't have that expectations that just, being passive watcher will actually improve our skills. But in chess, there is this kind of expectations that if we are just watching enough of Magnus games, we're just reading enough books of grandmasters talking about their amazing moves, that somehow our brain will be able to see that stuff as well during the game.

Hell no, that's not how it works. So I think everyone basically in the chess world has way too much knowledge. They are watching Messi all the time speaking in the, football analogy, but they are never going on the football page themselves and actually passing the ball. And with passing, with, free throws in all of the sports The improving the skill part is mostly pretty repetitive [00:07:00] and is not the most exciting thing in the world.

And that might be another reason why nearly nobody in chess is doing it, right? We are just, when I played as a kid football, we would train one and a half hours and 30 to 45 minutes. Especially when we were younger was just like learning how to pass the ball learning how to run, then pass the ball, learning how to shoot, how to shoot , from a fixed point, how to, take the ball, touch it twice, then shoot like all of these things.

every single training we would repeat that. That's always the same. And as kids, we just enjoyed playing or we enjoyed, all the other things, but our coaches knew that if they just make us play, if they just make us, watch Messi, we're not going to be so that kind of repetitive training is what you need if you want to put your knowledge into the games.

So here is what I recommend doing. Every day when you [00:08:00] train chess, you should have at least a small portion. Of skill training. So of improving your chess, that could be solving tactical puzzles, but do it with the right focus, write down your solutions, do it as it would be a game. Take difficult puzzles.

Don't take simple ones. Play games with full focus and analyze them. Think about. What should I do better next time? How can I improve my thought process? Right? That's implementation. Think about that implementation every single day you train chess. And once you did the implementation, the hard stuff, you can, give yourself a little treat and the treat would then be watching a video, watching a course reading.

Some book, some article reading about Magnus Carlsen's latest game. All of these kinds of things, which can improve your knowledge a little bit, but don't improve your skills should come as a treat as a bonus. But the most [00:09:00] important thing is really to work hard. On your skills, because again, I bet nearly everyone listening to this podcast episode has amassed a lot of knowledge over the past months and years, but somehow has not taking the time, the effort, the energy to put that knowledge 

into skills and to be able to use that in their games. So actually, even if you wouldn't learn anything new for the next year in chess, but you would just work on using what you know in your games, I bet you would get way better results and you would improve your chess and finally you would feel like, Oh, I can put my potential into the games.

And that's just the best feeling possible in sports. That's what I loved so much when I was a professional, really working on my mindset, working on my skills, working on everything. So. On day X, on the most important day of my career, [00:10:00] I can show my best chess. And I want you guys to get a little bit closer to this point as well.

And there's really no magic. There is just repetition. There is working on your skills and on the upside, so many people are not doing it. So if you're actually ready to do it. You will have a huge advantage. Just a little reminder before you go solve your tactical exercises and improve your skills. If you want help in knowing how exactly you should solve tactics, how you can focus better during the game, and what kind of knowledge learning is actually not a total waste of time.

Then my course Next Level Training is perfect for you. This course helps you understand what you need in your chess training and how you need to do it. And my students report that they feel much more relaxed about their chess and they actually know what helps them to get better [00:11:00] results. So check it out.

Link is in the description below. And now I'll let you go do your tactics.