When I consulted on Wall Street I felt my mind turning to mush. Some of my co-workers would kibitz or play chess in the park, and I began playing as well. I became very focused on improving as I felt it was keeping my mind sharp, as my day job was not doing that.
One way to improve your chess skills is to play tournament length games against opponents at or slightly above your skill level. Then you go over the game with a better player (or a chess engine) and see where you made your worst mistakes. Then you look at those positions and remember what the proper move to do is.
So that's what I did. I ran crafty against my online tournament games and had it find what my worst moves were (missed opportunities and blunders). Then I ordered the moves in terms of how bad the mistake was. Then I kept looking at the boards over and over to train myself in what the right move was. If I did it long enough, I'd memorize the boards and instantly know what the right move was. Doing this improves your game.
I put the results here - http://blunderchess.sf.net . It requires a LAMP setup. It also has components which are useful in and of themselves - a program that converts PGN format to FEN format, a PHP function which converts a FEN line into a graphic chessboard and so forth. I put development of the suite of tools aside as I got busy and stopped playing chess and stopped working on the tools.
One way to improve your chess skills is to play tournament length games against opponents at or slightly above your skill level. Then you go over the game with a better player (or a chess engine) and see where you made your worst mistakes. Then you look at those positions and remember what the proper move to do is.
So that's what I did. I ran crafty against my online tournament games and had it find what my worst moves were (missed opportunities and blunders). Then I ordered the moves in terms of how bad the mistake was. Then I kept looking at the boards over and over to train myself in what the right move was. If I did it long enough, I'd memorize the boards and instantly know what the right move was. Doing this improves your game.
I put the results here - http://blunderchess.sf.net . It requires a LAMP setup. It also has components which are useful in and of themselves - a program that converts PGN format to FEN format, a PHP function which converts a FEN line into a graphic chessboard and so forth. I put development of the suite of tools aside as I got busy and stopped playing chess and stopped working on the tools.