I’m 15. My rating is not too high, but I’m not worried about that. I am trying to learn more rather than win. I only practice 1 train/study 1 hour a day because there are many other things I do.

I divide that hour into 4 stages.

13 Minutes= Tactics
For tactics I am studying “Winning Chess” by Irving Chernev and Fred Reifield. I study it in this fashion:

1. I recreate the position on the board shown in the diagram.
2. I follow along what Chernev says and try to understand the concept.
3. I memorize the position of all the pieces.
4. I take all pieces of the board off.
5. I visualize all the pieces where they should be.
6. I recreate the position from memory
7. I state the concept without the book.

Note: As I recreate the position from memory I say out loud what piece and what square I’m putting it on. Since “Winning Chess” was written using descriptive notation I use descriptive notation instead of algebraic.
Also before I begin each new session I review what concept and position I memorized last time.

13 Minutes= Endgame Study
I found out that studying the endgame is very important so I am focusing on this more than on openings. I use Jeremy Silman’s “Complete Endgame Course”.

1. I set the pieces shown in diagram on the board.
2. I try to understand the concept he says while moving my pieces.
3. After I have studied it I try to recreate a different position that could hold the same principles.

12 Minutes= Actual games
I study actual games. For this right now I am using the illustrative games in the back of “Winning Chess”, but I have used others in the past.

1. I try to understand why the person would move his piece, and If I can’t I just go on.
That is pretty much all I do with the games.

Note: Trying to understand why he moved the piece involves trying to find the underlying concept.

12 Minutes= Blindfold training/visualization
During this time I take all the pieces away and merely “visualize”.

1. I just started this: I concentrate on memorizing specific groups of squares. I memorized a1, a2, b1, b2. Then I try to picture that group in my mind. The next week I pictured the other corner: g1, g2, h1, h2. Right now I can picture only those groups without a board.

2. I picture (with a board) the different pieces moving. I picture some of the moves the d pawn could make (not all of the moves). Then I picture the moves that the king could make, until I have done that with one of each piece (one pawn, one knight…). I plan to begin picturing 2 pieces at the same time and then progressively move upward.

3. I re-read the tactics book and try to picture the board and pieces in my mind.

Generally: I play chess with my dad once in a while. We take turns deciding who gets which pieces. Every other week we switch pieces (one week he will play black all the days in that week, next week he will have to play white). This has to do with the above in that:

1. If it is my turn to play white all my studies around white:

a. In tactics the diagrams I do will be from white’s point of view.
b. In endgame they will be the winning pieces on the board.
c. In games they will be on the bottom.
d. In visualization all the pieces are visualized as white, and they are visualized in the bottom.

2. If it is my turn to play black my studies center around black.

a. Most diagrams (all diagrams I have seen) seem to have white on the bottom. So I “invert” the pieces. I try to recreate the equivalent of the position from black’s point of view. This means that the pieces will change squares, the king will probably be on the opposite side, etc.
b. So in tactics: I recreate position from black’s point of view.
c. In endgame the winning pieces are black and the squares have to be the “equivalent” of where the white pieces were.
c. In games black plays the bottom.
d. In visualization the pieces visualized are black, and he takes the bottom of the board.

Also I play one correspondence chess game at a time (usually with 3 days move limit). I take some time each day to ask myself what is the correct move and on the final day I make my move.

I used to play live chess but then I decided I should probably spend my time more profitably this way (especially after some of the blunders I made). I think I will now limit myself to one live chess game of 1 hour every week.

That is all. If in anyway you see I could progress or learn differently please tell me. If it helped you. Awesome. If not. Patience huh?

I don’t see any video at all at the moment - not even a placeholder. I hope you get the glitch fixed asap - I’m really looking forward to your analysis of the games! :-)