Studying Chess on Ubuntu Linux - Part 1 Setup

The first thing that you need to do is to setup your programs that are needed for studying. Generally players use a chess engine and a chess database program. Luckily for us someone created SCID an open source database program that works fairly well and is available on all platforms. I use Ubuntu Linux so my guide will be specific for Ubuntu but it should be easy to set this up on any system, including OS X, Windows and Linux.

Another benefit that Chess Players have received from open source is the chess engine Stockfish.

Stockfish is an open-source UCI chess engine based on Glaurung. Stockfish is an alpha-beta searcher and uses a bitboard representation.

Install SCID

1. sudo apt-get install build-essential - This installs a Linux C++ compiler so that SCID can be built.
2. sudo apt-get install tcl8.5-dev tk8.5-dev - This installs a runtime in Linux which enables the UI for SCID.
3. Download SCID and extract to a temp directory.
4. ./configure
5. ./make
6. ./make install

Install Stockfish

1. Download Stockfish
2. Download Stockfish Opening Book
3. Extract Stockfish and run make profile-build ARCH=x86-32 for 32 bit Linux systems. 64 bit Linux systems can use make profile-build ARCH=x86-64
4. Installation of this is a bit different than SCID.  I copied my executable (the file named stockfish) to ~/bin so I can have a place to save my opening book.
5. Extract opening book to ~/bin.

Setup Stockfish in SCID

1. Click on Tools and then Analysis Engine...in the menu
2. Create a new chess engine by clicking on the New... button.
3. Type in Stockfish in the name
4. The command field should contain the executable for Stockfish.  Mine was ~/bin/stockfish
5. Directory should be set to . to indicate that the directory to use should be the same as the directory that the executable is located in.
6. Click on Configure UCI Engine.
7. There are lots of options here - I mainly only change the book file to book.bin and set the Multiple variations to 4.

I will discuss how to use these programs next time I post about studying chess on Linux.

Attacking Chess Puzzle of the Week - 2011-03-17

It has been a while since I posted a puzzle of the week.  I will provide the diagram and a FEN string this week and then provide the answer next week.  Feel free to discuss the problem and talk through it with everyone.  The next week I will provide the answer to the puzzle and then another puzzle to solve.


Studying chess tactics and puzzles is a very important step in learning chess and it will help all levels of players increase their skills and abilities.

White to move

FEN : 3r2k1/pR3p2/2n3pQ/2Bp4/P2P3K/5R1P/4r1q1/8

Attacking Chess Opening Overview - Dutch Defense

An opening that always intrigued me has been the Dutch Defense.  It creates an imbalanced attacking game where black is fighting to win instead of working to neutralize Whites first move advantage. Currently I play the King's Indian and looking at some of the Leningrad variation they seem similar.  The main line for the Leningrad can be found below:



At this point the game is very imbalanced and both sides will need to watch for various tactics. It seems like the kind of opening I would love to play. I have had issues with so many people playing Anti King's Indian variations that I sometimes consider learning this and playing it.

Chessgames.com has a section dedicated to the Leningrad Dutch

Studying Chess Openings

This is something every amateur (That's me!) at some time in their life spends too much time studying.  In my study plan (Chess Study Plan) I have planned to spend around 30 mins a week studying chess openings.  But what will I be studying and how will I remember it?

1. The first thing to remember is that as someone still learning chess, studying openings a lot is not productive.  One needs to spend more time studying tactics, endgame and masters games.
2. What seems to be the most difficult for a player to do is to choose which openings to play.  That can be an entirely different discussion.  I am assuming that you already know which openings you want to play.
3. Download Chess Position Trainer (See my Chess Links page for the link) and install it.  If you use a Mac or Linux, I would suggest installing Virtualbox (or another VM system) and a copy of Windows in the VM just for studying with this tool.  Here is a screenshot from their website. 
   
   
   
4. How I use Chess Position Trainer(CPT) for openings is I create a subrepertoire for each of the openings I want to study. As I read through a book I will input the lines I want to use and learn.  There is a spot to take notes on the current board and indicate the plans, tactics etc.  This is ideal for keeping track of things you find while studying.
5. Each time I play a game, I use CPT's Find Novelty option, which will find where the game deviated from where I studied.  I can see if I had studied a different line or if it is new.  I look up in books the novelty and see if someone has covered it.  I then make a decision on what I want to play and add it to my CPT repertoire.
6. Something to remember, you may not understand the ideas behind the moves the opponent is making.  There are books that can be purchased for this, or you can spend some time thinking about why you think they did it.  Reviewing your game with a friend or mentor is a great way to learn the plans.  I use the Basic Chess Openings and More Basic Chess Openings books to get the general idea of openings.
7. You should study games played by masters that match your repertoire.  These can be from a book, website or database that you have on your computer.
8. After finishing reading a book, CPT has a great study tool in which is quizzes you on the lines you added to it.  This is high recommended to improve line retention, but don't forget the ideas behind the moves are more important.  The study tool includes a way of tracking your progress in learning your opening.  It provides the percentage of positions that you have learned.
9. To continue to learn and be comfortable in your opening of choice you must play a lot of games with that opening.  A great way to do this is playing speed chess - online or at a club.  Online you have an advantage in that you can save all the games and review them later.  Once you get comfortable with the opening, playing it in slower games is great.  (Check out my Chess Links page for places to play - I will be adding and reviewing more places as time goes on).

I am sure there is something that I am missing on studying an opening. What do you do to learn your opening repertoire? Are there features I missed in CPT? How do you figure out what the ideas are in various openings? Are there websites that have overviews of chess openings?

I will be starting my Chess Study plan this weekend and plan on having a weekly update on how I am progressing.

Creating a Chess Study Plan

In order to improve my chess I need to spend time each week studying the various aspects of chess. It is difficult for me to spend more than an hour a day in my improvement process so I will allocate 7 hours a week for chess improvement. My chess plan can be found in the table at the end of the post.

It is possible I may have more time on some weeks and less time on others. By improving across a large number of areas, I will shore up my weaknesses and improve my strengths. A lot of Amateurs spend a lot of time studying openings which stunts their growth. Learning a little bit about openings is important but spending a lot of time on them is not constructive. The most important areas to spend time on is Tactics, Studying Master Games and Studying your own games after playing them. What good does learning every opening in MCO if you never use it or are lost once you get there.

If you have your own chess study plan please post in the comments so we can compare. I would love to figure out how to improve mine.

I will follow up with posts on how I am studying the various areas, what tools and materials I am using and how to measure progress if possible.

7 hours a week

Time to Spend	Activity	Why is this activity important
1/2 hour	Opening Study	Slowly growing my opening Repertoire
1 1/2 hours	Tactics	Improving chess tactics will be biggest factor for improvement
1/2 hour	Middle Game Study	Learn how to get to positions where tactics will help win games
1/2 hour	Endgame Study	Win won games, draw seemingly lost ones
1 hour	Master Game Study	Studying masters games will help me in all areas of chess. I will see the kind of openings they play, tactics they use and plans they develop.
2 hours	Play Games	If I don't practice what I learn I will forget it.
1 hour	Review Games	Learning from ones own mistakes is a requirement to improving in chess.