There are 2 paths to improvement in chess. Experience and Study.
My improvement in the last year has been weighted too heavily on the "experience", but unfortunately, of the wrong type. I've been playing a lot of 5-minute games on ICC, just because they are easy to play. Unfortunately, these quick games don't allow for much growth in understanding. Games with much longer time controls are preferable for improvement. The only thing 5-minute games train is your ability to think quickly.
To change this, I'll be playing more 15-minute games. These are not long games by any means; but, they provide the wherewithal to think rather than react during each move - and blundering should become less of a factor in each game.
To really improve from where I am though, requires something other than playing games. What I truly need is far more study, and that means more attention to BOOKS. I've divided the types of book study into 5 necessary categories. These are Tactics, Openings, Strategy, Endgames, and Annotated Games.
In my next post, I'll talk more about the relative importance of each category, as well as which books I'm using to deal with each category - and why.
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