Excelling at Chess fast – Things you must have

Chess is art and every art needs dedication and devotion. And one should give sufficient time to excel at it. Chess is no exception. You need to give sufficient time to excel in chess. And that time has to be spent intelligently. Everybody wants to excel and climb up the ranking ladder without devoting much time. And yes there ways to do that and there are ways to make the most out of your time.

Here I want to discuss the things you should have to climb up the ladder much faster. The traditional way learning chess is by reading books. But if want to excel at chess only by reading books then forget your dream of achieving a good ranking in no time. Yes books are always handy and a vast source of information but for chess, reading books can be a very time consuming job. You need to set up the board first in front of you, then the board position, make the moves given in the books in notations, move your eyes back and forth, and then read annotations from book. That's really time consuming but nonetheless books are the best for you if you are very serious about it and have sufficient time .

The things you should have :

1. 
   
   A good chess playing software
   
2. 
   
   Good chess game database management software( a good chess playing software can also do this job for you)
   
3. 
   
   Chess instructional DVD's
   
4. 
   
   Training CD's
   

Now let me come to the point one. The best chess playing software available in market today according to me is Fritz from Chessbase. It's a great software that you must have in your collection. Just follow the link and do some google searches and you will know. It has an integrated online server called Playchess (the Chessbase server) where you can play chess from players around the world. It's the world largest server for playing online chess. More than 5000 players online every night. 200,000 games played per day. Top grandmasters like Garry Kasparov, Nigel Short, Boris Avrukh (the list is endless) playing, free chess training, live events with audio commentary, free chess tournaments with prizes every day, simultaneous exhibitions, special beginners and computer chess rooms. You can download the Playchess server interface only for free here. You have full access to all the features for 30 days. You can then purchase a serial number for one year or continue to play as guest (your rating will not alter if you win or lose and you have limited features) for an unlimited time for free. Or take the best deal: order the complete Fritz in their Shop. Chessbase products are the best according to me. After Fritz I will recommend Chessmaster from Ubisoft. It's also good but lacks many features. It doesn't supports UCI Engines (Chess engines usually comes in 2 formats, UCI & Winboard. Winboard engines are not so popular.) It's online server is almost useless with few players. But the programme is good for playing against computer and analyzing games. It has very good tutorial which will certainly help beginners immensely. Then comes Chess Assistant from Convekta, and Chess Academy. But I am not going to discuss them all. Google it. But according to me Fritz is a must have.

Now coming to the database management software Fritz and Chessmaster can do that for you. But for this purpose I will suggest you to grab a copy of Chessbase also from Chessbase. It's the single most popular and best database management software available in the market. Just click the hyperlink and you will know what wonders it can do for you. You can also download Chessbase Light for free with limited features here .

Let me discuss some other very unique products from Chessbase that will do wonders in achieving you a good ranking fast. Needless to say that after playing chess for so many years I have become a fan of Chessbase products.

Do you know what's Fritz Trainer's are? If you don't then you are losing something. It comes on DVD's where top Grandmaster's discuss Chess Openings , Strategy & Tactics etc. No it's not a video. It can be viewed in Fritz as well as Chessbase where you can see a small window for video playing alongside the chess board. The board piece movement is synchronized with the lectures so that you can sit back and just watch. Fritz or Chessbase does it all for you. You don't need to move a piece. That's sounds great isn't it? That way you can learn very fast and achieve your goal of becoming a well rated player without devoting too much time. That's why I was saying before that learning from books only can be very time consuming. As most of us don't have much time in this fast paced world these are things you must avail ( professional chess players excluded).

There is another series of fine products that Chessbase and those are Chessbase Training CD's (can be viewed in Fritz or Chessbase) which are like game databases with text commentary and annotated games which are included in a number chapters just like books. Here also you don't need to move a piece. Just scroll your mouse !. It's a great resource which comes at a handy price.

Now let me discuss now Chess Instructional videos which are commented by top GM's . They are of great help in learning some openings/ tactics/ strategies in quick time. There are a number of Chess video series among which Roman's Lab (commented by a top GM Roman Dzindzichashvili, former US and Russian Champion and Coach of World Champion Garry Kasparov), Foxy Opening Videos (coomented by a number of top GM's) , Grandmaster DVD Series , and Susan Polgar's Chess the Easy way Series are most popular ones. Grab some of them and you won't regret.

Another great resource are Everyman Chessbase Ebooks .Everyman Chess is a brand name in chess book publishing. Chessbase products have now become so popular and indispensible that Everyman Chess recently started to provide these books in Chessbase formats (which they call ebooks). That means with Fritz or Chessbase installed on your PC you can read these books without moving a single board piece just like Chessbase products.

So these are things you must have to excel at chess faster. Nevertheless real books are always a vast source of information and comes very handy when you need to study something very deeply.

Now after reading all these you may be thinking " now I am going to spend some money on these things". Well my friend you can spend if you want but you get them all here for free. This blog is very new and shortly I will start uploading these materials and share the download links here with you all. You may have already seen some Tabs in the Menubar above. There is nothing there now. But I have created those for a purpose. Shortly you will see articles with download links being added to the above tabs. In the meantime keep patience and be an active visitor of this site, post some comments on the articles and tell me what you think and what you would like to see here implemented, also mention the topics on which you would like to see articles. Your active participation will be encouraging me to share more and more with you all. Also tell your friends about this site. Until then GOODBYE and HAVE FUN!

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