How to Improve: Game Records and Problem Solving

Playing a lot is not enough

In Go, chess and janggi alike, you improve quickly at first simply by playing. You get used to the rules and start recognising common shapes. After a while, though, there comes a stage where more games no longer bring improvement, because you keep repeating the same mistakes without realising they are mistakes. This is where practice away from the board comes in. The main methods are reviewing your own games, solving problems that train a specific skill in a short time, and studying game records to follow how strong players think. Mixing these three with playing lets you learn far more from the same amount of time.

Reviewing: learning from losses

Reviewing means replaying a finished game from the start to find where it turned. In Go there is a long tradition of both players reviewing together after the game, and the same method works in chess and janggi. Remembering every move from memory is hard at first, so it helps to record the moves during the game or to play somewhere that keeps a record. When reviewing, finding the two or three decisive moments is enough. For each one, write down what you were thinking, whether you missed your opponent's intention, and what the other candidate moves were.

• Record the moves during the game
• Find two or three moments where the game turned
• Note your thinking and the intention you missed
• Play out other candidate moves and compare

Problem solving: short and often

Problem solving isolates positions that come up often in real games and drills them. In Go, life-and-death problems about whether groups live or die are the classic kind; in chess, tactics problems such as the fork, where one piece attacks two at once, and the pin, where a piece cannot move because a more valuable piece stands behind it, are typical. Janggi has its own puzzles for forcing checkmate in a few moves. The key is to read to the end in your head and settle on an answer before touching any stones or pieces. Solving many slightly easy problems does more to speed up pattern recognition in real games than struggling through a few hard ones.

Replaying game records

A game record lists the moves of a game in order. As you replay a strong player's game on the board, try to predict where you would play before each move. When your prediction matches, it confirms your sense of the position; when it does not, it is a chance to think about why their move is better. Trying to understand every move from the start is exhausting, so focus on the flow of the opening and the moments where big decisions were made. Chess records use a standard notation in which the files are labelled a to h and the ranks 1 to 8, so learning the square names makes books and records much easier to read.

Why study the endgame separately

Beginners tend to focus their study on the opening, but games are more often decided in the middlegame and endgame. In chess, if you do not know the basic method for checkmating a lone king with king and queen, or with king and rook, you may stalemate a won game or run out of time. In Go, during the endgame stage of settling the final boundaries, territory is gained or lost depending on whether you play moves your opponent must answer first, or moves that can be left unanswered. The endgame also has relatively clear answers, so study there pays off directly in results.

Choosing time controls and opponents

Fast games are fun because you can play many, but they push you to rely on instinct and leave you short of practice in reading deeply. To improve, regularly mix in games with plenty of thinking time. You learn most from opponents who are about your level or slightly stronger. Against much weaker players your mistakes go unpunished, and against much stronger ones it is hard even to see where you lost. Engine analysis is a powerful tool, but looking at the answer straight away skips the process of thinking for yourself. Review on your own first, then use the engine to check.

Measuring strength

Seeing your strength as a number can help keep you motivated. Go uses kyu and dan ranks: lower kyu numbers are stronger, 1 kyu is followed by 1 dan, and higher dan numbers are stronger. When two players of different strength meet, the weaker player can place a number of handicap stones before the game to even things out. Chess uses a rating that rises and falls with results, and a larger rating gap means the higher-rated player is more likely to win. Standards differ between organisations and sites, though, so numbers from different places cannot be compared directly.

Sample weekly practice plan

If you cannot set aside long sessions, short practice kept up steadily works better. The plan below is one example; adjust it to your routine. Sitting over a board for long periods strains the neck and back, so remember to get up and take breaks.

• Daily: 10 minutes of easy problems
• Two or three times a week: one game with generous time
• Right after a game: review two or three decisive moments
• Once a week: replay one game by a strong player
• Once a week: learn one basic endgame technique