In my article 'Volume', I discussed how I believe that the most important factor in one's improvement as a player, ultimately lies in the volume of quality training they put themselves through.
If you *really* want to improve, it is not enough to only have the occasional 'quality session'. You will require many of those quality training sessions in order to progress.
For this article, however, I want to delve into what it is exactly that makes training of a 'high quality'.
Intensity
When we discuss ‘quality’, training intensity is in reality what we are talking about.
Generally speaking, for chess, I believe that the harder you train, the better.
I see chess in the same way I see the gym. The more you exert yourself, the more damage you will inflict upon your muscles — forcing yourself to come back stronger for the next session.
While there is certainly the possibility of training too hard (aka 'overtraining'), and causing some sort of injury — most suffer from the opposite issue, of undertraining.
When it comes to my own chess training — if I'm being honest, I have many sessions where my brain isn't quite firing as fast I would like, I'm not focusing as hard as I could/should be, I start zoning out when things get really challenging, etc etc.
In other words, even though I believe that on average, "I train hard" — I acknowledge that there is nonetheless still considerable room to work, and push myself harder.
As I alluded to in 'Volume', however, I don't believe that it is as simple as flipping a switch in our brain, that then allows us to work hard.
One must consistently engage in the practice of training, to be able to cultivate this ability of pushing the limits — and hence being able to create such 'quality' training sessions.
If you train calculation once a week, you will come back everytime feeling rusty, and never feel as though you are able to get into a good rhythm.
Train Hard, Fight Easy
The phrase 'Train Hard, Fight Easy', is actually stolen from the 9th Chapter of 'The Secret Ingredient To Winning At Chess', authored by GMs Jan Markos and David Navara.
While I have not read the book, I am deeply attracted to the idea — being that one should aim to make their training more difficult than the scenarios they are likely to face themselves in their actual tournament games.
This could be in terms of how much effort is actually exerted during the sessions, or in terms of the sheer difficulty of the positions that one is analyzing/solving.
If you've ever played 8 hours of classical chess in a day, you should be acutely aware of the mental fatigue which accompanies that.
Although it would be quite difficult to (voluntarily) replicate such gruelling circumstances in training, I nonetheless view it as an ideal to be able to train in such a way that inflicts similar levels of mental fatigue, to what one would accrue through the harsh environment — that is playing 2 long games of Classical chess in a day (which is commonhold for most tournaments here in Australia).
What Is “Too Hard”?
Although the majority of this article merely serves to perpetuate the cliché "just work hard bro" propaganda, there are certain scenarios in which it can make sense to tone down the difficulty of one’s training.
As an example, earlier this year, I was trying to work through 'Grandmaster Preparation: Endgame Play'.
I eventually got to the chapter on 'Challenging Rook Endgames', and can recall reaching a point where I must've gotten at least 15 or so consecutive problems wrong. Even after reading the solutions, I had often still felt completely and utterly confused.
After some much needed reflection, I decided it would probably be wisest for my training (and sanity) to skip the rest of the exercises for that chapter (which were only going to get progressively more challenging), and move onto the next one.
As alluded to earlier, I believe there are two main levers for "training hard":
1) The effort you apply
2) The difficulty of the training scenario itself
For each training session, I believe a general goal for the session should be to get into at least somewhat of a 'flow state'.
It should follow then — that if you are unable to achieve such a mental state, likely the training is just too difficult (or potentially, too easy).
Final Notes
Although I have said just about all that I believe needs to be said on the given topic, it’s worth briefly revisiting the most fundamental ‘rule’ for being able conduct any sort of effective training to begin with:
No distractions.
Serious chess study is not something that can be multi-tasked.
(While I do believe this should go without saying, I am surprised by the number of individuals I come across, for whom this does not seem to be commonplace.)
Personally, I set a timer for 45~60 minutes, and only allow myself to do the training in front of myself for that time period.
Outside of that, I can be as distracted as I want. But during that window, it’s just me and the chess board.
I agree entirely with this idea. I wouldn't even say it's necessarily a problem to get 15 in a row wrong (although it's a disconcerting thought that a 2200+ endgame specialist is 0/15).
For instance, Ramesh's calculation book at Levels 4 and 5 make Aagard's GM Prep seem easy. I don't think there's anyone alive who could get 16/16 tasks 100% correct in some of his Level 5 exercises, but it's still improving my calculation a lot to atttempt it.