I’ll be blunt.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been up waaaay too long working on the new build 41 release of Chess Openings Wizard Professional.

Here’s the reason I added Speed Testing to this release: to silence the skeptics.

Ever since I saw my first big book on openings (called the “Blue Book” back in the day) I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be able to memorize everything inside of it.  Later I tempered that to just memorizing my favorite openings.

Then a few months ago I began marrying the practices of Photoreading with chess opening study.

This makes it possible to memorize reams of opening moves without a whole lot of time or effort.

But there are challenges.  This is a skill that must be learned.  And while you learn it, it feels like nothing is happening. That’s an easy target for skeptics. A bit too woo-woo.

All good chess players are skeptics, and skeptics need proof.  So I wish could say that I added the flashcard training of Speed Testing to the Professional version of Chess Openings Wizard to make it a better program or even to make more money. But I really added it so skeptics like you and I have a tool that we can use to prove that we’re finally getting the hang of Speed Learning.

www.bookup.com/speedlearning

Uncategorized speed learning, Speed Testing

A COW user asked me today in an email how he could improve quickly. I shared this little training trick…

You already play against computer a sparring partner like Fritz or Rybka, right?

And they eat you for lunch on the highest levels, Yes?

You probably tried playing them “dumbed down” or in “friend mode” but they play silly moves.

And silly moves from your opponent don’t make you better.

You want to play against the strongest moves. Always.

But losing sucks, doesn’t it?

Here’s a very simple way to play and win and have fun - and still get better…

Before you start the game against your favorite computerized monster, remove his rook.

That’s right, start from a winning position and see how quickly you can mate him.

Be sure your program is set to the highest playing level because you want him to play the best defense against you.

When you win most of your games starting up a rook, then remove only his knight.

If you can beat a grandmaster like Fritz or Rybka even with knight odds you are an extremely strong player by most club standards. (Bobby Fischer used to brag that he could offer knight odds to any female player. That was before the Polgars showed up.)

This is one of the best kept secrets of chess training - especially if you’re teaching kids - but now that you know it, let me know how it works for you by posting a reply. Thanks!

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Can you really get better at chess… by studying way too fast?

Here’s another player’s experience:

…I believe speed learning does work. Once I was preparing for a tournament game and played this guy who I knew played the Najdorf Sicilian and I “flipped through” 100 games in a 2006 database where white was victorious in the Najdorf 100 games in about an hour and would you believe I crushed that guy because I found a sacrifice over the board that just “felt right” and sure enough that sacrifice occurred in 2 or 3 of the games I flipped through and I didn’t even realize it!

Erik Murrah - The Weak Square

And definitely check out the “It won’t work if you’re a baby about it” post.

Uncategorized Chess Openings Wizard, speed learning

I don’t go out of my way to get testimonials.  I figure that with our guarantee, anyone can get the program and prove it for themselves.  And when I’ve asked the occasional grandmaster for a testimonial, I almost always get an emphatic No… and the occasional counter-request for compensation which I think would taint any testimonial.

But if you haven’t tried it yourself, then you may need to know that Speed Learning is working like a miracle for some players, even though many of them tell me that they don’t want anyone else to know they’re using it.

Thankfully there are exceptions, and Michael Horne of France was the first to give me permission to quote him…

Hi Mike,

Many thanks for this most welcome update, although I must say it didn’t do me any harm looking at moves from the other side. In fact, I’m sure it did me some good. In the few weeks I’ve been using the speed learning feature my scores at the club have gone up quite remarkably. But I put work into it too! At my level, I don’t just sit back and hope it will all sink in subconsciously. First, I work with the training feature which is already there, and only subsequently with the speed learning feature, and even then making ample use of the pause button. This allows me to revise the positions I’m now supposed to know. To begin with, I work only on a limited number of moves; I will reduce Dzindzi’s Recommendations for White, for example, to 5 moves, then 6 moves, then 7 moves, using Chessbase to cut off the remaining moves. (This is a bit of a pain and would be a nice feature to incorporate into the Wizard in the future). As there is only one candidate move for White, the number of positions is not too unwieldy. (Here, too, this would be a nice future feature: eliminating (at least temporarily) all non- top candidate moves for the side one is training on. Again, I use Chessbase to do this when importing games, but again it’s a painful process). After a week or so of working in this way, I can set the speed to around one position per second (a middle setting) and take it all in quite consciously. I’ve no doubt that with time I will be able to accelerate this to substantially higher speeds. To my mind, speed reading only starts to be valid if one can read first. It’s the same with chess; the speed learning feature will not be profitable to a complete beginner, and for the intermediate player its value will depend on how it is used. I personally think there is enormous value in this feature for everyone wishing to improve his or her chess, which means that, when you say it does not work for everyone, I would only agree if ‘everyone’ is meant to include babies and non-chessplayers!

Please keep up this great work!

Mike Horne

Do you want your chess study to pay off fast?
.
Then get the Professional system now.

Uncategorized Chess Openings Wizard, speed learning

The promise is that you can learn openings ten to a hundred times faster than you can with any conventional method. That’s an outrageous claim.

But I’ve already gotten some excited emails from players who are doing just that.

This video shows how it’s done… and how to prove to yourself that it works (about 6 minutes into the video).

There’s also a private link mentioned in the video that your friends and students can use. The link is not available anywhere else.

Click the video below to see how it’s done…



Do you want your chess study to pay off fast?
.
Then get the Professional system now.

Videos Chess Openings Wizard, speed learning

Build 36 adds intelligent board flipping (black at bottom when Black to move) as an option to Speed Learning.  Registered Professional users will get an email shortly reminding them to log in and download the latest program.

News COW Professional update

My entire focus in life centers on the Theory Machine.

I pursue this subject because I believe that it is a pursuit of high calling.

In answer to the question ”What about Bookup as a company?” Mike Leahy has answered ’”The theory machine is our entire focus.”

You can find this proclaimation as the essence of the answer to Question #12 of 20 Questions at …

http://bookup.com/20q.htm

… where other elements of Theory Machine thinking are discussed.

I want to ask Mike Leahy “Where is the evidence that your entire focus is on the Theory Machine since you announced your company’s Mission Statement?”

I also want to state that my entire focus, Theory Machine oriented as it is, has resulted in the discovery of a Theory Machine Implementation. It uses software already available to the Chess Community and, in all likelihood, already sitting on your computer.

The essential element of this Implementation is the Chess Variation Database, and this is a distinctly different animal than the Chess Game Database or the Chess Position Database.  Since the Chess Variation Database does not yet exist, my work involves simulating the concept in other Chess software.

There is a symbiotic relationship between the Chess Position Database and the Chess Variation Database, and the child of that relationship is the DataBank eBook.  My brand of the this type of eBook is the MSbyDM(tm) DataBank eBook, and several are nearing publication readiness.  Mike Leahy’s Bookup products function as the reader software for these.

I need an Internet Home from which to discuss the concepts, describe the workings and instruct in the methods of this Implementation.  When Mike Leahy has his new membership system implemented we will have a new COW Website, new Community Bulletin Board, and new HelpDesk, as I understand it.  On top of that, this Blog will continue.  There are a lot of reasons why I see these sites as the best Internet Home for my rollout of the MSbyDM(tm) Theory Machine Methodology.  There are other reasons why I expect proprietary sites would be better, so those of you with interest in what I am talking about may see a combination of both as things unfold.

Stay tuned!!!

Uncategorized Mission Statement, Theory Machine

Time to come clean.

There is a problem with the new “Speed Learning” function in the upcoming Chess Openings Wizard Professional program.

The approach does not work for everyone.

(Hang with me here.  It will make the difference in your pursuit to memorize thousands of chess positions.)

If you’ve ever taken a speedreading course, you know that they push you to go faster until you can no longer hear the words in your head.  Then you jump from about 300 words a minute to about 800 words per minute - and you often have better comprehension.

It all happens in a single leap from one plateau to another.

Unless you stick to it long enough to make the leap, all your effort is wasted.

For total mastery, you then keep pushing until you make another huge leap.  Lather, rinse and repeat until you find yourself reading faster than you can turn the pages like those guys on television.

So at the risk of talking you out of trying the Professional version of Chess Openings Wizard for ten bucks, you might want to take a look at this report (apparently commissioned by NASA) on Photoreading (the methods of which are essential to the program’s upcoming ’speed learning’ feature):

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20000011599_2000009345.pdf

As you’ll see in the report, the author tried Photoreading and did not get any benefits.

And I’m fully aware that some chess players will try the new program and not get the benefits.  But I wanted you to be fully informed before you invest your time and ten bucks.

Obviously I woudn’t be so enthusiastic about this if I didn’t believe that it creates amazing results when studying chess openings.

But if I fail to convince new customers to stick with it long enough to jump to the next plateau, this whole thing could blow up in my face.  Stay tuned…

Uncategorized chess openings, NASA, Photoreading

I’d love to get the Pro version, especially with the new Wizard coming out. I just can’t afford to drop $197 right now, but I could do it in 3 payments. Do you/have you anything like that?

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I have logins to forum, updates and now WordPress. What is WordPress for?

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