There were three issues
raised at the start of the summer that I haven’t dealt with yet, and
thought I’d offer some reflection.  It turned out that the people
who wanted to work on these issues aren’t around at the moment, so I
might come back to these!

1. 
   Making practice (at club and at
   home) really helpful
   in terms
   of improvement
   
   
   That would be a good thing to solve!  Well, in many ways I’ve
   tried to promote and model this over the last few years, so I will be
   brief here.

   I think most have us have come across some variation or other of the
   
   experiential
   learning
   cycle
   , which Kolb and colleagues have developed over many
   years, originally in connection with adult education.  A chess
   version of this might look like:

   PLAY	==>	REVIEW
   /\ /\		\/ \/
   STUDY/PRACTICE	<==	REPORT

   The idea is to learn from experience, and focus on what actually is
   holding you back, and not what
   you enjoy studying.  Simon Webb (and Ish) have provided good
   models for how to look at your own game and identify weaknesses; Rowson
   and Dvoretsky have provided some good ideas about how to study.
   It is possible to improve at chess just by playing, because of course
   each exchange of moves allows for your current thinking to be
   challenged, each game gives you new experience to interpret.  But
   playing without reflection might just rehearse bad habits…
   It’s hard to talk in general terms: it’s also not clear what it is
   reasonable to expect from your study.  If you’re a tennis player
   and work on your backhand, you might reasonably expect to be able to
   play a few backhands in your next match.  But if you study IQP
   positions, you may not see one for months.

2. Too narrow an opening repertoire
   I wonder what sort of problem that is.  I would have thought for
   most of us, we could do with getting into a groove with our openings,
   getting to know them better.  So, I’ve been trying to get
   Brian to stick to one opening system as White and two as Black, so he
   can get familiar with and eventually expert in those formations. 
   I think he’s doing well with White but keeps making it up as he goes
   along as Black.  You branch out later, once you’ve got something
   solid to base it
   on.  When you do branch out, you can take on related systems,
   similar formations, and broaden your expertise in that way.  It’s
   a good goal to be able to play any opening well, any type of position
   well, but be realistic about what you want to take on as an amateur
   with limited study time.

   It’s possible to play any opening at amateur level, I think, and play
   it well and with your own ideas.  There is the Tony Dempsey IQP
   repertoire:
   White:
   Scotch Four Knights’ Game
   Tarrasch Variation vs. French
   Panov-Botvinnik vs. Caro-Kann
   Alapin vs. Sicilian
   Black:
   Swiss Defence vs. QGD (although the Tarrasch also makes sense to me:
   you get into it a lot earlier so you’re more likely to end up playing
   it!)
   Petroff’s Defence vs. 1.e4

3. 
   Calculating all the tactics out
   (relying too much on
   intuition
   i.e. Laziness)
   The penalty for doing that is of course missing things and
   losing.  If that doesn’t hurt enough to make you change your
   ways…
   As for a cure, perhaps take on sharp positions against a
   computer, when you will surely be punished for being lazy. 
   Dvoretsky
   recommended a couple of deeply-analysed games from John Nunn to be used
   for
   playing-out against an opponent, (see the Canon) but by all means pick
   positions from
   an anthology of games by your favourite attacking player. 
   A similar technique is: play a series of games against your computer in
   open games (1.e4 e5), and re-start the game after any oversights. 
   Aim to extend the average length of the games!