How to Study Chess on Your Own is one of the greatest chess book series I’ve ever read. And I’m not just saying that because Davorin Kuljašević is from my home town. His series is the chess equivalent of Lao Tzu’s “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Not many chess coaches and authors have embarked on the journey of teaching everyone how to study by themselves. They need to keep selling fish.
How to Study Chess on Your Own Workbook – Volume 1 is intended for players between 1800 and 2100 FIDE. I fall into that range. To quote Kuljašević: “Knowing how to study is important, but doing the actual work matters more.” This workbook, and the following two volumes, are handpicked material based on his idea of how to study effectively according to your current strength.
This is a workbook on tactics and calculation, strategy, and complex endgames. It does not cover openings, or what Kuljašević refers to as “general improvement” in the original book. It consists of 120 exercises divided into three modules: tactics, middlegame, endgame.
Since, according to rating, I’m the perfect audience for the workbook, I will give you my results. My total completion rate was 87%. I don’t know whether I was particularly inspired during the week I was solving the problems, if my true strength is higher than 2000, or if the problems are too easy for players between 1800-2100, but the completion rate seems a bit too high. Nevertheless, I think I learned a lot. The reason may be that Kuljašević asks specific questions for some of the problems, such as: “Please find a hidden tactic in the following three move sequence…”. Being pointed towards what’s important, and being given detailed instructions makes problem solving easier. No one does that during real games.
The solutions to the exercises are annotated in great detail, written well (which is the case for all four books in the series), and explain the ideas behind the solutions well. That, to me, is the most important part of a puzzle book. Anyone can just give you a problem and the engine solution. Kuljašević has done a very good job of explaining the thought process behind the ideas.
If you are below 2100, I would recommend that you go through the workbook. It’s very likely that it will sharpen your play and help you improve at tactics, strategy, and navigating complex endgames.
How to Study Chess on Your Own is a series of four books. The first volume is a guide on how to approach independent chess study and its purpose is to, as Davorin puts it: “Encourage readers to study with proper structure, and help readers become independent in their study.” It covers every aspect of chess study; how to create plans and training schedules, how to optimize learning processes, how to develop healthy studying habits and eliminate the useless and harmful ones, how to distribute time and what areas to focus on, which resources to use depending on your level, and, most importantly, how to study openings, middlegames, and endgames on your own.
The series is intended, as he puts it, for everyone from casual club players to chess professionals. The other three volumes in the series are workbooks, each for a separate level range (1500-1800, 1800-2100, and 2100+).
