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Study Habits - Ken's advice

Posted By: Ian Terry
Date: Monday, 26 March 2018, at 6:13 p.m.

In Response To: Study Habits - Ken's advice (Ken Larsen)

I strongly agree with Ken's idea of reviewing every move. I found that instantly uploading our matches into XG spoils us a little bit. I started recording my matches and transcribing manually, and that really helped me understand my thought process when working through plays. I noticed that I had better understanding of concepts and improved, even though I have only done that twice.

Read -- This is important, as much as I like to just play, some things can really only be learned by reading books and articles. Flash cards and playing around with XG are key for mastering opening replies.

Discuss -- Join a consulting chouette, hopefully with at least one player that is better than you and one player that is weaker than you. Talk about positions that you don't understand with the better player, talk about/explain positions that you understand with the weaker player. Discuss positions on bgonline or with a coach/teacher.

Play -- Against players that are better than you. Actively seek out rated matches against higher-rated players on Gridgammon if you can. It's hard to get matches from the higher end at first, but I've noticed that once your rating is above 1600 or so, you can play just a fair amount of high-rated players on there without too many problems. Challenge strong players in your city to live play for reasonable stakes. Many good players will point out/discuss your mistakes after a match if you play live. Having a small stake (or if it's in a tournament setting) will make the lesson "stickier", so you're unlikely to make the same mistake again.

I'm still not particularly good by any means, but I have improved a lot over the past few years and hope to keep getting better. I find that I improve a lot more when I study more often than I play (at least 75%-25% in terms of time).

Messages In This Thread

• Study Habits
  Joseph Pregler -- Monday, 26 March 2018, at 3:01 p.m.
  • Study Habits - Ken's advice
    Ken Larsen -- Monday, 26 March 2018, at 3:56 p.m.
    • Study Habits - Ken's advice
      Joseph Pregler -- Monday, 26 March 2018, at 5:03 p.m.
      • Study Habits - Ken's advice
        GL Harvie -- Wednesday, 28 March 2018, at 12:11 p.m.
    • Study Habits - Ken's advice
      Ian Terry -- Monday, 26 March 2018, at 6:13 p.m.
      • Study Habits garyo weighs in
        garyo -- Tuesday, 27 March 2018, at 6:31 a.m.
  • "Looking for tips on good study habits to improve at Backgammon"
    Paul Weaver -- Wednesday, 28 March 2018, at 1:51 p.m.