Author Archives: waterman2010kir

Prodigy and Campaign Training Shine At Championship Warm Ups!

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Chess is coming back stronger than ever!

SCBC has been paying very close attention to the new crowds of chess players that are coming from behind the masks! Unrated players of all ages, some masked some not, are showing up to test their skills at their new past time. Last year we reported that the, “under” sections of the state scholastic championships and the closed championships had nearly 30% unrated. In this year’s scholastic championship warm up we had 85 players. 46 of them were playing in their 1st tournament!! 19 of 25 in the k-3, 8 of 16 in the k-5, 11 of 29 in the k-8, and 8 of 15 in the k-12. 54% of the people attending a championship warm up tournament were playing in their 1st tournament!? At this very moment 61 of the 201 players registered in the under sections of the k-3, k-5, and k-8 of this year’s Virginia Scholastic Championships will be playing in their 1st tournament?! That’s 30%!? What other sport does this?

The reason this is happening is the on line service providers are acting like and allowing people to believe that what they offer is real chess. They are acting like it is comparable to the real world and they didn’t even get the lightning, bullet, and blitz right cause if you don’t see you are in check, they force you to make a legal move!!! For any other kind of chess, it’s a toy that must be turned into a tool!?! Online is for people that like to play!? I play 3/2 blitz games every day. Books, coaches, and courses are for people that like to compete! When preparing for a tournament, I pull out a board, books, databases, engines, pencils, and paper for 2-3 hours every day for the 1st week and then every other day up to 2 days before the event. There isn’t a grandmaster alive or dead that would ever tell you that all you need is lightning, bullet, blitz games, videos, and computer analyzed games of 5 minutes or less to win tournaments and get all the benefits of chess. The online service providers aren’t saying you can either, they’re just letting players believe they can!! There isn’t 1 online service provider that has said or acknowledged that you must work and play off line to achieve the benefits of chess… not one. They never will!?!

The on line player with a 1300 lightning, bullet, or blitz rating and a 2000 puzzle rating believes that a toy has prepared them to go win real world chess tournaments. LOL

Prodigy and Campaign training is the way to be the player in the mirror!!

To be specific, all of our training programs include as minimum:

1.) An introduction to the real value, speed, and capabilities of the pieces. (see blog dated 10/06/2021)!

2.) An introduction to the Check, Captures, Threats, and Sacrifices for Kings, and Queens, and Rooks that you can read about in the blog (10/15/2021)!

3.) An introduction to The Magic 10!  The Magic 10 is the primary tool every player needs to be able to decide on a move when the board seems quiet (10/15/2021)!

4.) Last but not least, a method of turning on line toys into real world tools.

a.) Understanding the importance of accuracy over speed.

b.) How to measure real world progress from on line results  

c.) How to use the data bases and the engines to learn openings that can be used in the real world. 

d.) Identify and exploit the weaknesses online players develop when they don’t read books! 

This process requires 8 – 12 hours of custom training. It will drastically improve the students learning curve and ultimately save the chess family hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars! Our study and improvement methods are proven to be at least 5 times faster than just playing all the time!! Where people got the idea to be playing 125, 150, and even 175 games per year, must be from soccer, tennis, baseball, or basketball, but they didn’t get that idea from a Grandmaster! Tal, Botvinnik, and Kortchnoi all said 100 games a year or less!?

Maggie Walker:

Shripaad’s new round of prodigy/campaign training began in January. In 9 games, his rating has gone from 373-693. His score in the k-3 was 4-0-0! Maneesh began his prodigy training in February. In just 12 games his rating has gone from 408-696. He tied for 2nd in the k-5 with a score of 3-0-1! His campaign training will begin in about 2 weeks!! Abbos began his prodigy/campaign training in December. The warm up was his second tournament. His 1st choice in his Campaign Training was the Vienna Game, then he changed his mind to the London and then changed it to what he’s playing now. (Can’t tell you, there’s a championship going on. lol) For black he was playing the Caro and the Queens Gambit Declined but has since fell in love with 2 other systems. He is a 6th grader that tied for 1st in the k-12 with an undefeated score of 3-1-0. With a rating of just 695, his average accuracy for the 1st 15 moves of his games in this tournament was 83.1%! In 1 game it was 86.6%! That performance earned him 54 points. With that type of accuracy we just know it will keep going up, and up, and up!!

Having the wrong tool for the job doesn’t matter when you’re on line just having fun, don’t care about the results, have all the time in the world, and losses don’t cost 1 thin dime! But, a real world tournament is an arena, not a playground!! Not taking these gladiators more seriously than on line play is a recipe for disaster! These opponents have invested hours, days, weeks, and even months preparing for this event. They have books, coaches, experience using all 38 pieces of a tournament set, and will analyze every tournament game they play! They have the expense of time off from work, travel, meals, lodging, and entry fees. They must usually come in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place to recover those expenses!! And if there is a tie, they get even less money! To them it’s not just having fun, they care about the results, and failure means that they will have to spend even more money regaining any points they lose!!

The most important idea to remember about the transition from the virtual chess to real world chess is that, NOW IT MATTERS!! If you or your child go into a real world tournament with an on line attitude, you will make 3 major mistakes;

1.) You will neglect calculation. During a real world game, there is time to truly investigate combinations that are 3 to as many as 10 moves deep. When it is your turn, always calculate what you can do to them 1st. Then and only then do you look at what they can do to you. How much you like a move means nothing if you don’t do the calculation to justify it. You have the time to double check and even triple check your moves! If you promise yourself to never get burned right after you move, that will eliminate the frequent blunders you get away with when the game is only 1, 3, or 5 minutes!

2.) Chances are that you have little to no experience playing, recording the game, and using a clock at the same time. As much as possible, sit down and never play or calculate while you are standing or moving!! After you record a move, put the pencil down! Putting the pencil down tells your brain its time to think, but holding your pencil tells your brain its time to write. The last thing you need while trying to concentrate on something new is confusion! lol If you are unrated, your opponent may use staring, faces, gestures, piece slamming, clock slamming, laughter, grunting, huffing and puffing, sighing, tapping the table, moving fast, and even talking to you to get you to move faster. They are trying to break your concentration and get you to make a mistake!! Those things are unsportsmanlike. Look them in the eye smiling victoriously and raise your hand immediately for a tournament director. Do it each and every time they do any of those things in a way that disturbs or annoys you!! Those behaviors are forbidden!! You can report these things even if it is at the board next to you if you feel it is disturbing your play! Real world chess is a juggling act and you need your concentration! Don’t allow anyone to bully you because you are new!

3.) If you spend most of your time on line with lightning, bullet, and blitz, time is king! If you move fast enough, you may win with bad play. I win games in losing positions and lose games in winning positions all the time!! At a real world tournament you can’t win that way because they have too much time and the only thing that matters is accuracy! To win and draw, you will need to take your time, develop your pieces, and castle before beginning any tactical operations. Playing as accurately as you can for 15-20 moves, in a real world tournament game is the absolute surest way to rattle your opponent, make them feel the pressure, and cause them to make a mistake!? You literally don’t have to start moving faster until you have less than 5 minutes on your clock. Use as much time as needed to be accurate. Do what I’m telling you and you’ll have such a big advantage that choosing the right move won’t be difficult at all!

Chess is back! If you want to save time and money we can help. Schedule a free consultation and get a quote. If you are not ready for coaching, we will get you ready for free!

Call 804-426-6058, email waterman2010kir@aol.com today!

Thanks

Coach Mike C

What, “I’ll get you ready for free!?!” means to me.

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The pandemic and the block buster film, “Queens Gambit” have increased the number of piece movers around the globe by millions. For most of them, the internet is their only source of information and experience. These screen junkies are slowly working their way into the real world. It’s up to everyone to ensure that the unexpected losses they experience because of their disorientation with blitz, bullet, and real chess doesn’t cause them to lose interest!!

I told you last year that I wasn’t holding back anymore. In 2022 I gave you many original analytic concepts and blogs about how to play merciless chess! The most popular was, “The true value of the pieces!?!” You watched our 6 year Master Coach Jason Morefield repeat as VA Closed Champion. That’s right, Jason has been coaching for us since he was 12. It would have been longer if chess hadn’t got shut down. Mike Callaham covered the VA Closed with pictures, post round analysis for the amateur section, and championship games analysis for VA Newsletter 2022 4/5!!

In 2023 the focus will be vocationalism! I’m interested in people of any age, (5 or 55) that want to be great, “Chess Personalities”. Play, coach, referee, organize and run a business or businesses that profitably supports and grows chess! That’s my definition of a Chess Personality. If you want me to teach you how to be one, you can’t afford it! If you want me to teach you how to become one you can’t afford that either!

Most of the chess instruction I see is only about how to play, and is just glorified babysitting. It’s ridiculous for parents and children to tell me they’ve had lessons in person or online and can’t tell me how many checks are possible, when you can or can’t castle, or demonstrate a capturing en passant!? The level of instruction is condescending, slow paced, and is in direct contradiction to Grandmaster advice for rapid and consistent improvement. If you finish a chess lesson and feel no need to review the material for understanding, you just got babysat!! If after 6, 8, or 10 sessions of chess training no one has ensured that you know the requirements to become a, Rated Tournament Chess Player, US Chess Certified Coach, US Chess Certified Tournament Director, or US Chess Affiliate Organizer, when chess is a scholarship venue, you just got babysat. If the lessons, classes, camps, or tournaments are based on age or grade, (Unless it’s a state or national event), you just got babysat again!?! If you’ve had 6, 8, or 10 sessions and have never been encouraged to look at the top 100 list for children or adults, you and/or your child just got babysat again. Babysitters get paid $20.00-$25.00 an hour.

SCBC is a leader in the chess industry, not a follower!?! We’ve been balancing altruism, philanthropy, and entrepreneurship in central VA for over a decade!! While others are taking your money saying, “We have to start somewhere?!”, We take your money and can take you quickly to anywhere you want to go while giving you the opportunity to earn the trip!!!! Since we can’t charge you the $100.00, $150.00, and $200.00 an hour that it’s worth, and the general chess public is deliberately being kept in the dark about all the places chess can take them, we have to be selective about who we give a ride.

“If you are not ready for coaching, we’ll get you ready for free!?!” was forged with the idea that if we can show you a better, faster, predictable way to become a complete Chess Personality, chess will be better served than if we only teach you how to play! All it take’s is 1 to 3 tasks to let you show yourself how easy chess is! These tasks will also reveal to you whether or not you have the desire, time, money, interest, and sense of urgency needed to work with a Professional Chess Personality. How many days would it take you to complete a 45 minute chess task? Each and every task we give a student or a potential student is layered with multiple learning objectives. At SCBC, you’ll never know the full benefits of completing a task until we show you! If you come to us about anything chess and you won’t or can’t follow instructions, you’re not just wasting your time and money, you’re wasting ours!! We are free with our time, but our time is not free. We’d rather give anyone and everyone a few free lessons than to have someone waste our time in a weak commitment!!

We work with any budget! Our plans start high and then get lower and lower every 4 weeks based on length of commitment and the student’s ability to follow instructions. We also offer starter programs where the amount starts ridiculously low and gets higher and higher every 4 weeks. Our basic instruction package includes but is never limited to:

2 hours of weekly zoom or in person custom chess coaching

Home work tasks

Monitoring and analysis of student’s online games and training tasks

Tournament suggestions

Biweekly Parent’s Report

24/7/365 question and answer consultations

This regime along with regular tournament play is the best way to duplicate and surpass SCBC’s accomplishments. We offer 4, 6, 8, and 12 week initial commitments. Our levels of instruction are: Tutor, Instructor, Teacher, Prodigy, and Campaign. We provide free consultations to play, discuss everyone’s goals, make recommendations, and offer a quote.

Task time! Tasks are free! You ready? I guarantee an instant, measurable, and duplicatable change in your playing ability!! Call Coach Mike C today! 804-426-6058.

Chess help at all levels!! Tutor, Instructor, Teacher, Coach, Prodigy, and Campaign.

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SCBC Founder and CEO Coach Mike Callaham has a proven record of getting results at all socio-economic levels and all ages. Checks, Captures, Threats, and Sacrifices is the tip of the iceberg. His definition of a combination and SCBC’s “The Magic 10” move strategies are inarguably original and defiantly easy to learn and use!?! He can literally raise your playing strength with just 1 lesson!

King Philidor Teaches Chess!

He’s been balancing philanthropy and entrepreneurship for years as a means of proving that being a, “Total Chess Personality” is the key to rapid improvement and gaining the cooperation of virtually any adult you meet. The, Total Chess Personality plays, coaches, directs, organizes, writes, analyzes, and theorizes, in a way that elevates the play, services, and culture of the game.

The Total Chess Personality embodies evolution!?!

This year, SCBC former students and coaches took top honors in the Under 1200 and in the Open Championship at the Virginia Closed. Saket Sambaraju’s picture and accomplishments are in the pages of this blog. His rating went up more than 1100 points in less than 70 games!!! His mom has no equal when it comes to following coaching instructions. Jason Morefield is a, SCBC Master Coach with more than 150 coaching appearances before he turned 18!! Having our 2 time state champion tell everyone that your company financed their career is every coach’s and organizer’s dream! Coach Mike has had the opportunity to live it. While SCBC was paying Jason $75.00 a stop, there were other companies that wanted to pay him less because of his age even after his rating passed 2000!?! His peak is 2382!

6 yr old Anagha Sinkar, while she was the Head Coach at Lucille Brown Middle School!?!

Here are the levels of instruction available to individuals and groups! 1.) Tutor, This is mainly games review and playing tips. 2.) Instructor, Lessons designed to give exposure to certain areas of the game.  3.) Teacher, This combines the Tutor and Instructor and has optional homework assignments. 4.) Coach is the transition to tournament play, tactics, strategy, and training habits. Homework is not optional!?  5.) Prodigy, Students are monitored on Chess.com, parents receive reports and SCBC selects the tournaments the student will play in, 6.) Campaign This is when we custom design an opening repertoire for the player for white and/or black for tournament play. 

Every session at every level is customized to save time, money, and make the personality develop at a perfect pace for the student and the Coach!?!

Whether you want to just get your feet wet or you want to go deep sea diving at chess, you are at the best place if you want value for your money. Why? Because there is valuable free overflow! Top 9% player, level III advanced team coach, local director, local and state organizer, published openings theorist, published analyst, news paper columnist and international playing experience. You can’t turn that down or off completely because sooner or later, the good students are going to ask you for it anyway! Coach Mike wants to share in your chess success while others only want to share in your financial success. Just remember, every time you hear, “We have to start somewhere…”, what that means is, they get paid, and you get nowhere!?! That’s why coached players are averaging 3, 4, and 5 points a game with a “k” of 50 points plus bonus!?! Our training is always designed to take you farther than you could have ever imagined. If you are not ready for coaching, we will get you ready for free. Rates as low as $30.00 per hour. Call today for a free consultation! 804-426-6058!

The 36th Piece!?!

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Tournaments require 38 pieces!?! You’ve got 34 chess people, a board, a clock, paper, and a pencil. If most players are honest, they will admit that the clock and keeping score gave them some initial difficulty! But getting used to the clock and knowing how to use it are 2 totally different things. I haven’t seen any books specifically on how to use a clock!?! If the game can be won or lost by how you use this piece, at least some type of study is in order! I’ve only seen 2 places where the times of the games were kept and published. Yeah you get to see it while it’s live, but I’m talking in a format where study and comparison can be done. That Bobby Fischer’s chess games, the Havana Match, and Kasparov Karpov III by Keene and Goodman. Some mention of the clock was also in Krogius’ book, Psychology In Chess.

How you use this piece can change the outcome of the game!

Here are some guidelines:

  1. Always get to the board early enough to set and check the clock. Check that the delay and/or the increment are working.
  2. Always start the clock promptly at the beginning of the round. If you have no clock, the time will be split instead of your opponent taking the whole loss of time.
  3. Record the clock time for you and your opponent on each move.
  4. Always remember to press your clock!
  5. If you must get up, get back to your board as soon as possible.
  6. Grandmasters advise that you use your time for calculating variations and your opponents time for positional considerations and strategy!
  7. When in time trouble, continue to record the game as long as you can. If neither of you are recording the game, there can be no scoresheet based draw claims.
  8. When in time trouble, never move instantly! Use the delay or the increment time to double check your move.
  9. Never remind your opponent to hit their clock. It’s not good sportsmanship, it’s a rules violation!
  10. If you always have time left and you are losing more than half of your games, you are moving too fast!

Make a list of the things you will constantly check when it is your opponents turn!

What do you do when it’s your opponent’s turn to move? You are supposed to be looking everything else except variations. I have my list of everything else and so should you. I call mine the magic 10! They are: Range, Speed, Power, Force, Time, Space, Mobility, Initiative, King Safety, and Material. This is for a piece or group of pieces. This is what you do leading up to, during, and after your skirmishes! Unlike Checks, Captures, Threats, and Sacrifices, something about the magic 10 goes in and out of balance on every move.

40 moves in 2hrs. What does that mean!?! No it doesn’t mean 3 minutes per move!? There is no time limit for a move and you must accept that some moves will require a lot of time!

White to move took 22 minutes to play 14. Ne4
White took 38 minutes to find 19. b3
It took Bobby Fischer 17 minutes to find 20…Qc5
Why did it take 10 minutes for Karpov to play 7. Rc1

The other clue I got was from Test Your Chess IQ Book II by Livshitz!! In the master section they actually tell you how long it should take you to solve each puzzle. Take a look at #936

White to move. The time to solve this was 15 minutes. It’s a forced mate!
7/17/1997 Black spent 30 minutes and played 16…Nf4!
3/29/2003 White spent 49 minutes and played 16. Nf7!
6/7/2014. After 36 minutes, White played 16. Bh6!!

The thing to understand is that when you use this type of time, it’s for several moves, not just 1 move!! If you have calculated properly the next 4 or 5 moves will only take a few minutes.

Lastly, always take a minute or 2 to regroup and reorient yourself once a time control is reached. My goal is to have an equal or winning position by the end of the 1st time control, and then finish them off if I can in the 2nd one.

Want to win more games…. Learn how to use the 36th piece!?! Group and private lessons and coaching are available. Ask for Coach Mike 804-426-6058. If you are not ready for lessons, we will get you ready for free!!