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In a word – yes! In two words, which you should read in the voice of Jesse Kraii, “Yes, boss.”
One of my continuing chess goals for 2024 will be an extension of what I did in 2023, and that is to trust the process.
I joined the Dojo Training Program a couple of months ago, and so far, I have to say that it’s helped me a lot. Has the help been that I am finally studying the “right” things? I don’t think so. To be honest, I’m not sure there are necessarily “right” things.
Certainly, there can be wrong things. If you spent years studying nothing but tactics, would you become stronger? Almost certainly. What if those tactics were nothing but mate in ones though? Would you be stronger then? Not likely. At least not after the first few hundred, assuming you were a beginner when you started.
Some things in the Dojo training program for my cohort include Polgar Mate in Two’s, Polgar Mate in Three’s, building a low-level opening repertoire along the lines of the quick starter courses in Chessable, playing through certain GM games, analyzing my games, etc.
Does that mean that this is the key? Has the Dojo cracked the code? Not necessarily, in my opinion. Where they get it right is that they give the learners something to focus on.
I do believe that some of the items in the Dojo program are vital to anyone who wants to make a real attempt at improvement. For example, analyzing one’s own games. My experience has shown that when I truly work at analyzing my games, I tend to get better, even if it’s a slow grind of a process.
So what is my plan for 2024? To keep grinding the Dojo Training Program. While I don’t think that the Polgar book is any better than other books would be, for instance, Forcing Chess Moves by Hertain, or one of my favorite books which should be more well known, Improve Your Chess Tactics by Neishtadt. However, the fact that it’s the book that was selected keeps me from jumping around and solving a few from this book and a few from that book.
Besides, it’s satisfying when you get to check things off the list, and with the Dojo program, boy do you get to check things off the list.
Also, their separate Discord for the training program makes it easy to find training partners and a community of like-minded folks.
Consider this my suggestion that you sign up for the Dojo Training Program today!
You can join here: Training Program | Chess Dojo
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott