My Intermediate Course Implemented With Lichess Studies

Continued from
jomega's Blog • My Chess Courses Implemented With Lichess Studies • lichess.org/

Today I'm going to talk about my Intermediate Course.

Learning order

The Intermediate Course has the Beginner Course as a prerequisite. If you skipped any of the Beginner Course, then you may find that you have to go back to it for certain topics. Use the Beginner Course table of contents to find such topics.

There are multiple learning orders for the Intermediate Course material. If you have a mentor, they can help you plan a learning order. The courses are written so that almost always things are defined before being used, presented in order of easiest first, and "building blocks" are given first. If you do the topics in a different order than the linear order, then you'll have to backtrack more often. By linear order, I mean that any time there is a link in the studies you should probably follow it first! To get a global view, use the table of contents.

How long does it take to learn the material in the Intermediate Course?

The answer is that it varies widely, but I'd say that with 5-10 hours of study and playing a week, it will take between 2 to 3 years. Hence, if starting with the Beginner Course as a complete novice, a total of 5-7 years to complete both the Beginner and Intermediate Courses. I consider intermediate players may be rated as high as 1700 ELO.

What might be different than other courses for intermediate chess players?

There is an emphasis on the internalization of concepts. What I mean by this is that the concepts become subconscious. Some people refer to this as "visualization" while others refer to this as "pattern recognition".

The internalization method the course espouses goes by the name "deliberate practice". See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Deliberate_practice/
Deliberate practice is about how you practice.

The Intermediate Course introduces positional ideas by looking at features mostly determined by pawn structure. The "Intermediate: Features Determined by Pawn Structure" study follows the interesting book Point Count Chess by I. A. Horowitz, and Geoffrey Mott-Smith, 1960. These categories of features are easier to digest than other writer's categorizations.

The Intermediate Course also lays the ground work for the Advanced Course by introducing a well-known categorization of pawn structures and their themes. The categorization used is the Soltis pawn structures; named after Andy Soltis.

Since rote memorization of the opening is not effective and leads to poor results, the Intermediate Course uses several non rote methods for the opening: 1) Critical examination of openings, and 2) Opening systems.

In an offbeat study, I present "Intermediate: K and Q Pawns Only Openings". In this study I attempt to cross-correlate the Soltis pawn structures with various openings of a special kind. The study is an example, albeit strange, of how knowing the Soltis pawn formations and their themes can guide you through unfamiliar opening territory. You can play, trying to reach a particular formation, or play to avoid it. You will begin to recognize reversed openings. You will see how to avoid making tempi losing moves.

Other Topics You'd Expect Are Included.

Tactics

You've probably heard it before - most of your study time should be spent on tactics. If you want to see a lot of tactics in your games then you can play in an attacking style. Intermediate players can play in a style which is similar to the Modenese School of the early 1700s (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_chess ), though augmented with rules-of-thumb for the opening based on the Classical School from the 19th century. This is a very effective playing style and will usually result in very tactical games. The Intermediate Course includes a chapter covering this style of play.

Endgame

The Intermediate Course continues to add to endgame knowledge; pushing well beyond the beginner stage. Included are:

• more Non Pawn endgames,
• King and Pawn endgames,
• piece and Pawn versus lone King endgames,
• Bishop and Pawn endgames,
• Rook and Pawn endgames introduction, including the Lucena and Philidor positions, and
• some special endgames types.

Speed Chess

When/if to start playing speed chess is something you should discuss with your mentor. The pros/cons of playing speed chess are listed in the Intermediate Course.

Annotated Games

During the Intermediate Course, instructive and entertaining games from the literature are covered in the context of the topics. Many of these are often quoted in chess literature; especially the ones that are exemplars of certain techniques.

Intermediate Course
Intermediate Course Table of Contents
https://lichess.org/study/QjfpcMCD/

Next Blog in This Series

In the next blog in this series I'll give an overview of the Advanced Course.

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Table of Contents for all my studies

I have written many other Lichess studies. All my studies are cross linked. Here is a table of contents for all my studies.
Jomega Studies Table of Contents (lichess.org)

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I hope you enjoy this blog series. Likes are really appreciated.