Yes, you can improve your chess by training the wrong way. Actually, it happens more often than you might think.
Let’s say a million people are using a random chess improvement method. They jump around YouTube, watch whatever pops up, maybe buy some random opening courses, and then play a few games. Out of that million, some will improve. Let’s say it’s 100,000 people, 10%.
Now, what happens next? Those 100,000 people will be the ones you hear from. They’ll share their story on Reddit, they’ll be invited to podcasts, and they’ll tell their friends what worked for them. And suddenly, you see “proof” that this random approach must be effective.
But here’s the tricky part: you only see the 100,000 who succeeded, not the 900,000 who tried the exact same thing and stayed stuck. That’s what we call survivorship bias.
Why Success Stories Mislead
This creates a dangerous illusion:
- Someone improved by only doing puzzles → so maybe puzzles are the only thing that matters.
- Someone else improved by binging YouTube videos → so maybe that’s a valid method too.
- Another player swears that playing blitz all day made them strong → so maybe that’s the secret.
- And way too many memorized opening courses or silly traps, and improved their game → this opening course must be the clue…
The reality is: with any method, there will always be some success rate that is greater than 0%. Even bad processes occasionally produce good results.
But improvement isn’t about what’s possible. It’s about what’s repeatable.
And that’s where structured training makes all the difference. It doesn’t rely on luck; it gives you a process you can trust.
The Worst Trap: Jumping Between Stories
There’s one thing that’s even worse than following one random method: following many random methods.
This happens all the time. A player listens to a chess podcast, and each week there’s a new guest sharing their success story. One improved with tactics, one with studying classics, one with blitz marathons, one with opening memorization. Each story sounds convincing, so the player keeps adjusting — a little of this, a little of that.
After a few months, they’ve scrambled together 15 different approaches. And the likelihood that this patchwork of ideas still makes sense as a coherent training plan is basically zero.
That’s the fastest way to guarantee no improvement at all.
No matter who you follow or what method you choose, the key is to ****stick with it for long enough. A few months at least. Only then can you evaluate if it’s working for you. Constantly switching is the surest way to give yourself a 0% chance.
Why Coaches Matter
This is why it’s so important to learn from people who have worked with many others — not just from individuals who succeeded on their own.
Tim Ferriss put it well when he said something along the lines of:
Don’t just copy someone who’s successful; copy someone who’s successful and has taught many others to succeed, too.
A coach who has guided hundreds of players at your level knows what tends to work repeatedly. Someone who simply shares what worked for them personally might mean well, but they don’t know if their method generalizes.
The Simplified Chess Improvement Approach
I want to be transparent here: I don’t pretend to have the one perfect method that works for everyone. Nobody can honestly promise that. And of course, I also have my own biases, we all do.
Here is how I do my best to avoid just sharing what worked for me as “the ultimate chess improvement method”.
Most of the things I teach nowadays are actually things I did not do myself. This is both because I believe I haven’t done everything perfectly (who does!) and because my target audience is not trying to become a Grandmaster in their teenage years.
It also helps me avoid the trap of simply saying: “This is what worked for me to become a Grandmaster, so it will work for you too.” That’s a lazy shortcut.
Instead, I’ve tried to build something different.
- I look at what has worked in other domains, psychology, learning science, and training methods from other sports.
- I learn from the best coaches I had myself, the ones who successfully taught many students.
- And I keep adapting what I teach based on what I see working with my own students, not just what feels right to me.
Within the Simplified Chess Improvement System, some things are fixed because I genuinely believe there is a right way to do them. For example, how you approach tactics, there are efficient and inefficient ways, and doing them correctly makes a huge difference.
But other things are more open. Take building your personal study plan. I don’t believe everyone should study three hours a day, or that videos are always better than books. For some players, reading a good book is the most effective way to learn. For others, watching videos fits their style better. My role is to give you clear suggestions, but also the freedom to adapt them to what suits you best.
So the system is not completely rigid, and it’s not completely free-form either. I try to set the foundations firmly, where they really matter, while leaving space for flexibility where personal preference plays a role.
My goal isn’t to say: “Follow my exact path.” My goal is to show you what I believe is your best way to improve at chess in your situation, at your level.
Because in the end, that’s what chess improvement really is: finding the path that makes the most sense for you, and then committing to it.
Keep improving,
GM Noël Studer
