Drawing general conclusions about your main weaknesses can provide a great stimulus to further growth.

The masters and grandmasters can be divided into three groups - the inveterate time trouble merchants, those who sometimes get into trouble, and those for whom the phenomenon is a very rare occurence.

All candidate moves should be identified at once and listed in one's head. This job cannot be done piecemeal, by first examining one move and then look at another.

Experience and the constant analysis of the most varied positions builds up a store of knowledge in a player's mind enabling him often at a glance to assess this or that position.

Once in a Moscow chess club I saw how two first-category players knocked pieces off the board as they were exchanged, so that the pieces fell onto the floor. It was as if they were playing skittles and not chess!

In choosing an opening plan players think most of all of harmonious development for the pieces, but sometimes leave the development of the queen out of their considerations. Yet the Queen is the most valuable and important piece and the whole outcome can depend upon how successfully she plays her role.

The study of typical plans is something that the leading grandmasters devote a great deal of time to. I would say that the most far-seeing of them devote as much time to this as to the study of openings.