Nearly three years now! (News)

by tapestry , Hampshire, Saturday, December 20, 2008, 09:21 (6205 days ago) @ Tony Kosten

? I thought I would drag this old thread back to the front once again! I am
? thinking of stopping adding new material to the 'Your Move!' and
? 'Strategy' sections (they are already very full) and concentrate resources
? on something else, but what?
? Anyway, I would welcome anyone's thoughts on the future direction of the
? site.
? Also with the recent change in the exchange rates is the price of a
? subscription too high?

I really like the Your Move and Strategy sections and these are the first areas I turn to. I think they are very well written and I like being able to print out the questions and take them away from the computer quite readily, so would be disappointed if they were to go.

I very much like the interaction involved with Unlock Your Genius (dlwyatt nailed the last one and I couldn't find anything to add!) and I think that plays to the strength of the internet over, say, a book.

I am sure we all have lots of chess material to use but the difficulty is making the best use of it. Perhaps a series of articles aimed towards learning how best to make use of the material we already have would be useful, with examples of how the author has done so. For example, I reckon a lot of people would have collections of annotated games, but how do you read such a book to get the most out of it?

I do find the tactics gym awkward to use as you need to be by a computer. Personally I would find it much more useful to be able to print out the questions if they were presented like the Your Move/Strategy sections.

If my situation is anything to go by, I find that there is a huge amount of information and that it is easy to get overwhelmed. To juggle worklife, home life and chess life can be quite tricky. Knowing what to read and when is half the battle (the other half seems to be remembering what I've read and how to apply it in practice!). The material that appears each month does seem quite random. I wonder if adding any structure to it would help.

For example, planning the year ahead so that the material is based on specific themes each month might help. The idea then may be that all the tactics, Your Move, Strategy and Unlock Your Genius might all be based around that theme. If we knew in advance that might help us plan our own study programme. (I reckon a lot of information is already on the website but it is a matter of grouping together the appropriate information).