Jeremy's Chess Ascent · The Training Workbook
Thirty exercises in chess and character. Book One, to 1600.
Written for you, and with you, by Dad.
A letter before we begin
Jeremy,
Reading the manuals teaches you what to do. This book is where you prove you can actually do it. A manual you read; a workbook you work. That difference is everything, because chess is not knowledge you own, it is a skill you build, and skill is built only by doing, being corrected, and doing again.
So here are thirty positions, drawn almost entirely from the very openings you have just learned. A few ask you to find a move; most ask you to explain an idea in your own words, out loud, as if you were teaching me. Do not rush them. Set each one up on a real board. Say your answer before you write it. Then check yourself honestly against the Coach Key, and score yourself without mercy and without cruelty, because the only person a dishonest score fools is you.
The rule of this book is the rule of everything worth doing: little and often, honestly measured, beats a great deal all at once. Work six positions slowly and well and you will learn more than from sixty rushed. Come back to each unit three weeks later and do it again from memory; that is when it truly becomes yours.
I am not looking for a perfect score, son. I am looking for a boy who does the work when no one is watching, and who grows into a man who can be trusted with anything, because he first learned to be trusted with this.
Do the work, honestly, a little every day.
Dad
How to train with this book
Work every exercise the same way, score it the same way, and the numbers will tell you the truth about where you stand.
Set the position up on a real board before you read the question twice. Your hands learn what your eyes alone forget.
Give your whole answer in full sentences, as if teaching me, before you write a word. If you cannot say it, you do not yet know it.
Only now open the Coach Key. Compare your idea to the model answer and give yourself a fair mark out of three.
Do the whole unit again from memory later. Real learning is what survives a three-week gap, not what you can parrot today.
| Score | What it means |
|---|---|
| 0 | No usable idea. |
| 1 | A partial idea, or the right feeling with the wrong reason. |
| 2 | The correct idea, clearly stated. |
| 3 | The correct idea plus clean calculation or a full explanation. |
Each unit is scored out of 18 (six exercises, three marks each). Aim for 70%, about 13 out of 18. But a workbook score alone never promotes you: the real gate is three scores of 70% or more on three different days, plus evidence from your own serious games. Knowledge you can only show in a book is not yet a skill.
How you do the small, unwatched things is how you will do the large, watched ones. Do not despise a single exercise done properly.
“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.” Master the six-position unit, and you are training the very thing that will one day be trusted with far more than a chessboard.
Luke 16:10
The exercises
Board first. Answer aloud. Then score yourself honestly against the Coach Key. Whose move it is appears under every diagram.
Six sharp moments from your own repertoire. Some are blunders to sidestep in your own hands; some are gifts to punish. Every board is shown from your side.
1You are Black in your French, a move from grabbing the b2-pawn with ...Qxb2. Should you take it? Calculate White's reply first.
Your answer, move or calculation
2You are Black in the Caro-Kann and want to develop naturally with ...Ngf6. Is it safe here? Look hard at what White would have.
Your answer, move or calculation
3You are Black in the Accepted, a pawn up after ...dxc4. You are tempted to defend the extra pawn with ...b5. Is holding on wise? Look a few moves ahead.
Your answer, move or calculation
4You are Black in a Queen's Gambit Declined. White has just snatched on d5 with 7.Nxd5, betting your f6-knight is pinned to the queen. Punish it: win a piece.
Your answer, move or calculation
5You are White in your Italian and tempted to sacrifice with Bxf7+. Calculate Black's reply and decide: is the sacrifice sound?
Your answer, move or calculation
6White to move. Mate in one. Then write one sentence on how Black should have prevented it.
Your answer, move or calculation
One position from each of your six openings. Not a move to find, a plan to explain: say the idea out loud.
7You are White in the Italian. Name the central break you are preparing, the move that supports it, and why you play slowly.
Your answer, move or calculation
8You are Black in the Advance French, and you have just played ...c5. What square does it attack, what usually follows, and what is your long-term plan for the light-squared bishop?
Your answer, move or calculation
9You are Black in the Classical Caro-Kann and have played ...Bf5. Why is getting this bishop out before ...e6 the whole point of the Caro?
Your answer, move or calculation
10You are White, offering the Queen's Gambit with 2.c4. You are not truly giving away a pawn, so what is the real point of c4?
Your answer, move or calculation
11You are Black in the Queen's Gambit Declined, your house complete. Name your two freeing breaks and the one condition that must be true before you play either.
Your answer, move or calculation
12You are Black in the Queen's Gambit Accepted. You took on c4 but do not intend to keep the pawn. What did you gain instead, and what is this ...c5 doing?
Your answer, move or calculation
The pawn skeletons your openings produce. Learn what each side wants, and the middlegame will teach itself.
13White has an isolated queen's pawn on d4, exactly the kind you meet in your Accepted, and you are Black, playing against it. In which phase is it weak, and what are your two main methods to exploit it?
Your answer, move or calculation
14Here you are Black and you OWN the isolated queen's pawn on d5. In which phase is it strong, and how should you play?
Your answer, move or calculation
15This is the Carlsbad structure (after cxd5 exd5). As the defender with the black pieces, what is White's standard plan, and name your three answers to it.
Your answer, move or calculation
16This is the Advance French pawn chain. Explain the 'attack the base' principle: where do you strike, and why not begin with ...f6?
Your answer, move or calculation
17Compare bishops: your light-squared bishop has reached b7 in the Accepted. Why is it a 'good' bishop here, and what is the general rule for good versus bad bishops?
Your answer, move or calculation
18Black's knight sits on d5. What makes a square a genuine outpost, and why is this knight so strong there?
Your answer, move or calculation
The habits of choosing a move: candidates, calculation, prophylaxis, the honest blunder-check.
19White to move in a quiet Italian middlegame. Practise candidate moves: name three candidates of different types, forcing, improving, and prophylactic, and say which you prefer and why.
Your answer, move or calculation
20Black to move in the Advance French. Two grabs tempt you: ...Qxb2 and ...Nxd4. Calculate carefully, all the way to the checks: is either one safe right now?
Your answer, move or calculation
21White to move. Before you make your own plan, ask: what does Black want, and can you stop it cheaply? Find a prophylactic move.
Your answer, move or calculation
22You are Black, playing against White's isolated d4-pawn in your Accepted, and a pair of knights can be traded. Do you trade, and why?
Your answer, move or calculation
23Black to move in a Classical Caro tabiya. Evaluate the position with one sentence for each of the five elements: material, king safety, activity, structure, space.
Your answer, move or calculation
24White to move in a symmetrical Italian. Run the blunder-check out loud before you choose: name every black check, capture and threat, then give one safe move.
Your answer, move or calculation
The handful of endings that decide games at your level. Technique you can trust, not luck you hope for.
25White to move: king e6, pawn e5, black king e8. Is this a win or a draw with best play? Explain using the opposition.
Your answer, move or calculation
26The same position, but now it is Black to move. Who wins, and what does that teach about the opposition?
Your answer, move or calculation
27White to move: pawn a4, black king f6. Does the pawn promote, or is it caught? Use the rule of the square, no counting of moves.
Your answer, move or calculation
28King and queen versus king. Describe the mating technique in two sentences, and name the one thing you must never do.
Your answer, move or calculation
29King and rook versus king. What is the method, and why can the rook not do it alone?
Your answer, move or calculation
30White to move with a three-versus-two queenside majority (a2, b2, c2 against a7, b7). How do you make a passed pawn, and what is the golden rule?
Your answer, move or calculation
Unit 06 · Track the climb
Numbers you write down are numbers you can improve. Score each unit the day you do it, and again three weeks later.
| Unit | First date | Score /18 | Retest date | Score /18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Traps in Your Openings | ||||
| 2 · Know Your Openings | ||||
| 3 · Reading the Structure | ||||
| 4 · Think it Through | ||||
| 5 · Endgame Essentials |
Alongside the drills, read slowly and take notes. For each book, fill a card: date and chapter, three ideas in your own words, one position you could teach, and where the idea later showed up in your own game.
| Book | Why, for you, now |
|---|---|
| Logical Chess: Move by Move · Chernev | Every move explained in words. The best possible companion to the way these manuals think. |
| Winning Chess Tactics · Seirawan | The patterns behind Unit 1. Drill these until forks, pins and skewers jump out at you. |
| Silman's Complete Endgame Course · the first sections | Read only the band for your rating. It grows with you; do not read ahead. |
| 100 Endgames You Must Know · the basics | The essential technical positions, including the ones in Unit 5. Learn the method, not the move. |
A word before you close the book
Son, I want you to notice something about this whole book. Almost none of it was about winning. It was about working: setting the board, saying the idea, checking yourself, scoring honestly, coming back three weeks later. The rating will follow that, but the rating was never the prize. The habit is the prize.
Anyone can be diligent when a trophy is in front of them. What I am building in you is the boy who is just as careful with exercise nineteen as with the championship game, because that boy becomes a man whose word holds, whose work is sound, and who can be handed anything. That is worth more to me than any title you will ever win, and I promise you it is worth more to you too.
Do the work when no one is watching. I will always know, and I will always be proud, whatever the scoreboard says.
Dad