I have decided to move the discussion and weekly updates from our chat room on Pumble to Substack. It will make everything a bit more simple for people to interact and I will have an easier time sending out a weekly newsletter every Monday. The idea is quite simple. You will answer 3 questions:
1) What went well? 2) What did not go well? 3) What will I do this week
And if you are tracking your training on Clockify you can share your results as well. Hopefully, this will make you stay accountable, and it will motivate you to train as well as to read about other members’ training.
1) What went well? I had 3 good study sessions at my new chess study place. Went over two games in botvinnik’s game collection and did one calculation session.
2) What did not go well?
I only practiced for 2,5 hours due to sickness and working on my new checkmate book
3) What will I do this week
I will start working on getting ready for OTB with more calculation training
- Able to put up strong solid focused hours on weekend.
- Bit of OTB game review.
- Re-started bit of Yusupov series and Positional Understanding course.
2) what didn't go well?
- Still holding onto the warmup exercises on daily basis. Couldn't make further effort most of the days.
- As it happens, most of the priority work is done in morning / afternoon / evening. By night time, its left to Chess and hardly any time left even if energy is there.
- May need to Block the time in late afternoon / evening and make it happen.
3) what will you do for the next week?
- Start with Warmup exercises for 1 small unit of time [5-15 minutes] per day [OTB or on-screen with writing on Book or Doc]
- Positional Understanding course - Study 1 Lesson / Task - for 1 unit of time [15-20 minutes] - 2-3 times for the week
- Build up - Study/Solve 3 puzzles with deep calculation / analysis - for 1 unit of time [15 minutes] - 2-3 times for the week
- Play ONE Blitz and Rapid game each with deep focus - for the week
- Analyze ONE Blitz and Rapid game recently played - for the week
- Analyze recently played ONE OTB game - for the week
I am more focused, and understand that it's not good to spread myself so thin.
I need to have one or two focuses and go deep and hard with them.
That is the only way to progress properly then turning my wheels endlessly.
2) What did not go well?
I still have trouble concentrating for long period of times (I would think it is because of age or because I spent at least 25 years studying two masters and three languages, etc., etc.).
3) What will I do this week
- Tactics review of the 1001 beginner tactics series on chessable
- End games studies of 101 endgames you must know on chessable
I feel I have spent too much time on openings, and variations, where it might be better to spend a lot more time on endgames since that is where I seem to lose most often.
If you're working out a response to 1.d4 you might want to play a few training games as white with 1.d4 to see what ideas strike you as particularly nasty so you can use them against your opponents.
It’s good, a bit dated and some analysis in the original is slightly off for our computer age. Nonetheless, it’s comprehensive in its treatment of some classic attacking motifs like the “Greek gift”. It’s worth reading in my opinion.
I did a lot of tactics training and that always feels like an accomplishment. I started playing rapid games again and analyzing every one in a lichess study. And I matched my peak rating at 2102 just yesterday.
2) What did not go well?
I had some tiltish sessions with blitz. I kept barely above the 10 hour study mark due to a bit of exhaustion from the prior week’s 20 hour count. I have decided I need to get more sleep to play and study better.
3) What will I do this week
There’s a rapid tournament at the club. I’ll be attending and competing. I’ll keep playing rapid games and continue studying Rubinstein and an hour of tactics training per day!
Hi Mike. Great questions. I was generally weak on calculation, and it helped a lot with that. It trained me to look for forcing moves, no matter how ridiculous-seeming at first. Having it broken down by tacitcal motif really helped narrow it down. It completely transformed my ability to visualize tactics (mine and my opponent's) over the board, and I almost entirely credit the book for my 200-pt rating gain. I can't recommend it highly enough. It helped me to have a coach assign problems though, and he would quiz me. Otherwise, it probably would have sat on the shelf with the other chess books I will definitely maybe someday read.
Since you finished 1001 combinations here are some questions about the book. What weakness did this book uncover from you that you addressed? What strength did you sharpen? Would you recommend this book for other players?
What went well? This week I went through a few positions in Think Like a Grandmaster, I've done 16 puzzles so far from the 40 "main" puzzles I'm scoring a little better than my current elo would suggest but some of the the puzzles elude me. I just didn't have the move on my radar even after a bit of a think. The concept of falsifying your move is an important take away from this week. I'll be happy to write a post on it if anyone is interested.
What did not go well? Chess.com had free puzzles and I have a free account so I took that opportunity to play a lot of puzzles and tank my puzzle rating. I would try and play the intuitive move and not spend the proper amount of time to find solutions. It was bad training and bad for my self esteem. Having each puzzle Matter is and no chance to go back has made my puzzle rating go higher, and not taking puzzles seriously leads to no improvement. I have considered buying a membership to get more puzzles but I've found the flaw is that it "cheapens" the value of the daily puzzles for me.
What I will do this week: I"m at 2764 for puzzles in Polgar's book I'll aim to reach 2800 puzzles done. That's 36 puzzles or 7 a day if I'm working just Monday through Friday. I will also 3 positions a day in Think like a super grandmaster. Should be an hour a day.
After reading your post, I want to double-down on my recommendation for 1001 Winning Chess Combinations and Sacrifices. For whatever reason, it helped me a lot more than the Chess.com puzzles. I think it being organized by theme helped build associations and recognize patterns better. My coach said if I got stuck on one, to try it again the next day, and this sort of frequent revisiting really helped (sometimes I would see them in my dreams...). I could be stuck for days and then instantly spot the solution the fourth day. My chess.com puzzle rating is around 2500, but I was also just trying to keep the rating up, so I would spend a long time on them, and not really simulate how I would look for tactics in a game. I also think there's something to saying the solutions out loud to a coach (or perhaps writing them, which GM Noël Studer recommends). It forced me to sharpen my mental algebraic notation.
1) What went well? I had 3 good study sessions at my new chess study place. Went over two games in botvinnik’s game collection and did one calculation session.
2) What did not go well?
I only practiced for 2,5 hours due to sickness and working on my new checkmate book
3) What will I do this week
I will start working on getting ready for OTB with more calculation training
Thanks for your continued work on the training group.
You’re welcome ☺️ it inspires me to see others who work hard to improve
Thanks Martin for making this happen.
Now we are public! (as in startup goes public).
Your inspiration and efforts triggered our commitments. Let this grow one of the best public chess commitment group for long time.
1) what went well?
- Weekly progress - 3.06 hours
- Able to put up strong solid focused hours on weekend.
- Bit of OTB game review.
- Re-started bit of Yusupov series and Positional Understanding course.
2) what didn't go well?
- Still holding onto the warmup exercises on daily basis. Couldn't make further effort most of the days.
- As it happens, most of the priority work is done in morning / afternoon / evening. By night time, its left to Chess and hardly any time left even if energy is there.
- May need to Block the time in late afternoon / evening and make it happen.
3) what will you do for the next week?
- Start with Warmup exercises for 1 small unit of time [5-15 minutes] per day [OTB or on-screen with writing on Book or Doc]
- Positional Understanding course - Study 1 Lesson / Task - for 1 unit of time [15-20 minutes] - 2-3 times for the week
- Build up - Study/Solve 3 puzzles with deep calculation / analysis - for 1 unit of time [15 minutes] - 2-3 times for the week
- Play ONE Blitz and Rapid game each with deep focus - for the week
- Analyze ONE Blitz and Rapid game recently played - for the week
- Analyze recently played ONE OTB game - for the week
1 What went well?
Got back into training after holidays. Played first rated OTB of the year. Much stronger opponent but got a nice game to annotate
2. What didn't go well?
Still little bit lost without structured plan and need to do more tactics again.
3 Try to start the chessdojo plan finally to get some structure on my study
As long as you don't spend more time making the plan than working on it, you'll progress!
Let me know what you think of ChessDojo. I've heard it mentioned here and I'm curious. My former coach is also looking into for himself.
1) What went well?
I am more focused, and understand that it's not good to spread myself so thin.
I need to have one or two focuses and go deep and hard with them.
That is the only way to progress properly then turning my wheels endlessly.
2) What did not go well?
I still have trouble concentrating for long period of times (I would think it is because of age or because I spent at least 25 years studying two masters and three languages, etc., etc.).
3) What will I do this week
- Tactics review of the 1001 beginner tactics series on chessable
- End games studies of 101 endgames you must know on chessable
I feel I have spent too much time on openings, and variations, where it might be better to spend a lot more time on endgames since that is where I seem to lose most often.
1. What went Well?
I got a draw against a much higher rated player in an OTB classical game .
2. What didn't go well ?
In the same game I missed an opportunity to win the game by not fully believing in myself to calculate a line fully
3. What will I do this week
I will continue to grind out tactics and also focus on my response to 1.d4 as I'm playing black in next week's league game 🎯
If you're working out a response to 1.d4 you might want to play a few training games as white with 1.d4 to see what ideas strike you as particularly nasty so you can use them against your opponents.
What went well? I will skip this one, nothing went well.
What didn’t go well? Hmm, the second of two weeks on tour without much time to study or play. I almost made 5hrs but it was scattered.
I’m back to a routine. Lots of tactics, I finished the Art of Attack, I’m hoping to get some traction on the Aagaard book this week.
How was art of attack? Wondered if I should read this classic sometime
It’s good, a bit dated and some analysis in the original is slightly off for our computer age. Nonetheless, it’s comprehensive in its treatment of some classic attacking motifs like the “Greek gift”. It’s worth reading in my opinion.
Thanks! I will keep that in mind :)
1) What went well?
I did a lot of tactics training and that always feels like an accomplishment. I started playing rapid games again and analyzing every one in a lichess study. And I matched my peak rating at 2102 just yesterday.
2) What did not go well?
I had some tiltish sessions with blitz. I kept barely above the 10 hour study mark due to a bit of exhaustion from the prior week’s 20 hour count. I have decided I need to get more sleep to play and study better.
3) What will I do this week
There’s a rapid tournament at the club. I’ll be attending and competing. I’ll keep playing rapid games and continue studying Rubinstein and an hour of tactics training per day!
Sleep is definitely very important!
Hi Mike. Great questions. I was generally weak on calculation, and it helped a lot with that. It trained me to look for forcing moves, no matter how ridiculous-seeming at first. Having it broken down by tacitcal motif really helped narrow it down. It completely transformed my ability to visualize tactics (mine and my opponent's) over the board, and I almost entirely credit the book for my 200-pt rating gain. I can't recommend it highly enough. It helped me to have a coach assign problems though, and he would quiz me. Otherwise, it probably would have sat on the shelf with the other chess books I will definitely maybe someday read.
1) What went well?
Just the feeling that im getting better at calculation, i was able to solve some hard tactics
2) What didnt go well?
Wasnt able to put is as many hours as last week
3) What will I do this week?
Try to get more hours and try dividing the training is 2 sessions
1. What went well?
I got a new coach and finished 1001 Winning Combinations. I also won my club game as Black.
2. What didn't go well?
I didn't meet my goal in Evaluation and Opening work. I'll make that a focus this week.
3. This week?
Complete assignment by coach. Focus on openings for Wednesday's club game.
Since you finished 1001 combinations here are some questions about the book. What weakness did this book uncover from you that you addressed? What strength did you sharpen? Would you recommend this book for other players?
Forgot to mention I set up my SquareOff Pro and am digging it so far :)
What went well? This week I went through a few positions in Think Like a Grandmaster, I've done 16 puzzles so far from the 40 "main" puzzles I'm scoring a little better than my current elo would suggest but some of the the puzzles elude me. I just didn't have the move on my radar even after a bit of a think. The concept of falsifying your move is an important take away from this week. I'll be happy to write a post on it if anyone is interested.
What did not go well? Chess.com had free puzzles and I have a free account so I took that opportunity to play a lot of puzzles and tank my puzzle rating. I would try and play the intuitive move and not spend the proper amount of time to find solutions. It was bad training and bad for my self esteem. Having each puzzle Matter is and no chance to go back has made my puzzle rating go higher, and not taking puzzles seriously leads to no improvement. I have considered buying a membership to get more puzzles but I've found the flaw is that it "cheapens" the value of the daily puzzles for me.
What I will do this week: I"m at 2764 for puzzles in Polgar's book I'll aim to reach 2800 puzzles done. That's 36 puzzles or 7 a day if I'm working just Monday through Friday. I will also 3 positions a day in Think like a super grandmaster. Should be an hour a day.
After reading your post, I want to double-down on my recommendation for 1001 Winning Chess Combinations and Sacrifices. For whatever reason, it helped me a lot more than the Chess.com puzzles. I think it being organized by theme helped build associations and recognize patterns better. My coach said if I got stuck on one, to try it again the next day, and this sort of frequent revisiting really helped (sometimes I would see them in my dreams...). I could be stuck for days and then instantly spot the solution the fourth day. My chess.com puzzle rating is around 2500, but I was also just trying to keep the rating up, so I would spend a long time on them, and not really simulate how I would look for tactics in a game. I also think there's something to saying the solutions out loud to a coach (or perhaps writing them, which GM Noël Studer recommends). It forced me to sharpen my mental algebraic notation.