I enjoyed solving 48 puzzles in my new book ~ 2h30 min. Not the fastest speed, but I'm sure it will get better the more I solve.
2) What did not go well?
I played a good share of mindless 3+0 blitz, which did not really help me much.
3) What will I do this week
Tomorrow I will play my first OTB game in almost a year! I'm excited about playing real tournament chess again. Hopefully it will go well. Besides that I'm working on formalising a training program and setting it up in Notion. A neat notetaking/database tool I have discovered. I hope it will help me stay structured moving forward.
If you're looking to formalize a training program I suggest that you keep it simple. You've already determined how much time you want to train. Now you need to figure out what to work on. If you have a book or two that are in your queue to read just set up a plan for them and then assess after it's done how your plan worked out. Over thinking plans leads to headaches.
I finally won an online rapid in the KID, which I'd been preparing. Got to play it OTB with my new SquareOff board, which was nice.
2. What did not go well?
I did not hit my 10 hour study goal because I had some things come up, but I was able to take care of everything and should have more time this week. I also lost my club game as White, though I'm happy with how I handled it.
3. What will I do this week?
I printed and bound Martin's checkmate book, and I'm planning to complete it in a year, so I'm aiming for 10 puzzles a day. In addition, I'll study at least 2 hrs/day on opening prep, evaluation, and annotated master games. Also hoping to throw in some more online rapid games.
1.) What went well: I completed the 40 main problems in Think Like a Super-Grandmaster. There are 8 additional problems to do but those don't work well for the book's main scoring system. I got 49% of the possible points and that translated to a rating that is above my current rating but within the book's estimate of where I would be. The break between problems with thought processes was nice and I'm understanding where doing a guess the move, move by move will allow someone to learn ideas that pure tactics puzzles don't cover.
2.) What didn't go well. I've been trained in a lot of online tactics to look for trades, captures and checks, however when going through positions in the book there were problems where the move was to advance a pawn one move forward, or to get the king safe. It's safe to say I didn't find the move. I need to find a way to cover the holes in my thinking, however I'm still sticking to the Polgar book as lately some of the answers are waiting moves which tells me that when I hit the mate in 3 puzzles that I'll be prepared to find some quieter moves.
3.) What I will do this week. The book mentioned that if you see two moves ahead and evaluate the position, that is often enough to win a game. So I'll play a few rapid games and try and evaluate every move past move 5 at 2 moves ahead. I'll continue with Polgar I'm at 2805 problems and I'd like to reach 2840 problems by the end of the week. I'll finish Think Like a Super-Grand Master, and that's more than enough for me.
I’ve kept going despite the holiday period making it hard to find the time, my aging father being hospitalised, and my picking up norovirus from visiting! It hasn’t been great study, but I’ve kept it going.
2)what did’t go well
I have got out of the habit of logging my study hours (sorry Martin!) but will do better this week. My study was much less well structured and focused last week.
3).what will I do this week
Restart logging sessions on Clockify and get back to my structured sessions of visualisation and calculation study.
I have been absent the last couple of weeks, but thiings are at last returning to normal. Besides the traditional seasonal festivities I also had an art residency that I was organising. Then to cap it all, my 94 year old father in law finally passed away. Needless to say, chess has taken a bit of a back seat.
1) What went well?
I managed an hour a day last week which was quite an effort under the circumstances.
2) What did not go well?
I had a couple of blitz sessions which wasted time and provided no compensating joy. Stop!
3) What will I do this week
I plan to do at leasst two hours a day working on:
-Hellsten's Engame strategy Chessable course
-Continue doing the chapter testfrom Yusupov's Orange books
Play at least two longer time control games and analyse them
I had passed over art residency on my first read of this post. What sort of thing does that entail? I'm a computer guy working for a heavy machine company so It's so far from my world that I'd like to know a little bit. As for your chess, I too have the blitz bug, I think it's ok to enjoy a quick game, especially if you're busy in the rest of your life. I'm glad to have you back on track with the training though.
The art residency! This probably needs explanation so here goes. After 25 year I left my maths teaching career behind me to follow my passion: sculpture. One of my ideas to generate interest and potentially income is to host artists at my small holding. The objective is to produce some sort of collaborative work and then create an event around it.
I have a (very) out of date website where you can get soome sort of flavour, although the work has advanced quite considerably.
That's cool that you're working with other artists. I remember "First Fridays" when I was learning graphic design. The first friday of the month The "art" corner of our city had booths, music and drinks. It was a good way to show off and talk to people about their work. Planned collaboration has a way of improving your art as you get direct feedback :)
I played a lot of rapid games, and most of them into a study to annotate and analyze. I also temporarily broke 2100 rapid on lichess and pushed my peak rating up a bit further. I kept a steady study of tactics from 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players + Lichess tactics based on my openings. I also studied some Ruy Lopez lines, but for the most part paused my opening studies since that's not the priority. I don't ever lose in the opening.
2. What did not go well?
I tilted hard after losing a game to a very suspicious player (they even closed their account by the next day -- bye bye rating points).
3. What will I do this week?
Club as usual, where I have 3 17+d3 games to play. I have a score of 2/3. I don't expect to win but I think I can place well. My quick chess rating might even go above 1600. We will have to see. Also, Rapid. I'm likely to complete 1001CEfCP this week. I might turn my "major" focus to Rubinstein: Move by Move, and just keep on with the lichess tactics. I think tactics is where I need to focus most of my time.
I spent the last two weeks preparing for an OTB tournament. Following advice from other members of this group, I spent most of my time doing tactics exercises (simple tactics), mostly flashcards from Bain's book and exercises from Chess King apps. Last week I also played a lot more than I usually do. I played 3 or 4 online games in classical times controls (about 6 hrs total). I was surprised how well I felt practicing more deliberately during the week and spending time analyzing my games and solving tactics exercises. On Saturday I played my tournament: 1/4. Because of my rating (under 500 USCF), I got to play 11 & 12-year old children (rated from 800 to 1000 USCF), so I was happy with my win, and I learned from my losses. Overall, the most intense week, chesswise, of my entire life: almost 18 hours, according to clockify.
2) What did not go well?
I lost three games at the tournament. But also, my training was kind of haphazard. I would like to have a more targeted plan, but maybe I just need to do a lot of tactics before I do something else.
3) What will I do this week
Take it a little easier, but trying to keep my daily training over 30 minutes, maybe an hour. I'll play probably two online games in classical time controls.
With Wijik Aan Zee going on right now, a good idea might be to watch a couple of recap videos. Sometimes being up on the chess news is helpful as you get an idea of moves to play.
1) What went well?
I enjoyed solving 48 puzzles in my new book ~ 2h30 min. Not the fastest speed, but I'm sure it will get better the more I solve.
2) What did not go well?
I played a good share of mindless 3+0 blitz, which did not really help me much.
3) What will I do this week
Tomorrow I will play my first OTB game in almost a year! I'm excited about playing real tournament chess again. Hopefully it will go well. Besides that I'm working on formalising a training program and setting it up in Notion. A neat notetaking/database tool I have discovered. I hope it will help me stay structured moving forward.
Good luck in the game!
If you're looking to formalize a training program I suggest that you keep it simple. You've already determined how much time you want to train. Now you need to figure out what to work on. If you have a book or two that are in your queue to read just set up a plan for them and then assess after it's done how your plan worked out. Over thinking plans leads to headaches.
1. What went well?
I finally won an online rapid in the KID, which I'd been preparing. Got to play it OTB with my new SquareOff board, which was nice.
2. What did not go well?
I did not hit my 10 hour study goal because I had some things come up, but I was able to take care of everything and should have more time this week. I also lost my club game as White, though I'm happy with how I handled it.
3. What will I do this week?
I printed and bound Martin's checkmate book, and I'm planning to complete it in a year, so I'm aiming for 10 puzzles a day. In addition, I'll study at least 2 hrs/day on opening prep, evaluation, and annotated master games. Also hoping to throw in some more online rapid games.
Sometimes 10 puzzles seems like a mountain sometimes a walk in the park. Good luck.
Yes! A little nervous that they're "organized by increasing difficulty" and some of the first 10 took me a bit. But I guess that's how we get better.
It is a very gradual rise, I noticed some puzzles that felt easier after puzzle 20 :)
1) What went well?
- Clocked 2.01 hours
- Showed up every day atleast with warmup exercises
- Reviewed one of the recent OTB game
- Went through 1 Opening from White
- Learned through Pawn play principles from GM Positional Understanding course
- Used mind maps to draw learnings in one page instead of writing down bullet points all over page
2) What did not go well?
- Setting daily aim to spend atleast 30 mins doesn't get completed yet. Could show up only 5-10 minutes few days.
3) What will I do this week
- Experiment process change - Switch from daily 30 minutes TO 3 days a week with Chess as main theme and spend 45 mins - 1 hr each.
Other days will be having different themes and Chess will be minimal [warmup exercises at minimum]
- Continue Positional Understanding course
- Review recently played OTB [few of them still due]
- Play practice game - Rapid or Blitz [mainly for Opening] and Review
- Capture ideas / learnings / principles in mind maps
- Solve atlast 1 session of Build Up series
- Visit atleast 1 Opening area
1.) What went well: I completed the 40 main problems in Think Like a Super-Grandmaster. There are 8 additional problems to do but those don't work well for the book's main scoring system. I got 49% of the possible points and that translated to a rating that is above my current rating but within the book's estimate of where I would be. The break between problems with thought processes was nice and I'm understanding where doing a guess the move, move by move will allow someone to learn ideas that pure tactics puzzles don't cover.
2.) What didn't go well. I've been trained in a lot of online tactics to look for trades, captures and checks, however when going through positions in the book there were problems where the move was to advance a pawn one move forward, or to get the king safe. It's safe to say I didn't find the move. I need to find a way to cover the holes in my thinking, however I'm still sticking to the Polgar book as lately some of the answers are waiting moves which tells me that when I hit the mate in 3 puzzles that I'll be prepared to find some quieter moves.
3.) What I will do this week. The book mentioned that if you see two moves ahead and evaluate the position, that is often enough to win a game. So I'll play a few rapid games and try and evaluate every move past move 5 at 2 moves ahead. I'll continue with Polgar I'm at 2805 problems and I'd like to reach 2840 problems by the end of the week. I'll finish Think Like a Super-Grand Master, and that's more than enough for me.
1) what went well
I’ve kept going despite the holiday period making it hard to find the time, my aging father being hospitalised, and my picking up norovirus from visiting! It hasn’t been great study, but I’ve kept it going.
2)what did’t go well
I have got out of the habit of logging my study hours (sorry Martin!) but will do better this week. My study was much less well structured and focused last week.
3).what will I do this week
Restart logging sessions on Clockify and get back to my structured sessions of visualisation and calculation study.
The best players in our local scene are the ones that stick to it. They keep showing up. Good for you on keeping at it.
Thanks - all encouragement gratefully received (and totally needed)!
Great to hear, Nigel:)
I have been absent the last couple of weeks, but thiings are at last returning to normal. Besides the traditional seasonal festivities I also had an art residency that I was organising. Then to cap it all, my 94 year old father in law finally passed away. Needless to say, chess has taken a bit of a back seat.
1) What went well?
I managed an hour a day last week which was quite an effort under the circumstances.
2) What did not go well?
I had a couple of blitz sessions which wasted time and provided no compensating joy. Stop!
3) What will I do this week
I plan to do at leasst two hours a day working on:
-Hellsten's Engame strategy Chessable course
-Continue doing the chapter testfrom Yusupov's Orange books
Play at least two longer time control games and analyse them
I had passed over art residency on my first read of this post. What sort of thing does that entail? I'm a computer guy working for a heavy machine company so It's so far from my world that I'd like to know a little bit. As for your chess, I too have the blitz bug, I think it's ok to enjoy a quick game, especially if you're busy in the rest of your life. I'm glad to have you back on track with the training though.
The art residency! This probably needs explanation so here goes. After 25 year I left my maths teaching career behind me to follow my passion: sculpture. One of my ideas to generate interest and potentially income is to host artists at my small holding. The objective is to produce some sort of collaborative work and then create an event around it.
I have a (very) out of date website where you can get soome sort of flavour, although the work has advanced quite considerably.
https://www.neilpreece.com/
I agree with you about the blitz, but with me it is never just "a quick game". The procrastination rabbit hole is deep beyond measure!
That's cool that you're working with other artists. I remember "First Fridays" when I was learning graphic design. The first friday of the month The "art" corner of our city had booths, music and drinks. It was a good way to show off and talk to people about their work. Planned collaboration has a way of improving your art as you get direct feedback :)
1. What went well?
I played a lot of rapid games, and most of them into a study to annotate and analyze. I also temporarily broke 2100 rapid on lichess and pushed my peak rating up a bit further. I kept a steady study of tactics from 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players + Lichess tactics based on my openings. I also studied some Ruy Lopez lines, but for the most part paused my opening studies since that's not the priority. I don't ever lose in the opening.
2. What did not go well?
I tilted hard after losing a game to a very suspicious player (they even closed their account by the next day -- bye bye rating points).
3. What will I do this week?
Club as usual, where I have 3 17+d3 games to play. I have a score of 2/3. I don't expect to win but I think I can place well. My quick chess rating might even go above 1600. We will have to see. Also, Rapid. I'm likely to complete 1001CEfCP this week. I might turn my "major" focus to Rubinstein: Move by Move, and just keep on with the lichess tactics. I think tactics is where I need to focus most of my time.
Congrats on hitting 2100 🙌🏻
Can you send me the email address you used? Or send it to saychess1@gmail.com
1) What went well?
I spent the last two weeks preparing for an OTB tournament. Following advice from other members of this group, I spent most of my time doing tactics exercises (simple tactics), mostly flashcards from Bain's book and exercises from Chess King apps. Last week I also played a lot more than I usually do. I played 3 or 4 online games in classical times controls (about 6 hrs total). I was surprised how well I felt practicing more deliberately during the week and spending time analyzing my games and solving tactics exercises. On Saturday I played my tournament: 1/4. Because of my rating (under 500 USCF), I got to play 11 & 12-year old children (rated from 800 to 1000 USCF), so I was happy with my win, and I learned from my losses. Overall, the most intense week, chesswise, of my entire life: almost 18 hours, according to clockify.
2) What did not go well?
I lost three games at the tournament. But also, my training was kind of haphazard. I would like to have a more targeted plan, but maybe I just need to do a lot of tactics before I do something else.
3) What will I do this week
Take it a little easier, but trying to keep my daily training over 30 minutes, maybe an hour. I'll play probably two online games in classical time controls.
1) what went well.
Managed to play to OTB games for my club. First OTB in 4 months, so very happy about it.
2)didn't do any other studying, and it am hoping to get back into a chess book.
3).
My main goal is to try and get some reading done
With Wijik Aan Zee going on right now, a good idea might be to watch a couple of recap videos. Sometimes being up on the chess news is helpful as you get an idea of moves to play.
I found the group invite in the spam folder and the link expired. Would you be willing to resend an invite please?