Week 50 Review + update from the community by Diogo Timas Neves

Hi 👋

Last week we tracked 239 hours of training. Well Done!

It has been a couple of weeks since I last reminded you to go into the chat group and answer the 3 questions:

1. What went well?

2. What did not go well?

3. What will you do for the next week?

It is my plan to turn this newsletter into a community newsletter, where all members from the accountability group can write and share what they are working on in chess.

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Update from the accountability group by Diogo Timas Neves

First, let me tell you a little bit about me, I’m 28 years old, from Cape Verde, rated around 1500 fide and I have been playing chess since 2015. I’m also a Developmental Instructor certified by fide.

My main/long term goal is to one day get a master title, but for now my goals for next year are to break the 1600 barrier and qualify for the 2024 Olympiad which would mean getting 5th place at the national. I have never done that but I have been close getting 6th place both in the 2019 and 2020 national championships.

For the first 5 years of my chess journey, I didn’t put much thought on my training, didn’t read any books, didn’t watch any courses I just played chess, did some puzzles and opening work.

Only on 2021 after a terrible tournament I decided to get a coach, which is the current national champion, and Africa zonal (4.2) champion IM Mariano Ortega. Since we started he was helped me on a lot of stuff but the main thing was analyzing my own games and how to train properly. I have been putting more work in this year and a half than the first five years of my chess journey, although it didn’t show this season, I hope next year I will be able to show my improvement. Enter the chess accountability group. I found it about 1 or 2 months ago in a SayChess newsletter and I thought it would be interesting but I had no idea how it would change the way I approach training.

• First, thing that I noticed, normally I would take let’s say a two hours block from my calendar and dedicate to chess training and I would say that I trained for 2 hours.

  
  Then I started tracking on clockify and that 2 hours of training would be at best 1h10min and worst case 45 to 50 minutes, and that’s because if I set the time to start at 4pm in reality I would start at 4:10 or 4:15, then there is setting up the training materials and the bathroom breaks (that get extended with cellphone distractions). So now I’m more thoughtful about how I schedule and run my training sessions.

• The second thing is the gamification of the system, trying to put more hours of work and try to get to the top of people who put in more hours of training is a huge boost of motivation for me.

• And finally is the sharing of information on the chats. Sharing tips for training, opinionon books, and also motivating one another to accomplish their goals.

Needless to say that the accountability group will play a huge part in achieving my goals for next year. Here is one of my best weeks:

While I have taken this month off training, I´m working on the training plan for next year and I’m planning to start right away in the first week of January. For the next year, I’m focusing more on playing more games and improving my tactical skills.

Here is my plan for my tactical training:

By Diogo Timas Neves

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That was all for this week. Remember to leave a comment if you have any questions for Diogo.

/Martin