Week 52 + An Impossible Dream (By Neil Preece)

Goal Setting from an Adult Chess Improver Perspective

Hi!

I hope you have entered 2023 in style and that you are ready for reaching your chess goals.

Let's start the year by going to the chat group and answering the 3 questions about how you ended 2022:

1. What went well?

2. What did not go well?

3. What will you do for the next week?

You might also add your goals for this year.

Sharing your goals with others will make it more likely for you to reach them.

Neil Preece, a member of the group, has this week written about his training plans.

If you want to write for the newsletter and share something related to your training, please send me a DM.

/Martin

An Impossible Dream By Neil Preece

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” 

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. 

“I don’t much care where——” said Alice. 

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk,” said the Cat. 

“——so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. 

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

-Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1866 

Goal setting exercises can provoke quite mixed responses. There are those who absolutely swear by them. They are the cornerstone on which a successful year is built. Others see them as yet another dreadful imposition by online gurus: a cruel invention in a world gone productivity mad. 

I would like to take a middle road. Obsessing over goals and creating an overly complex rigid system to achieve them may well suck all the joy out of what should be, in essence, fun. However, just trundling along, doing what you always have done will simply lead to similar results to those you have achieved in the past. For far too many adult chess improvers, this means stagnation on a frustrating plateau. 

I am going to first give a broad conceptual framework, then share my goals by way of example and finally outline my plan of action.

A three part framework for Goal Setting

Drawing on Alice’s conversation with the Cheshire Cat, it helps to know where we are headed when formulating our plans for the coming year. Before fleshing out the details we also need to make a realistic assessment of our current position. A goal setting exercise therefore must include some sort of review process. Of course this all may seem obvious, but in so many areas of our lives we move forward with no clear destination in mind, nor any sort of critical self-reflection.  

I believe that we all need to do this (at least periodically) and write down what we actually want to achieve. I have italicized and bold printed “write down” because this, for many, is the first stumbling block. Writing down these abstract ideas may open all sorts of professional development wounds.  It certainly did for me, perhaps because my experience of these exercises was entirely drawn from numerous and excessively tedious teacher training sessions at schools all over the world. 

However, when I left the teaching profession and started a whole new life as a professional sculptor, I found the process of creating a written structure to be of incalculable value. Whether your final document is a computer file, an elegant entry in a journal or some bullet points on a napkin is really up to you. But you do need to record your thoughts.

The first time I did this seriously, I took a top-down approach:

1. Outline my dream -  an audacious almost impossible to reach long-term goal.

2. Detail measurable targets that I wanted to achieve in the medium term (5 - 10 years)

3. Formulate a series of (again) measurable actionable steps for the coming year.

It is worth highlighting the obvious differences between these three steps.

The first is more conceptual and is unconcerned with the specific details. Try to imagine the most wonderful possibilities, a glorious chess daydream - imagine them happening to you! But, as you will see in the example,  it must not be a mad, delusional flight of fancy. It must be possible.

We then need to translate this into some sort of set of concrete targets. At the risk of being irritatingly repetitive, these must be measurable. I know this can seem like we are turning our life passion into a dystopian management science driven factory production line. This analytical approach was absolutely anathema to me throughout my professional working life as a mathematics teacher. However, when I embraced this as an artist, in a paradoxical twist, it made all the difference. The key is recognising that measurable must also be manageable on a day to day basis.

Most people imagine that these medium term targets are the basis for deciding on specific goals for the coming year. I think this is a recipe for long term failure. Our goals should be driven by potential outcomes, but must be constructed around the process in getting there. Wherever “there” might be. Putting this in concrete Adult Chess Improver terms, our goal for 2023 needs to be the completion of a predetermined and very specific training plan.

This is far more within our control, whilst the potential outcomes are in the lap of the gods (do people still speak of Caissa?) or an arcane rating system. Either way I don’t think you should allow them to determine whether your year was a success or a failure.

What might this look like in practice? An example is in order and, at the risk of derision from the community I offer you my version:

Dreaming of Chess Mastery

As a young boy I would play these imaginary tournaments, me against my heroes (actually, they were games against myself). Ahhh, the joy of beating Tal (me) with a flashy combination worthy of the master. 

I might have once had the childish dream of being a Grandmaster, but it is simply not going to happen. Well of course not, I am a 55 year old, 1800 (ish) chess amateur. But these are not the reasons I say this with such conviction (convincing as they are).

No, the basic reasons are wholly practical. I simply don’t have the hours in the day to dedicate to training and the time to spare for the hundreds of competitive games necessary to reach that level.

Even if I were much younger and had all the benefits of increased neuroplasticity, I cannot spend the next ten years studying and playing chess for eight to ten hours a day. This seems to be what it takes to reach the top. It does not matter whether I believe I have the talent (whatever that might be). It is an impossibility. Yet, if you visit Quora or trawl through Youtube and you will find fistfulls of people asking or outlining how they can or will become a GM. I realise that this is an incredibly exaggerated example, but it illustrates what I mean by a delusional fantasy rather than a dream. 

But what might actually be possible? Could I become a chess master? A betting man would be happy to wager against this, whatever the odds on offer. Remember a couple of key numbers -55  and 1800- but is it literally impossible? As unlikely as it might be (VERY!!!), there are a few reasons that give me a glimmer of hope. When I was younger I did manage the occasional win against opponents of this strength so it is at least theoretically possible. And back in the day (the 90s!!!) I had tournament performances of just under 2200 at the Hastings Challengers and Capelle le Grande. So there is some sort of credibility for the argument that, buried deep down, there is actually a chess master lurking inside me.

Why should we indulge ourselves in these outrageous ambitions? I think the goal that is seemingly beyond our reach serves a valuable purpose. It acts as a  north star to help us in our planning.

Asking the question, “What would I need to do in order to achieve this goal?” is a marvelous way to organise our training. Instead of doing things ad hoc, we can ask ourselves whether something will move us closer to or further away from our goal. If we work towards it with the commitment necessary to at least have some chance of accomplishing it, then failure will probably still mean that we have reached an interesting new place in our learning journey.

So there we are, that is my impossible dream, to be a chess master. Imagine achieving the Fide Master title at my age? Now that would be something! I would, of course, be proud to achieve the rank of national or candidate master, but the idea here is to be as ambitious as possible, so FM it is!

When I‘m 60…. 

What does this mean in concrete terms? The FM title is rating based so I would need to achieve a 30 game Elo rating of 2300. Given that my current online rapid rating is under 2200 and I haven’t played an over the board game since 2002, this might seem like an insurmountable Himalaya-esque mountain to climb. But breaking down a big goal into smaller more digestible portions allows us to focus on what is achievable in the short term. 

I need to increase my playing strength from 1800 to 2300. This suggests a gain of at least 100 points per year (diminishing marginal returns will kick in), which is challenging but not impossible. I do, after all, have two big things in my favour: plenty of free time and no overwhelming family commitments. 

Of course this begs an important, but essentially impossible to answer question. How much training or serious chess activity is required to give you a reasonable chance of making a big leap forward. There is obviously no simple formula, but my gut instinct would be 1000 hours per 100 points. It goes without saying (so I will say it anyway) that this must be goal directed, active, purposeful chess activities. One hundred all-night blitz binges are not going to get you anywhere!

This equates to practising chess three hours a day. Every day (with a little wiggle room for the occasional day off). If I manage that, and slowly build up over the following years, I will have completed somewhere close to six thousand hours of chess activity by the time I am 60. How much improvement will this translate into? I have no idea, but following the Cheshire Cat’s logic - I am bound to get somewhere!

I also need to vastly increase the amount of chess I am actually playing. When I looked back at 2022 it became clear that I avoided longer games. Why? I suspect that I am afraid of losing. Losing what? Rating points? I think the truth is that I have avoided facing up to my own poor play. This must change.

The 2023 Training Plan

One thousand hours in a year - 20 hours per week. How should this be spent? Firstly there needs to be an emphasis on longer format games. So each week I will try to play at least one classical and one rapid game, both of which are carefully analysed.

My game currently is a Swiss cheese collection of knowledge gaps. To remedy this I am coming at it from two directions, readdressing the basics and extending my knowledge. The two resources I am using are the nine-book Yusupov series and Hellsten’s Mastering chess series (on Chessable). I will continue to study these.

In concrete terms, this equates to:

• 6 hours playing and analysing my games

• 7 hours studying Yusupov

• 7 hours studying Hellsten

Measurable goals:

1. Complete the Orange (currently half way) and Blue Yusupov books

2. Finish Hellsten’s Mastering Endgame Strategy (almost done)

3. Start and Finish Hellsten’s Mastering Middlegame Strategy 

The short form version of the goal-setting exercise

Writing thousands of words in a goal setting exercise may well not be your idea of fun, especially on New Year’s Eve. This whole process can be (massively) streamlined. Here is the “Just the Facts Ma'am” version:

• My absurdly ambitious goal: To become a chess master

• In concrete terms: Achieve (at least) a 2200 fide rating by the time I am 60 (in five years, 2027)

• To achieve this: Aim for an 80 - 100 point improvement in playing strength per year

• Training goal for 2023: Complete 1000 hours of purposeful chess activity

The End of the Year Elephant

I have so far been quiet on the New Year’s Resolution front. These are obviously a close cousin of long term goals. Indeed, picking (not exactly at random) just one blogger’s advice:

1. Set realistic expectations

2. Study only “hell yeah” material

3. Learn how to study chess the right way

4. Create a simple plan you can really stick to

-GM Noel Studer, https://nextlevelchess.blog/new-year-2023/

I would recommend subscribing to the Next Level Chess newsletter; GM Studer offers an incredible amount of high-quality advice for free!

What if you want to make a resolution that is a little more traditional? You know, like giving up smoking or coffee (yes to the first, definitely not the second!). My suggestion would be to ask yourself one big question.

What habit would be most central to achieving your annual goals and what is the connected behavior that should be avoided?

In my case it is to analyse all games as soon as I have played them. This will avoid pointless and damaging descents into the rabbit hole of compulsive blitz.

I wonder how many Adult chess Improvers will be adopting the same resolution?

A thought-provoking question (but one for the future)

This post naturally has focussed on what you want to accomplish and how to go about doing so. Underpinning all of this is an interesting question. Why? Why do you want to achieve this? There are many good reasons to delve deeper into this, but perhaps some other day. 

The final word….

I will leave this to a writer who is often referenced by chess bloggers. Improving our chess in so many ways equates to improving our chess habits. The following advice from a well respected expert perhaps needs tweaking for the chess context, but it seems to me to be a good note on which to end!

"10-year dreams. 5-minute actions.

Where do I want to be in 10 years?

What can I do in the next 5 minutes to contribute to that outcome?"

-James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits

/Neil Preece