So dropped some points in bullet on lichess and its tilting the hell out of me, gonna stay away from that site for a while, the premove function is ***** sh*t. Might come back when I start twitch stream chess again, i dunno, too busy with poker atm.

When to the park today and played some good blitz players, and I came to the conclusion that I want to add more lines to my repertoire for variety.

Things that I find redundant to my chess studies

So I noticed a few things that I'm doing alot in chess, and taking up alot of my "chess time" and I find that they are completely useless and I should probably stop.

1. Playing Blitz or Bullet - bullet is self explanatory, but even Blitz is kinda useless, you repeat the same patterns and thinking gets quite superficial. I will stop playing on lichess.org/chess.com and also stop going to central park to play blitz players at least for this year

2. Correspondence Chess - ICCF is quite disappointing and really seems like it's just an engine war. I don't feel I gain much from those games and it takes so long to even play one. While it might cover some opening theory, I think overall it's quite redundant to my improvement. The world cup prelims is the only tounament I'm playing right now, and I'll quit after finishing off these games

3. Chess Streaming - I was doing some chess videos for uni club and ready to be a twitch streamer like KingCrusher, but I feel it's really a waste of time and won't help my chess that much. While you might get a few fans and followers you, its more just for fun really. Maybe when I'm 30 and overweight, I'll consider about it

4. Chess Coaching - chess coaching feels completely unhelpful to my own games and I'm getting sh*t pay. Most of my students are beginners or recreationals and it's hard just to book times with them and alot of them are busy during this time of the year anywayz. It only further stress me out and I don't really get much out of it. Probably don't be coaching for a while...

5. Chess Club Executive - I'm the chess club vice president at the moment and really while there are strong chess players, the chess scene is pretty dead here. No one (even the strong 2100s+) in uni really gives a sh*t about chess anymore. The club is pretty dead and its really just a bunch of randoms occasionally playing a blitz game or watever. I really have no passion for the club anymore and while I'll do my best for keeping things running smoothly, I'm done after this term.


So these are the things that I feel are just distractions and I'll try to get rid of them from my chess ASAP.

So help organizing a team for the university vs club matches, quite annoying work. Also having to analyse the opening lines in ICCF is also quite the work.

Definitely not helping right now is my poker career, just had a bit of a tournament score as well as making big progress in the cash games, in the process of moving up to the high stakes game and money quite a big factor atm...

Chess training schedule put on hold due to poker grind and lifestyle changes goals. Will continue to be involved in chess though.

It's very difficult to improve your chess rating while pursing other hobbies, I have noticed. That's the problem with chess, it requires too much commitment.

Hey guys, just back from the self ban... Managed to get my bullet back to 2100+, my blitz to 2000+, and back into the top 100 in Horde, which means I'll be doing twitch streams. Also had some adventures in OTB chess and will talk about plans for next year in my next post.

Merry Christmas!

So my coach just became a GM so thats pretty cool. Also... for most of december I mainly played on lichess, outside parks and townhall station (centre of city), so not alot of theoretical work just some playing. This isn't helped by the fact that I'm having my biggest month in poker and had to focus on grinding.

Horde top 100 trophy




Regular players in the city...

2015 IN REVIEW

Overall a think the year went alright, it started very bumpy and even throughout the year I have so much commitment and had trouble putting in any time into chess. But I still managed to improve my skill by an estimated rating of 150-ish points looking at all my online ratings progress. I also managed to gain a CM title which is a step to the right direction and helps keeping me motivated to keep playing, but its a long way to go still.



PLANS FOR 2016

I don't know how 2016 will go and how much time I will be able to put into chess. So I won't make any grand aims but just focus on improving bit by bit and play tournaments. I'm optimistic that I would keep my interest for chess and continue to learn the game.


Study Schedule

I made the mistake of making my schedules way to rigid and I find it hard to focus on the practical things and be really flexible with my study. This has hurt my motivation in the past e.g. I'm forcing myself to learn topics I'm not as interested with yet... I think I'll aim to keep it simple this time. I won't force myself to study xxx amount of hours per day or per weeks and just focus on learning topics I'm interested in. I made a very simplistic an flexible system below.

** Do some tactics puzzles everyday until I'm satifisfied

** Do one of these eight things:

- Opening theory

- Opening practice

- Middlegame theory

- Practical middlegames

- Theoretical endgames

- Practical endgames

- Playing and analysing my own games

- Session with coach

Everyday I will do whatever I feel like, whether its reading a book, doing some exercises or watching chess instructional videos.

Finally a plan we believe you can stick with!

In before new plan doesn't work either, :/.

Gl on continuing your poker upswing in 2016!

Hey guys, I’m back!

So I’ve been fairly busy this January with my trip to the Aussie Millions in Melbourne and a series of tournament scores after I came back. Chess was on the back of my mind but I did get to visit the legendary Melbourne Chess Club (well it’s only legendary in Aus) and even played a blitz tournament there to place 3rd in it (behind an FM and another strong 2200), this kind of motivated me enough to get back into playing chess competitively amidst my commitment to poker and uni.





Came back to Sydney with a pleasant surprise when my CM certificate and pin sent from FIDE arrived in the mail.



I played a few blitz game in the city (where blitz players play in park and town squares) and met some fierce opposition. I have yet to conquer and soundly maintain a plus record against the “three kings” who are local strong regulars. Most of them are blitz specialist have a national blitz rating of near 2400 (same scale as FIDE) despite being much weaker in classical time control, each with there own individual style. The swindles and speed in which they move are quite astounding abit fustrating to watch.
Also played my friend (whose a 2260 blitz specialist) and we had quite a few interesting games. I initially struggled with the Botvinnik system against him and I seemed to have prepared a decent reply to it so this is the position we got in a few games.

One move order might go: 1. c4 g6 2. Nc3 Bg7 3. g3 d6 4. Bg2 Nf6 5. e4 O-O 6. Nge2 c5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d3
Ne8 9. f4 a6 10. a4 Rb8 11. Be3 Nc7 12. Qd2



I then switched to KIA and played a cleaner positional game and experience better results. Below is a short game I played and he seemed to forgot that the Yugoslav doesn’t work against the accelerated dragon given my extra tempo can be used for the …d5! break.

1. e4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. d4 c5 4. Nc3 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nc6 6. Be3 Nf6 7. f3? (bad line to use against the accelerated dragon) O-O 8. Qd2 d5 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. e5 Nd7 11. f4 e6 12. Na4 Qe7 (Nxe5! 13. fxe5 Qh5+!) 13. O-O-O c5 14. h4 h5 15. g4 d4 16. Bf2 Bb7 17. Rg1 hxg4 18. Rxg4 Bf3 19. Be2 Bxg4 20. Bxg4 Nb6 21. Nxb6 axb6 22. a3 b5 black is much better and white soon lost afterwards

Online replay: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=105728



One thing I noticed is that I'm usually able to remember games even up to a few days after if I just played them in a casual game which is a good sign that my ability to remember patterns is improving...

My plans for the year is outlined in my previous blog and I’m looking to improve my game overall. There are a couple of open tournaments, state championships and Club Swiss (often with GMs participating) that I’ll try to fit into my schedule too.

A big tournament I’m looking at is the next zonal tournament (for the world championship cycle) which would award like an FM title for 6/9. Judging by who I expect to participate something like a tournament performance of 2300-2400 would be require to achieve that. So it would make sense for me to prepare against specific opponents as the player pool is limited in this region especially since I’m not sure if I’m going overseas to play a lot (interested in tournaments like the Millionaire Chess tho).

Thus I’m going back to Tiger Lilov and maybe a friend of mine (whose now a GM) to help me prepare my opening repetoire as well as playing technique.

In terms of other chess related endeavours I have to help organise chess events for my university chess club and it includes an open tournament so this is more work than I cared for. But might be alright if I’m looking to participate in some of them.
I’m getting my twitch stream started to maybe I can build a following and stream myself playing chess/solving puzzles/studying theory but not sure how much time I can spare for this.

It make sense for me to post on this thread once in a while just to remind everyone that its still here but I won’t try to do it on a daily basis but maybe once every month or every few months just to keep everyone up to date with the general gist of things.

Doesn't 2/3 score in a Zonal award you IM title (not FM)?

I believe the specific rule is the top scoring non-IM who scores at least 2/3 receives the title automatically.

They changed the regulations from July 2014. It's now 65% in min 9 games for FM title (so 6/9) and equal 1st for an IM title, if you get silver or bronze you only get an IM norm... Back then 50% was enough for FM, but they up-ed and now 50% is only CM.

The full table can be found (look for the sub-continental individual section for zonals) here: https://www.fide.com/component/handb...3&view=article

I heard they might be tightening up the requirements further in the future by stating that that to qualify for a title after scoring enough points in the zonal, the player have to reach a minimum rating sometime in their career before they can claim it (it would likely be below the traditional cut off points e.g. 2300 for FM), which is fair enough...

Thanks - I looked around on the FIDE site for a while and couldn't find it. Long overdue change in my opinion.

So I'm fairly excited for my coaching session that will be coming soon, def very ready to get back into training...

Found a few GMs such as Normunds Miezis and Vassily Papin that plays purely the english opening their entire career, so I'm very ready to make a database to study their games and try to memorise as much as possible really.

Not really happy with playing with the enterprising and risky sicilians I played (dragon, kozul suicide line) and never did that well, I feel something like the berlin might be very good for abeit theoretically heavy. A few of my friends have adopted this popular opening and some manage to hold draws against IMs/GMs quite comfortably despite a rating gap.




Also started playing crazyhouse on lichess for only a few days and I've already broken 2000!




It's a pretty interesting game where you can just put captured pieces anywhere on the board (like one player bughouse). The strategy seems to be about weak squares and the initiative. Often one misstep and the opponent can just hax your king really fast first with a sacrifice, then a barrage of pieces stomping all over the board to bring quite nice mating threats.

Someone made a nice overview of this variant: http://en.lichess.org/blog/VrQDNSoAA...se-an-overview



A top Crazyhouse player gave me some advice:



It's mate in 4 and you can use the capture pieces to help you mate (this is an easy one)



Answer is below:

http://en.lichess.org/ELWRq6ch/black#87






I shouldn't spend too much time on this fun variant and get back into focusing on real chess. It's definitely hard now that I re-enrolled in uni for a full semester and playing poker part-time I'm not gonna have alot of hours but hopefully I'll manage.

I'm also responsible for organising events for my uni's chess club which is pretty bothersome. But if it gets in new players, or players interested to come back to the game

44...exf1=Q+ 45 R@g1 Qxg1+ 46 Kxg1 N@e2+ 47 Kf1 Q@d1+ 48 Q@e1 N@d2# is 5 moves. I'm not a crazyhouse player per se, so I must be missing something.

Actually, I think ur right. Good job for picking this up. The 4 move mating sequence was taken from this real game: http://en.lichess.org/ELWRq6ch/black#87 and was suppose to show a mating motif.

But the line you shown proofs it takes one more move. It's just that in a real game hard to choose R@g1 over the natural Bxf1just so you stay alive longer by one move.

Had a session with Lilov and we went through a middlegame position and explore strategic ideas and planning, after which we went through some opening schemes for the English. First by going through some themes in the Botvinnik System and then the Catalan against 1. c4 e6. Finally he gave me some thematic exercises to go through as homework.

We started off with this position and discussed how white should proceed in his plan. What's a good continuation to look for? The position plays itself quite smoothly and the follow through isn't difficult to find. Look spoilers for answers







Next up we went through the Botvinnik System which can arrive thru a bunch of different move orders but generally follow the set up of c4-d3-e4, Nc3, Ne2, g3, Bg2, something I've mentioned a couple of time in this thread. Altho move order is something that might come up as important in the English. The Botvinnik system is generally pretty easy to set up and rarely runs into problem. One such move other v the KID often come with an early 2. g3: 1. c4 e5 2. g3 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. e4 d6 6. Nge2 Nge7 7. O-O O-O 8. d3 Be6 9. Be3

I often have problem against people who recognise how to deal with my early f4 plans by going for f5 himself in KID lines. Lilov suggest to me the plan of just focusing to seek counterplay and the queenside. Installing the Nd5 is a key theme here.



Also in some of the lines, it's a good idea to aim to bring rooks to c- and d- files with the idea of coming with a c4-c5 soon. Another thematic move is f3 at some point, which not only solidify against the double rooks on the f- file, but also prevents the Bg4-Bf3 plan. This seems a sufficient way to lock down the kingside while making progress in the centre/queenside.




Finally we went over some of the catalan lines v 1. c4 e6. Again, with more focus on themes than move order we usually able to arrive to a position where we can aim for an e4 break...

If you aren't familiar with the Catalan, I suggest you find some resources online and look thru some games, but it's quite a good system that allows white to fight for an edge rather than allow black to fully equalise.



Usually following a trade off we arrive at some position like this, where we have the choice of developing our bishop either to f4 or b2 (after b3) and each comes with it's own plan.



I also don't mine playing against 1. c4 e6 with 2. e4 a line which I've seen GM Normund Miezis use to transpose into the french exchange. And he's went on to played quite splendid games such as this: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1646179


Lilov left me some positions to analyse and I do find them interesting - I'm taking a break off 2p2 forums, but I'll leave one on here for u guys to analyse if you want to





As for my plans with chess, the future remains quite unclear due to my many commitment in other areas, but I'll just keep going along with what works and do what I enjoy. Definitely feel like going through the lines in grandmaster repertoire series. I definitely enjoy memorising lines and booking up on theory which I know alot of players do not. But I feel doing deep into the lines in detail along with studying the relevant games can really improve you performance in those particular lines you end up playing OTB.


Pretty busy this month, so see you guys in abit

Played some blitz games against a master level Russian exchange student. Managed to lose these endgames in time trouble



Playing him kinda made me realise how my opening repertoire still needs work, especially if I'm going to prepare for tournaments this year.

The Candidates 2016 have offered alot of new ideas in the English and since I play it I decide to have a session with a GM to go through the variations played. (I might post some of his analysis of the games played when I review the recording of our sessions in greater detail).

One of the lines I look at is the Reverse Dragon and given how frequently it comes up, it's quite a relevant line. We, in particular reviewed one game which had a thematic device.

Can you spot the best move for white?






Among other things we looked at in the English. I looked at some interesting idea of Nh3 lines when black respond with 1. ... e6. Taking an early g3 move order in the line:
1. c4 e6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 dxc4 4. Qa4+ c6 5. Qxc4 b5 6. Qc2 Bb7 7. a4 a6 8. Nh3
Nf6 9. O-O Nbd7 10. d4 Be7 11. e4 allows for a nice advantage with the pawn centre. This might not be the exact line, but there are ideas of preventing ... c5 as well as developing Nc3.



The Beauty of the English Opening lies in its flexibility and the ability to test out new ideas. I will be extensively studying Marin's GM Repertoire on the English as well as going through the database for critical games. Hopefully I will also have time to study through my black repertoire and be prepared before the next zonals.

4/5/2016

Lost 2 blitz games against the Russian Exchange student. I'm now 0-6 against him. This is really motivating me to beat him before end of the semester when he moves back to Russia. And given I'm taking a break from live poker, I will have alot of time to study and work on my chess.

Not much have happened these few weeks but I'm progressing towards getting back into studying. My friend from russia advised me to go back to doing work with chessbase software and opening preparation.

I also finally managed to get a draw against him in blitz and heres our game from memory:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=106594


I followed his suggestion of cxd5 instead of exd5 in the semi slav after he goes for the unambitious cxd5. As a result I got space and chances on the kingside and equalised quite easily.



Here's another casual game I played against an old friend who was a decent club level player.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=106595


The game's move order of 1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. e5?! which allows me to transpose to an improved version of the french without the bad bishop which was pretty good for me. I could've played 9. ... Qxb2 which would be quite deadly to white. I played the plan of doubling up on the opened g-file and putting pressure on his kingside which probably wasn't strategically the best plan given my space advantage is on the queenside but was able to outcalculate him and launch a winning attack.

A pretty interesting article:

https://www.chess.com/blog/eltenedor...itle-heres-how

The author, NM eltenedor, whose aiming for FM just like me, basically goes through several things:

- sticking to it
- keep repertoire narrow: master of one trade over jack of all trade
- get better with the clock
- accumulate fundamental understanding
- Good coaches
- develop positive attitude about loss
- analyse more objectively
- think prophylactic-ally, follow intuitive candidate moves with analysis
- don't fear higher rated: you are really freerolling against them
- calculation
- focus on move and be less obsessed about result
- health and passion


This is quite motivating for me and this year I'll take a more active and practical approach of playing alot of tournament games instead of just heavy theoretical study.

I'm looking to play club grade matches, club champs, winter swiss events, national tournaments etc mostly non-FIDE rated tournaments because I want to save my previous games where the K factor is high so I can take advantage of it later on to get closer to 2300.

However, some of the tournaments I might be interested in playing that is FIDE rated would be the state open and possible MCC. Getting the CM title last year should relieve some of the pressure I put on myself in games as ratings shouldn't matter to much when I'm within few points of the milestone like 2200 (whereas if u were going for the title, those few games would be tense). So all the more reason to play alot.


This recent game I found inspiring for me to work on calculation skills and I hope it inspire you too:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1819775


Calm before the storm, try to spot the combination

Looked through a lot of interesting games and articles, some of which include players posting about improvement…

https://www.chess.com/blog/dpnorman/...aste-of-caviar

This article showed me how you need to treat games against stronger players like GMs as a lesson rather than as a lost. You’re really freerolling here (with no real risk of rating loss too) and you should let them show it to you how to win from their position. So go all out and make them prove the win.


Another interesting one here, the chess trainer put forths the notion that using chess engines to train yourself as a method for rapid improvement, especially if you are already at a strong level

http://chessncognac.com/new-start-here/

The article says that using engines that aren’t stockfish or komodo, and ones that play at a lower level (e.g. 2300-2400) but have a specific style, can help you discover interesting ideas in a types of position that they excel at (something that I might talk about more in the future on this thread).

For example, Chess System Tal, a 2300 rated program, which favours kingside hacks and tactical ideas, can be used to pick up ideas in your opening lines that requires such a plan.



My own study materials

I’ve decided to get rid of a lot of materials I use to study chess and give them to friends, as rather than quickly reading random books, it’s probably better to focus on a few material deeply (e.g. for Endgames use chessbase video series and Dvoretsky’s Endgame books).
These are just some of the books I have…


Some of the stuff I will give to my friends include opening books of openings I no longer play… however I look to still keep the books on tactics, theory and endgame. However, I’m probably getting rid of the books written in old notations. I’ll keep the deeply theoretical books such as dvoretsky’s books.




I will also keep some of the notes I typed or written, even tho I felt I could’ve spent my time better last year (instead of writing those notes, maybe play those positions on computers). I will revise them too. But some of the worse quality notes I written earlier in my career, I’ll be getting rid off.

Decent game notes I took below, it was Fischer v Rosetto 1959




Notes on a International Chess School Video that I studied, it's about candidate move





Already preparing for my tournaments, the result of my play this year, particularly in the club and state tournaments against fellow players will decide my decision to whether I’ll be playing the zonal next January or skipping that and going to the Aussie Millions early. While it’s nice to have a shot at 6/9 for the FM title (titles are for life!), if I’m not playing near that strength, I would have a very low chance at putting up a title worthy performance. Also, there’s no point having an FM title and being nowhere near 2300, not only will it be a cop out to this thread, constantly losing to weaker opposite while having the FM title is kinda embarrassing and unworthy of the title. This year, I will definitely be taking a lot of aggressive ideas and risk taking system to score wins. Having a CM title at least mean I got something out of my chess, and it takes pressure off me psychologically and made me focusing less on ratings and more on just playing. This is important if I want to be able to go for the plus 3 score in the zonal. I’m quite known to have a high draw rate in my career. Not so much from not taking risks or going for the sharper continuations, but more so from not correctly converting middlegame or endgame advantages that I accumulate from opposition-ally outplaying my opponent.

I have quite a few of those books. Seems like you have a good plan to continue forward in this game.

http://captiongenerator.com/88658/Di...-a-Drawmeister