Day 1


- studied a position on Muller's endgame series on chessbase videos

- played 55 bullet games. (I should stop this)

Day 2


Woke up too late (6pm) so just did one hour of blitz. won 7/10 to recover some rating losses from previous sessions. I first dropped below 2k in August and a long way off when I swung around 2-2.1k Looking to go back to that after finding a good attacking repertoire.


See this is what I want to get in a classical game in the Caro, an attacking opposite side castling game...: https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1758677642

When I'm playing white I want to take advantage of opportunities to castle long and go for the hack too: https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1758618202


I'm gonna spend some time tmmr looking at Caro Khan lines.

Day 3

Didn't do much but looked through the GM repertoire series and chessbase vid series on the Caro. Still not very sure which between the lines they recommend which one I should play. But I'm sure something solid is the way the go.



Day 4

Played some blitz/bullet and been doing alright.

I guess this was my best game: https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1761096740



Day 5

Still not very motivated atm, I have to play LoL before the season ends next month on the 7th. I just played more bullet and chess. I will start organising study material with heavy focus on the opening.

Day 6

https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1763945665

um... no, you don't HAVE to do anything. That is your problem - you do literally a 100 things at the same time and for whatever reason you are expecting to seriously improve at chess. I would suggest to lower your expectations and simply play chess for fun, but if you cannot do that, then either seriously focus and figure out your priorities, or just drop chess altogether.

Hi, welcome to the thread.

made me lol.

But srsly tho, fair comment. Not sure if u were one thats been with the thread from the beginning to have to put up with all my sh*t. I did improve alot tho.

I never said i was going pro, its basically an impossibility at this point (2600s+ been training full on since childhood) so this thread is relatively "recreational" if you know what I mean.

But noted about the priorities part in your comment. I'm def taking a break after Jan 2017 regardless from chess AND this thread just cuz im way too behind in uni (took gap semesters).

But as I suspect its always good to have ppl giving me contructive criticism (i made this thread keep myself accountable) and with no uni I might as well go full on for the rest of the year... evenh with playing LoL i have heaps of hours left in the day so no excuses really...

Why did you give up the Kozul variation?

Day 7


https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1765377360

Interesting ideas. Endgame prob better for black but he blundered. I keep struggling to have dynamic positions from my English games excluding my botvinnik king hacks.




1. It's way too complicated, theoretically heavy, tactically complicated and time consuming to work on for a non-professional. Alot of ppl get attracted to these crazy lines and waste alot of time on them

2. Lines like the Kozul, the yugoslav attack in the dragon (as black), some of the sharper sac lines like the bronstein in the KID are lines where ur studying super hard in order to volunteer your own king to get hacked and hopefully survive it and get a draw :P It's practically unwise and only recommended if ur a romantic and wanted to go for a gamble to win (like Caruana in the last game of the candidates: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1818557)

3. The lines are barely sound and hard to defend in practical position. Alot of memorising is needed. Even GMs have been known to lose to much lower rateds (seen a few 1900 v 2500 upsets in these kind of lines in my database).




So I'm definitely at a slump in terms of my online ratings. I think lag issues have been losing me games but overall I've been playing with a very limited repertoire and half the games are me playing my way out of worse positions. I think openings are definitely a key part of my study and hopefully. My peak ratings are definitely inflated as they are in the beginning but I've maintain consistently in the middle of 2-2.1k before dropping off recently. The left two are chess.com and right is lichess.org






So surprising news came through and a friend couldn't make it on our LoL sessions due to some commitment and it means I will likely be playing much less of that game so more time for chess study actually.

You might consider playing a different Sicilian eg the Sveshnikov (sound and solid) if there's any crossover between the replies to the anti-Sicilians for the Sveshnikov and for the Kozul. Saves on learning an entirely new opening.

Kozul meaning Classical Sicilian?

I can recommend Marin's DVD product from chessbase on the Classical Sicilian.

Easy Link:

https://shop.chessbase.com/en/produc...sical_sicilian

I was never one to want to employ the doubled f pawns vs the richter rauzer but the coverage by Marin was pretty good. There's fun dark square play in a number of the lines.

So I feel pretty comfortable with playing the gxf6 lines now.

Kozul is a specific line in the classical sicilian v the richter rauzer. I'm pretty meh about cuz anti sicilians are alot of work to prepare for too.


Found a good article about time trouble btw:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/t...-trouble-blues


Main reasons for time trouble

1. lack of pattern recognition

2. lack of opening understanding



pretty revelant to my blitz imo

I didn't realize chess.com blitz and lichess.org blitz ratings were fairly similar. For some reason I thought they were hundreds apart (lichess being much higher).

tbh i dont play enough lichess cuz i hate the set up and my ping is pretty bad on it too I dc too much hence why I mostly play chess.com

I'm sure I could get it much higher on lichess. I do feel the lichess players in the same rating range are much easier to play. IMO a 1900 bullet player on chess.com crushes a lichess 2k+ they simply play much faster and try to put the clock pressure on you and they also defend alot better I think most lichess 2ks just crumple to some h4-h5 plans esp the auto-premove castle lines.

Day 8


Gonna prob change my starting move order to 1. Nf3 to incoporate both my English Repertoire and KIA repertoire as possibilities.


Studied Fischer v Myagmarsuren 1967 in Nigel Davis's KIA DVD. It's a game I've known since I was a child, so it's somewhat nostalgic to see it again.

I also spent some time trying to memorise and replay the game from memory. I think it's good to do this. I used to do this but for games that aren't in my opening which made it abit of a waste of time. But since I'm playing KIA, this game is def too important to not know heart by heart. It only took my a minute or two but I can memorise it but I will compile a list of games, that I would have to test myself in the future to see if I remember it.


Here's the game: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044267

I think remember the move order has some significance because it tells you what thematic moves have to be played first.

In this game:

10. ... b4 is played by black before the natural looking a5 to prevent a4, at least thats why I think so, maybe it doesn't matter really

11. h4 before Bf4 seems logical

The timing of Bh3 seems important too because u have to keep alert of the f6 break


But generally the thematic moves of white to think about are:

e4-e5, Nf1-h2-g4/Nf1-e3, h4-h5-h6, a2-a3 (fischers idea but might not be the best now), Nf3-g5, Be3, Qh5, sometimes g4-g5

These are good candidates to keep at the back of your mind, and always depends on the changing pawn structure

https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1772133722

Pretty thematic opposite side castling play. Sac wasn't sound at the end but its bullet.

I liked Bxf6, feel like it's the key motif of the game, by ruining his pawn structure it makes his pawn storm less threatening than compared to if he has g push.

Day 9

N/A

Day 10

N/A

Day 11

N/A

Day 12

N/A


Been working so couldn't find much time atm.

Meanwhile, this is a good read about time trouble:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/t...-trouble-blues



19/10 12:27AM

Day 13


Dunno how it's been so many days already, I've just been testing out some lines on chess.com but then realised I basically can't play 1 0 cuz my board is pretty stuck my computer is so old and broken.

It's so gross how I'm so unprepped in alot of the lines and it's kinda reflected in my blitz results. I'm gonna start compilng my repertoire on chessbase like I did before starting tmmr except this time hopefully better.

Day 14


Got back to above 2000 bullet :P Had to play a few hours tho. Not gonna try to get back to 2.1k cuz my computer is too laggy...




Not many good games to show, this blitz one is alright tho:

https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1774751133


I'm not very booked at the tarrasch, which hopefully by the end of this month I will be...

But this was a fianchetto vs IQP position which is very favourable for the side without the IQP.

My plan was, blockade on d4 and simplify and my play was quite instructive. I simplified down to a good vs bad bishop endgame but he ran out of time anyway.




Contacted a spanish FM, whose friend have already inputted all the opening moves in GM repertoire into a database. But they are gonna charge me quite alot for it tho, not sure about the price yet. Hopefully I can get my hands on it, so I wouldn't have to input it myself. Regardless, I will start doing that tmmr, because having repertoire holes is quite an issue.

Day 15


So the spanish FM haven't replied to me yet, I have to assume I might not get it from him and have to do the work myself, which is fair enough.

Hopefully by day 50 I will have my entire repertoire prepared so I have more than a month's time to practice it.

I'm going to start with black, against 1. e4 I basically picking Caro Khan over sicilian because the sicilian is just too well prepped by most of the locals. I will give this solid system a try and aim to study some Karpov game. Against d4, I'm likely to be going with the semi slav, tho if work load gets too much, I will dumb it down to the slav main lines which I already have experience with. As white, I will have my English and KIA lines.


So Starting with the Caro, we begin with the classical system which will be played very often.

I compared the GM Repertoire to Bologan's chessbase series and I have to say, the GM Rep was more detailed and explored the branch lines stemming from the main line: 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. f4 Qa5 12. Bd2.



















Here Bologan offers the suggestion of 12. ... Qc7 while Schandorff chose 12. ... Bb4 I will give both a look before making my decision about which one to go with. While Schandorff's analysis goes more into detail, Bologan does explain the ideas pretty well and Qc7 seems more natural.



Instructive opposite side castling hack: https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1775571027

Transposing into some opposite side castling line in the QGD is prob my best way to deal with players who play 1. ... e6 against my Engish.

Day 16


After losing like near half my bankroll from poker, I carried my sleepless self to townhall to play a few of the more exciting blitz games I've played in recent memory.



These games were inputted from memory, so might not be perfect, I chose the two best ones


http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=108445


http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=108447



These were 5 0 games. I managed to get exciting king hacks and totally crushing positions, but lost them on time despite being completely winning (was moves from mating them basically, hope you enjoyed the two miniatures





I also talked with a strong player about ultilising opposite side castling positions to turn the game into a gambling and increase chances of beating a higher rated player and gained some interesting insight. A local GM we know recently drew with Carlsen in the Olympiad playing an opposite side position and at one point he was better too, here is the game...


http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1831469

This Olympiad game is so famous that Mato Jelic has made its videoanalysis for fish like me

It's a pity that David chickened out and didn't use the +EV endgame gamble opportunity (21. Bxh7+ after 20... Bg5, instead of the lol perpetual).

No endgame against Carlsen is +EV lol. He beats 2700s from worse positions. Middlegame tactics fest was Smerdon's best chances. He did well to score the 1/2 point, especially since scoring point for the team is more important than personal glory.

Day 17

Was out today, but did find some time for blitz at an internet cafe.

Gonna be compiling opening lines into my database, with a tournament being a week away...