Tis the end of 2012 already and as New Year's approaches, I feel it is appropriate to reflect upon goals we set earlier in the year and introduce goals for the new year!

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/14...hread-1138951/

Here were my goals for a shortened 2012.

2012:
- 1800 USCF by end of year (fail! 1649)

- Finish at least 2 books (Fail! Read 1 book and parts of two others)

- Place in the top three of any section in any OTB tournament (Fail! Best was a tie for 4th as I didn't play in any other tournaments since late july, but did have a T3 in an online blitz tournament FWIW)

- Have a winning record for the year (Push! Was 7-7-4 in OTB tournaments this year)

Disappointing 3/4 of a year. After the summer I had school, work, and was gathering things together for attending a new school come spring semester so OTB chess and chess studying really had to be put on the backburner. And I was also saving money up to attend this new college so OTB tournaments would be a waste of money. I felt like toward the end, I was playing a lot better than my first OTB tournament and have reached ~1700 at least by the end of the year. Oh well.

Now the sad and ironic news: I'm not attending said new college because I would like to stay in my city and go to my city's college and save roughly $11k a year in student loans. Plus, I got it good at my rinky dink part time job. But it's too late to apply there for Spring Semester and I don't want to rack up $7k in loans for one semester. So I just have work for the next 5 months, which means I can actually put more time to chess.

Therefore, my 2013 goals:

- Try to study chess at least 1 hour a day on days I work and at least 2 hours a day on days I have no work. Ideally, close to 14 hours a week

- Read and finish Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, The HTRYC workbook and either My System or Think Like a Grandmaster

- Play in at least one OTB tournament a month

- Ideally, I'd love a USCF rating of 2000 by the end of the year. Realistically, I am going to set a goal of 1849.

- Play at least 4 standard (G/15 or higher) online games a week

- Have one solid defense for both e4 and d4 as black and learn opening theory better as white

Good luck to all!

Thanks for remembering to start this thread. It's always good (and depressing ) to reflect back on the prior year.

2012 Review
1) Well, my first goal for the year was to improve my visualization and calculation. This is tough to quantify, but I feel like this year was successful in that regard. I worked hard at considering more candidate moves for both sides, not shying away from tactical play when called for, and being more concrete in my calculation.

2) Second goal was to play in two major tournaments for the year, such as the National Open in Las Vegas or the World Open in Philadelphia. Well, I didn't meet this goal, I played in zero. My wife was in a wedding during the weekend of the National Open (argh, still bitter) and I just didn't get around to playing in other events. I did play in plenty of local events, though.

3) Rating goal for 2012: 2200. I didn't get close to that, highest achieved was 1988. I started the year at 1904, so really only gained 84 points for the year (at most, my current rating is 1976, so you could say 72 points, really). To be honest, I am pretty frustrated at myself for this one. I worked harder this year than I ever have before. I posted a graph below of my rating by event, and as you can see starting in about March of 2012, I've been at a rating plateau of about 1970-1980 or so. The rating bounces around above and below slightly, but always comes back to around that range. I don't know the cause for it either. I've been working hard, and actually playing better, but the results still aren't there. Nothing I can do besides keep studying and playing, but it's discouraging to put in the time and effort and not see measurable results.



2013 Goals
1) Play good moves in critical situations. This may seem obvious, but it's the lagging part of my game right now. I've noticed in my games, and been told by stronger players, that my execution of a plan is poor. I usually have the correct strategic idea of what needs to be accomplished in a given position, but carrying it out is another matter. I'll either overlook a tactic, overlook an opponent's reply, or just not find the best move for myself. The moves I'm not finding really aren't super difficult that are beyond my ability to find/understand, I'm just not playing them at the board. I have to get better at looking at all moves and ideas before playing something.

2) Play in at least two major tournaments. I didn't accomplish this last year, so it's back on the list this year.

3) Rating goal of 2200. Same as earlier. I didn't accomplish this last year, so here it is again. I really don't think this is too out of the question, either. It should be fully possible if I work and focus hard enough. I've accumulated quite a bit of experience and knowledge during this 7-8 month rating plateau, and I'm hoping a tipping point comes soon and that translates into a rating gain.

4) Have fun. This sounds dumb, but too often this year I've gotten hung up on my rating not going up and it has taken away from my enjoyment of the game. At the end of the day, chess is a hobby and it should be fun, that's why it's a hobby.

Good luck to everyone.

I'll drink to that!

Best way of improving your rating is not to worry about improving your rating IMO

2012: rejoin the chess world and rekindle my chess game. I think I've succeeded in this even though the volume isn't there yet but I honestly am thinking about chess all the time these days now and I like it.

2013:

play a minimum of 25 5-minute games per week online, if nothing else to keep the repetitions and mind on the game and to stay sharp.

get through an online segment/set of teaching tutorials on icc once every month. this can be a set of opening preparation videos, it can be gm game reviews, it can be endgame theory, it can be a set of how-to-mate-with-XXX type instructional pieces, whatever. one full segment, however long it is, per month.

play in four online gm simuls. i think these are great opportunities to take advantage of online, will allow me to play a long time control game against a strong opponent.

renew my otb membership.

play in 4 otb events in 2013. doesn't matter the size, just play in at least four otb rated events throughout the course of the year.

try to learn a new opening per month, and possibly focus on it exclusively. january is going to be the sicilian nimzovich.


here's to a great 2013!

Not sure if I posted mine last year, but they were:

1. Play more practical chess: when one can win the game with simple chess, without thinking hard, do so; against inferior opponents, help them to make errors; win winning games, don't over-press in equal positions. And patience: "Why hurry? The fruit will ripen of its own accord."
Mixed success--have improved at playing straightforward chess, still lose games due to overpressing in obviously drawn positions against weaker opponents (see also: draws).

2. Improve intuition for the attack: I tend to have relatively poor judgment about when speculative attacks will succeed. Probably I should just stop (see goal #1) but in the long term, gaining that intuition is an important developmental need.
Hmm. I guess I just stopped.

3. Clock management: Originally, I had this goal as "become faster" but avoiding time pressure is a better solution than improving my blitz play, and I have missed some half-points due to time pressure.
I like to think this improved; it's hard to say. If I thought I could play equally good chess faster in the opening/middlegame, I would. I have decided not to take G30 seriously; if I play, I expect to lose rating points. And I do.

I also need a new defense to e4 (time to retire the Sicilian Dragon), but that's not really a goal. And maybe I should increase my tolerance for draws. Right now, I never offer and rarely accept, although I don't really see this changing much. I enjoy the game; if there's chess left on the board, why not continue playing? Still, in tournament play, there's some scope for being a little more risk averse/saving energy/etc.
Decreasing my "contempt" for draws would be smart; at least I didn't decline any in losing positions this year. (I consider a corollary to TexAg06's "stronger players offer draws only when losing: decline" to be "weaker players offer draws only when losing or confused: decline".)
This was an interesting exercise, but looking back, it seems too much of a guide to "old man" chess, complete with a "goal" of drawing more games and replacing the Dragon with (maybe) the Caro-Kann.
I do play the Caro-Kann, and I am a year older.

*

I did have a rating goal last year (the same as every year: +100) but now I'm treating rating is an outcome, not a goal for me. If I'm as active as I was last year, I'd hope to gain some points, but I'm still going to show up to tournaments distracted/tired etc. rather than skip them to protect my rating. It is an objective measure of progress, so it would be nice to see it go up. (The marginal gains in average and peak ratings this year aren't anything to write home about.)

Middlegame play (especially the transition to the endgame) is clearly my biggest weakness, right now; I'd like to start spending more time playing through complete games of masters. But I'll probably also start refreshing my opening with White, and in the QGD, start playing the exchange like all of the cool kids.

I suffer from this same issue. Based on some stuff you've said on other threads, we sound like very similar players. I tend to be pretty risk-averse in chess, so if I can't calculate an attack (for example) to a concretely promising position, I won't play the sac and will settle for something more solid. Virtually no "speculative attacks" can be found in my games. I've been reading through Alekhine's game collection in an attempt to try and develop a better intuition for attacking play and the initiative. Perhaps a study of Tal's games would be even better, from a speculative, risky attack standpoint.

Yeah, I think that's true.

Art of Attack in Chess by Vukovic came highly recommended (not sure if you've read it), but although I'm not going to really improve until I shift some of the time I make for chess away from playing and towards studying, I'm not sure that's really going to happen.

I haven't read it either, but like you it has been suggested to me several times. Lately I've gone away from reading material-specific books as much and have been more into analyzing entire GM games, because I found it was very tough for me to compartmentalize the material like books were doing. Studying entire games seems to work better because the certain themes can be viewed within the context of an entire game.

I used to shoot a lot of pool in my 20s, and at one point played in a club in Madison, WI owned by one of the world's best teachers. His pool theory was that players will steadily increase their skills over time but eventually will plateau. It's that time that they need something to get over the plateau to keep getting better. His answer of course was professional instruction, but we had several long conversations about this subject, and over the years I've been able to apply it to other things in life (pool, bass playing, career, poker, etc.). Might be time to re-think how you've been doing things and make a change.

Chess for me is funny. I played "seriously" in high school, but between maybe 1991 and a few months ago I probably only played about a dozen games. A friend of mine sent me a random challenge on chess.com and now I'm playing/reading/studying every day. My last official USCF rating in 1991 was 1450, but I started playing rated events without really knowing anything about the game, and had to climb up from the 800 range. At that time I felt my rating was closer to 1600. Now? who knows. If there's distractions, rating is a -3. If I'm completely focused and things just click? 2200. lol

Good thread, I can't say I have any real chess goals for 2013, but it's nice to be back in the game so to speak.

I think professional training is a useful tool to get over the hump, but that one thing that keeps us from our potential is probably different for each one of us.

I plateaued at 1050 (lol) during my late elementary/early middle school years (my first official rating was around 350 in 4th grade). A lot of studying and taking the game seriously helped, but it also helped to know that your opponent isn't going to play the best move every time. He is thinking the same thing you are, and the only thing different is that he (or she) has accomplished a little more during their chess career.

However, I just think your attacking skills is the only thing holding you back. Learn the attack and tactics and you could probably shoot to master level in a year (aimed at Tex).