So, it's been a long time since I've updated this blog and for good reason. Shortly after my last post work became insanely busy and I was unable to play or study at all. I was out of town a lot, and, for my work, that means insanely long hours. The only chess I really played was blitz / bullet, and if anything, these harm my game, but they also help me stop thinking about the days events.
Regardless, I started getting serious again in January. I stopped looking at the Yusupov books, because they weren't bringing me pleasure. I plan to return, but I think that as long I am actively studying "something", and that something brings me joy, I will make progress. I will return, but for now I am studying
Mastering Chess Strategy by
Johan Hellsten, which is supremely enjoyable. I love games and game fragments. I also enjoy working through these problems.
The first chapter is about improving the pieces and it starts with the Bishop, followed by the Knight, Rook, and Queen. I am not very far into this book as after each of the sections for each piece I move on to the exercises and there are 20 puzzles for each of the aforementioned piece improvement sections. I did not do very well on the bishop problems but did excellent on the knight problems. I think I see where the knight belongs easier as holes and blockades are much more obvious ideas. I will have to revisit the bishop section.
I have also decided to work on endgames. This is due to some recent weekly tournament games I have played where I have reached very winnable positions and have failed to convert. Not only did I fail to convert, but often manage to turn these possible wins into losses.
Finally, my study program involves tactics. I have created a custom set on chesstempo for problems rated 0-1400 and I try to solve 30 of these a day. I don't always reach this due to life, but I try.
January - 436 problems
February - 614
March - 341
The idea is from things I have read that state a plethora of easy problems helps improve pattern recognition. I am supplementing this by solving occasional standard rated problems to work on my calculation. My current rating is 1804 and my peak is 1820.
I will end this post with some lichess studies, that I will try to make public and I would love comments. There will be a number of games though as I have been putting off making this post.
I have identified a number of weaknesses that I can work on. Some are easy:
- Tactics - I am weak.
- Calculation - I am weak.
- Board vision - I don't really have this - I will elaborate later.
- Complacency - when I perceive that I am winning my calculations get foggy and I get lazy. This should be easy to correct. I just need to be diligent
- Practical Endgames - my games tend to head into these positions, and I enjoy them, but I think that I am better than I really am. This is going to be hard to correct and I'm not sure how to go about this.
- Openings - meh. I am going to continue doing what I do now. Reviewing them periodically, using correspondence games to assist in the learning, and every so often I make an attempt to learn some theory. I don't feel that I am losing due to openings though.
With respect to board vision, I don't think I have this. I have tried playing some Lichess blindfold and I can't beat anyone. Even 1100 rated players will beat me. At a certain point I totally lose track of everything. Even during calculations, I can't get very far and have to revisit the same lines often. I have an older book,
Improve Your Chess Now by Jonathan Tisdall that talks about this point. So I am also looking at this right now (I think I jump around in my studies too much) as he introduced the idea of stepping stones and blindfold practice to improve calculation. I am going to take this more seriously.
Finally, here are my recent games from 2018. I have missed a lot due to being out of town for work.
2018 Chess Games