Day 21

Been brushing up tactics abit in the last few days, but not enough, looking to go back to full grind mode from tmmr on...

Day 22

Tactics and a Yusupov chapter on 1. e4 e5

Day 23

Tactics and a Yusupov chapter on destroying the castled position

Def rushed abit so I want to spend some time maybe in the weekend to review some of the chapters again

Day 35

Sorry haven't been posting as I've had to had in some assignments for university... Not really feeling like the Yusupov is helping too much, going to read and do The Woodpecker Method by Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen to try to give my tactics abit of a boost.

I assume you'll be pirating it but I didn't realize a version was available that way yet. I really like having the book itself. I'm almost 3 weeks into the first 4 week cycle and spending all my free time on it - probably being way too ambitious but we'll see.

I bought it online...using it on the app ForwardChess

How many questions have you been able to do up to so far?
How many hours a day have you been doing it?

Ahh, I thought about getting it on ForwardChess - but I don't have a tablet and it's so tiny on a phone. The hardcover book is great, although I just ripped a page today .

I've been posting my stats in my log but as of today (I'm not going to do any more work in it):
858 problems
31.50 hours
87% (using book scoring system)

I have 4 more days to go and 126 problems left in intermediate (which is my goal). I often solve at ~12 problems per 30 minutes. However, the last few days it's been a lot slower and more like ~9 problems per 30 minutes. Doesn't seem like a huge deal but instead of taking 1.5 hours to get in the 36 I aim for it's taken me more like 2 full hours. This is not counting time spent on scoring.

In subsequent cycles I very well may go with a simpler scoring system and may not even write down my answers. I usually check solutions every 12 problems and often I can't read my solution anyway so do it by memory, which works pretty well. Although I suspect I may be cheating a bit.

Are you planning to do all the puzzles in the book? I'll join you in this adventure after when my essays are due next week...

You can see my log for updates - I finished easy + intermediate for my 1st cycle. So, no, definitely not all of them, I haven't even looked at any of the advanced problems.

Also, glad to have the company! Especially if you start when I'm in a later cycle it will hopefully inspire me to keep going even if it gets too tough.

Happy New Year guys, sorry for not updating. It’s been more than 3 months (!) since I last posted. I figure New Years is the perfect time for me to start posting again. Don’t worry, I’ve still been playing some chess. I just had a lot of exams in law degree and have been overall quite busy. I hope I’ll be more active with updating this year!



2018 in review

This year I met a good friend who is a strong master was former equal first in one of the world youths. He taught me a lot and help me realise what I’m missing in my game and I’ve been trying to work on it. Being friends with strong players is imo the singularly best way to improve in chess – because they can tell you how their thought process works and how they arrive to both strategy and practical decisions over the board. I managed to come equal first in my uni club championship in a field with a few 2k+ players which was good. I’m also in the middle of a tournament that runs over a few weeks (I’m 3/4 at the moment). I’m still have a lot to work on from analysing my games.



2019 Goals

I’m gonna try to keep this simple, short and realistic instead of ranting on about my grandiose plans, only to fall short from lack of motivation and effort.

1. Volume Goals: play a lot more OTB rated games for the experience, get a lot of tactics done

2. Study goals: read a lot of chess books and study as much as I can, even with the demands on my degree and work

3. Life Goals: going to gym and getting fit and healthy which should complement my progress

4. Eliminate distractions in my life and getting my sh*t together, be less ocd with things in general...


I want to play the zonals in feb but I can’t really afford the overseas trip so it looks unlikely I will be able to play it. I might study for some other upcoming tournaments.

Played a few OTB rated game in the last few months

Played Caro as black and I seem to be having trouble winning games with it, I'm mostly been drawing, especially against ppl up to 2100.

I'm black in both games here, and it seems I can't really drum up some good winning plans, other than staying solid and equalising then maybe outplaying them in the endgame, the positions are quite dry and hard to unbalance


https://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-gam....php?id=113698

https://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-gam....php?id=113699


Feel like I need something more dynamic as black to try to go for winning chances...

Short glance at game 1, but it feels like you play a bit too straight-forwardly sometimes. Especially if you are a (at least nominally) a stronger player, going for simplifications like 21... Rxd1 is just not going to cut it. Play something like 21... Kh7 to remove the threat and to keep the tension and see how he handles it - you will always be able to play Rxd1 when you need it. I think a position like that out of the opening as black is quite a dream come true - white really does not have anything and black is completely secure, with some possible ways to advance.

Also, i dunno maybe I am missing something concrete, but 26..Bg7 is... sado-masochistic maybe? 26... Kg7, the bishop operates along the f8-a3 (possibly most useful on c5) and black is definitely pushing in this endgame.

To summarize - don't forget your king can move too

Agree with all your points completely.

I remember during the first game knowing Rxd1 is probably not the try to win the game and that I should keep the tension. I also missed 23. ... Rxd3 which wins a pawn.

Similarly when I went 26. ... Bg7 i could feel it was quite passive, I did remember thinkings keeping the bishop on f8 is better because of its potential on that diagonal, but my paranoia took over and I decided to overprotect f6.

So I think this is definitely a mental thing, when I start to not play objective chess and play extra safe, often out of paranoia for king safety (last few games I didn't do this my king got hacked). Ultimately, it points to a lack of confidence in tactics, especially during time trouble. Hopefully, I'll get over this.

Gonna do a 10 day iron man challenge before my next tournament on the 26th.


I'm going to do 3 hours of tactics a day for the next 10 days:

1 hr of the Woodpecker Method

1 hr of chess.com tactics

30 minutes of Jacob Aargard's calculation book

30 minutes of chess.com puzzle rush


I'll try to keep up this routine and see how I go!

day 1

did 40 puzzles in one hour (easy section)

did pretty bad on tactics trainer, kept thinking I see the right answer and turn out it doesn't work, down to low 2400

puzzle rush was equally poor, could get 27 after half an hour of attempts

did the first 5 exercise of the candidate moves chapter with some difficulty, my IM friend told me its the hardest tactics book there is

GM prep? I've done a bit of that and it seems very hard. I know Aagaard probably does sometimes and lots of other strong players/coaches but thanks to Rei it bothers me when people conflate tactics and calculation.

Those problems are not tactics - tactics are involved but they really are well selected calculation problems. Most of The Woodpecker Method is tactics or "advanced" tactics where some basic calculation is required. I haven't done the advanced section but I imagine it is a bit more calculation heavy.

Which tactics trainer are you 2400+ on?

I know it's likely not helpful for us to compare to each other since there are so many factors that don't match up, but it's always interesting lol.

Yeah, you're right, I'm being lazy when I'm calling Aargards book tactics, its more calculation, long variations and deep ideas, whereas tactics is more pure patterns.

The tactics trainer I talk about is chess.com tactics trainer, but it doesn't mean I have the tactical ability of a 2400, very very far from it in fact, the rating on the site is just abit inflated.

day 2

finished off the first easy section (up to exercise number 100)

still doing bad on tactics trainer but better than yday

manage to get 28 on puzzle rush today, but I feel I'm seeing things alot faster than yday, still far from my record of 32

did some more exercise of the candidate moves chapter in the Aagaard book, but was quite tired as I did it very late

I've only done puzzle rush a few times (can only do 1/day) and I routinely get 22-25 or so. It's somewhat interesting how slow my tactics may be given how much work I've done on them.

Although I've always had a suspicion tactics are not my strongest skill, even with training.

Btw, they made puzzle rush harder at some point so if 32 is your record from very early on it may not be too reasonable to expect to beat it without a significant improvement.

I'm starting to think my calculation is quite weak too, or very limited. To make matters worse I also think my decision making has some serious errors in it as well. Lol, there are always so many things to improve!

Also, I think I made some offer a long time ago to do some sparring games online. That offer still stands. 15+10 is kind of what I've been playing online recently as far as "training" games but anything somewhat similar sounds good to me. We could even get a friendly 2p2 rivalry going!

do u have chess.com? one of the lurkers in 2p2 been sparring with me and hes been hammering me quite abit.

Yes, of course I'm on chess.com. Also lichess which is where I usually play simply because the interface is better.

day 3

did just 15 minutes of puzzle rush

did an hour of the easy section exercise in the wood pecker method

the rest I spent on chess.com tactics trainer to make up to 3 hrs of tactics

didn't feel like doing the calculation exercise on Aargards book today because I didn't feel focused

doing speelman's tactics book tmmr, gonna make a tactics checklist

day 4

did some puzzle rush

finished off the easy section of wood pecker (1-222)

did 2 chapters on speelman's tactics book

did up to exercise 30 of the aargard calculation chapter

day 5

managed to hit 2500 on tactics trainer finally

up to exercise number 275 in the wood pecker method (in the intermediate section)

managed to get to 29 on puzzle rush (I had higher but that was before they made puzzle rush harder)

Got a tournament coming up next weekend, so going full lockdown mode this week with chess, will be spending most of my time on chess to prepare for it