Wait, did you mean that it's Black to move now? (The screenshot shows White's last move - the start and end squares are highlighted by light-green frames.)

Seems like it should be White to move due to

Ignore that, I messed up the tempo (I can fix it later) but It's white to move).

So my coach set me a new study plan, which will highlight the flaws of my previous study routines. I failed to stay consistent with study in the past, and hopefully this one will address those flaws.


1. Don't study different topics in the same day, e.g. theoretical endgames and practical endgames require a very different mindset

2. Study selectively, you have to prioritise which topics to study first, based on their importance and frequencies in your game. A mistake many people make (and I have made) is try to go through an entire book.

3. Select a repertoire that is suited to your level and style: some openings are very complex and deep in theory, and often they need enormous preparatory work just to fight for a draw, even then modern theory have trouble evaluating them. Just because world champions plays those lines, doesn't mean that anyone should, even if they are strong amateurs/masters

My coach said that KID and Benko are probably too hard for even him to play! (and he's an IM!)

I should have a tournament repertoire to get me into type of positions I'm comfortable in, and a testing repertoire to get me into types of positions I don't yet feel comfortable in to improve my overall game



The Study Plan

The study is split into 3 parts. Aim is to stay consistent and at least study chess 2 hours a day.


I. Warmup (30 minutes to 1 hour)

I could spend time on tactics or studying some master games.

Tactics puzzle is probably better e.g. if I'm on a bus, the coach suggests chesstempo which I already used.

But when I'm alone, I can spend time doing more complicated study, such as chess compositions: endgame studies or other compositions to train my thought process and imagination


Core Study (1hour to 2 hours)

I should spend my time on a different topic every day. There are six major topics for six days of the week.

1. Theoretical Openings (variations, lines, themes, ideas using windows or books)

2. Practical Opening (master games of a specific lines, chessposition trainer, blitz practice against engine)

3. Theoretical Middlegame (Study theoretical topics such as pawn structure using International Chess School course)

4. Practical Middlegame (analyse games of old masters like capablanca and try to guess their moves, books like Understanding chess move by move by John Nunn is good as every move is annotated)

5. Theoretical Endgames, e.g. K+R v K+R+P etc. (GM Mueller's video series, Silman's or Dvoretsky's Endgames books are good)

6. Practical Endgame, planning or strategy in general, can watch some videos


On the 7th day, I can do whatever I want, whether I play a tournament or just one line


III. Cooldown (15 minutes to 30 minutes)

This should be the fun part of the day, to do what I want. Whether for me to play some blitz, watch some videos or read some chess articles.



This looks like a promising study schedule and hopefully I can stick to this.

Day 1 the new study schedule


I did around 30 minutes of chesstempo for my warmup, it seems I'm abit rusty but it's understandable.

I headed to play a blitz tournament down at the club. Came =3rd with 5/7, losing out to the two other CMs in the field.

I'm still quite clumsy in blitz, but It's not such a big deal. I did get some decent games. My last game was quite interesting starting off in an interesting line (I'm white): 1. c4 f5 2. g4!?

In time trouble, I played a move that was quite intuitive without much calculation and it's quite an interesting position. I might not be the soundest option, but definitely the most romantic.

White to play

Day 2


Headed down to another club after work.

Played two interesting blitz game and mucked around abit. Did some endgame studies and watched a friend reviewed his game.

Wasn't as productive or systematic as Day 1, but nevertheless got some chess done.

Day 3

Did around 40 minutes of ChessTempo puzzles. Wasted my time arguing with trolls on chess.com forum. That is all.

Day 4

Did some ChessTempo puzzles. Played some short time control on chess.com, mainly 10 minute games. Want to do more, but my things need organising and tomorrow I have a big poker tournament, so I'm headed to sleep.

Need to move things in house for the long weekend and have uni assessments.

Played 4 hours of 5 0 blitz online and at a local park. zzz

Lengthy post outlining study plan, followed by immediately not following study plan. Good to see nothing has changed in this thread.

How dare you speak to a CM in that tone.

Yea, sorry bout that. Lasted about two days. On the bright side, at least I'm spending alot of time on chess everyday. I'm playing at clubs at least four days a week, so I'll be improving no matter what. But yea 2 hours a day will be tough in the coming weeks of uni exams and job interviews. I have to self ban from 2p2 for a few weeks.

But I'll write daily logs and try to keep a positive mind for the month and dump them here at all once when I come back, k bye thanks.

Anyone one interesting in sparring feel free to contact me on chess.com: http://www.chess.com/members/view/Squishey

this post threw so much shade that it blocked out the sun!

Um, hey I'm back, I guess 2p2 unbanned me early (?!). In the middle of assessment period in uni and I'm heaps behind in everything so can't spend too long here now

But I found something interesting, http://www.chess.clinic/assessment.html

I think it will be useful in assessing my weaknesses and strength and know which area to focus on.

My opening repertoire is also kind of weird right now, with Marin's conservative English lines as white and some very dynamic but very sharp Semi Slav and Sicilian Rauzer lines as black. I think this is something I have to sort out, have an overall repertoire that suit my style. Will discuss with mentor about this after my uni exams. I've been with experimenting some the side lines in slav structures for both white and black with a sparring partner and found a few rather interesting ideas (that I'll post about soon).

As far as I see, it's just one coach (IM Javier Gil) who has presented his banal services in a fancy 'psychotherapeutic' fashion.

Hmmm... Interesting. He lived in Sydney here and I heard decent reviews from friends about him. You could be right tho. Doesn't hurt to see for myself tho.

OK done with most of my exams (one left on the 17th), so far I've mostly been playing a ton of bullet on lichess and also got into some horde chess (a very interesting variant, in which I'm already top 100 on the site after only a few days of playing #lol).

I'm grinding alot of poker this month, but still looking to put in some "volume" for my chess.

Will revert to that study plan I had (2hrs a day), hopefully I sticked to it this time. 2 hours a day excluding my chess club ventures or online playing ofc. Not sure where to start tmmr (about to go to sleep), maybe I'll focus on some endgames in Dvoretsky's books

Also kinda been neglecting my students haven't been getting back to them (lol fail coach). Also neglecting my ICCF games and in danger of getting timed out.

kk, time to sleep but gogogo

lol

The top 100 out of <1500 active players? That corresponds to a 1900+ rating, an impressive result.

Lol coon74, I'm not even close to 1900 Horde. When I said top 100, I was refering to the monthly rankings. As soon as you are inactive, you drop out of the leaderboard rankings. Top 100 in the rankings get a trophy on their wall, but trophy will disappear if you are inactive for 2 weeks or dropped below 100th place. I recently just dropped out of top 100 in Horde , but in all honesty I'm still a novice at the game. Also It's very hard to get a Horde game, I had to wait for minutes before getting one usually...





As for bullet I'm probably lower than I should be atm, mainly because I go on bullet binges when I'm tired and don't take it really seriously and lose hundreds of points. But if I just play a few 1 minute games at peak concentration a day, I can probably get it much higher, and near Kingcrusher's even.

So just managed to get my bullet rating over 2100 on lichess, it's not been that difficult and I've been winning games quite easily, maybe I'll be able to crack 2200 bullet. I've definitely been able to see interesting patterns and tactics quickly so I guess that's a good thing. I still have one uni exam tho, so I'll have to study for that...

Haha, tell that to MS-HS HU cash regs.

Got my Horde rating back up a bit. But lost all my bullet rating gains in a mere hour, so back down to 2002. I won't play a SINGLE bullet until the 17th when my exam is over (made a promise to myself). And I won't start doing twitch streams until I get my bullet back to 2100...

Self banning myself from 2p2 until next week, k bye.

Got my bullet back to 2100 on friday and making my way up on horde chess, almost got back to top 100 and a trophy avatar. I might actually start studying abit of horde, but not sure if there are alot of resources.



It kinda tough to put time on chess atm but I'll try. Having quite a big week financially in poker and I might have to invest some time there.