Yeah. Maybe. I don't think anyone really knows what the most efficient way to spend 8 hours/ day on chess is. It probably varies even for the actual prodigies who are doing it. E.g. Nihal Sarin's regimen may be much different than we think compared to Pragg's or whatever. Also, there are almost surely massive diminishing returns somewhere in that 8 hours/day. E.g. no matter what he does with hours 4-8 it won't move the needle a ton.

Also, not sure "still only an NM" really means anything. If he hasn't been able to jump to FM within some reasonable time period of tournaments...let's say 3 years of tournaments given the time he's putting in? Then I'd start saying his methods are likely inefficient or something may be quite "wrong" with what he's doing.

I definitely get your point. Perhaps I'm being a bit too charitable and you are being a bit too uncharitable. I try to take as much inspiration from guys like him as I can, though! Aren't too many adult players (or somewhat adult players) grinding away and sharing lots of info on what they're doing.

Ok, I'm going to try posting again here and in a chess.com forum and see if anyone finds it interesting .

I finally managed to finish the last Yusupov book! However, it seems I skipped the 4 opening chapters from the 2nd to last book. Lol. Almost, almost.

Now I'm ready to start a new study plan as I start playing OTB again - once a week on Thursday nights.

Here is the basis for the plan I created after reading some of "How to study chess on your own":

Goals: Minimize blunders, improve candidate moves, calculation resistance, improve prophylaxis
Duration: 2 months (3 months may be necessary?)
Available time: 1.5 hours per day

Study areas:
Openings: review condensed repertoire on Chessable
Tactics: Overcoming resistance in calculation, candidate moves, opponent’s resources
Endgames: Endgame studies
Middlegames: Structures
General Improvement: Improve thought process, focus/stamina

Key study areas: Blunders, Calculation

Study resources & methods:
Openings: Review - condensed repertoire lines

Tactics:
Watch - Chess24 calculation video
Solve - exercises from Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources
Solve - chess.com tactics
Solve blind - Visualization courses

Endgames: Solve blind - studies from Blindfold Endgame Visualization

Middlegames: Read - Chess Structures

General Improvement:
Simulation - games from Dynamic Decision Making in Chess
Light Analysis - simulated games comparing to book annotations
Deep Analysis - Analyze OTB games

God, I have so many chessbooks I'll never get through. Like, over a dozen. Maybe 20+. When I got back interested in chess again I'd just buy whatever had good reviews and read a couple but the buying was a lot easier than the studying. And I never got back into live OTB play in tourneys so that made it ez to not read most of them.

Oooo - care to list the books?

One of the biggest issues is that most of the books I have are not ones you can just read through very easily. And I really feel an urge to feel like I need to finish a book. So when I have gotten well into it and haven't finished it the whole thing nags at me over the months (years). I guess at some point I forget I was reading it at all, so there's that!

Finally!

YKW has a current (although inactive) puzzle rating of 2910.

OMG WTF.

2931

Your move!

I think my rating was already 2948 when you went to surpass me lol.

But after some puzzles today it's now 2964, anyway, so that is the new number you'll need to shoot for .

Also, thank you for becoming active so now I see myself above you in the friends list. Nice, very nice!

Inspired by YKW's less than stellar performance yesterday at puzzles, I decided to have a "quick session" today. Which turned into a complete freefall. I will be back and over 3000, though, mark my words!

Dang, and here I am happy I just got back to 2400 today.

Update: broke 2600 today! I'm coming for you!

There's like 5 dozen including several 'books of the year.' Any you're looking for? I'd happily send a couple to you esp if I've never cracked them.

Or not going to read them again, either way.

Yeah!

I'm just sitting on my gainz. May never play another puzzle on chess.com again lol.

Wow. I'm sure we have some overlap. No, there aren't specific books I'm looking for. It's more that there are simply tons of books that seem so good and it's just fun to fantasize about reading them all .

I'm sure we do, 60 may have been a bit high, I sent you photos of the spines.

Like the Dolmatov trilogy is wayyy above my ahead, I probably got *something* out of the first one but as for the rest.....woooshhh.

Motherfu.........

I am not sure what's going on, can't solve even the most basic ones

Nice meme though!

Oh no.......

Ok so I also suck at uploading pictures.

But if you just click on that, you'll get all the info you need!

I really love that meme .

Looks like the ball is back in your court btw!

Right back at you, brother.

This competition is nice, are we going to reach 4000 this way? :O

Hmmm. I gave it a try today but it did not go well. I probably should have skipped it given that I have a pretty bad stomach bug. But, ok, now I have extra good motivation to grind back up to your level!

I've gotten as high as 2674 btw, still trying to catch up with you both

That's fantastic!

I may now be closer to that number than YKW's number btw, lol.

Please do not try puzzles (if you care about rating) while you're sick .