Background:
My dad, uncle, two cousins and a couple of their kids all play chess so playing is somewhat of a family thing.

I really liked chess when I was a kid but got kicked out of the chess class at school when I was 6 or something for talking during "silent game time" or w/e.

Didn't play again until HS. My dad started studying a bit then and we went to the Las Vegas National Open each year. I also started a chess club my junior/senior year. Everyone was awful (I maybe lost 1 blitz game?). The only match I brokered vs. a local public HS we won but I lost my game (I missed a mate in 1 with an easy win, so embarrassing).

In college I played much more sporadically but my senior year when I was club president we won the Midwest amateur team tournament by running super hot (board 1, 3 and me on 4 didn't lose a game, board 2 didn't win a game but who cared, lol) and then lost in the semis months later to a team from Caltech (it was literally scheduled during our finals).

My rating peak was 1801 in 2004 right before I basically quit and started playing poker instead.

I didn't play again until 2010, where I played for a couple months and in the National Open with my family.

Current Status
Haven't played at all since 2010 seriously or casually. Barely played since ~2005. USCF rating is 1778. I am 34.

I'm planning to play in the Las Vegas National Open this year which takes place in June mainly because lots of my family will be there. So, I'd like to use that as a focal point for getting back into chess.

Ideally I don't repeat 2010 where I just play for a couple months then quit again for 5 years. Having a log in Health & Fitness has helped me stick to lifting so I'm hoping this log can help me stick to chess!

Goals:
Short-term: Prepare for the National Open which is ~3 months from now. Not sure I should have a performance goal there. It should probably be "have fun." But having the most fun for me often means grinding smallish advantages then offering a draw (ugh) then watching other people play.

Long-term: Some sort of ratings goal? I honestly don't know what other kind of long-term goal to have tbh. I guess 2000+ USCF?

Approach
Right now it will be focused on the short-term until after June:

1) Refamiliarize myself with my past opening repertoire. I want a workable system for June and can re-evaluate afterwards if I need to.

- White: Colle-Zukertort
- Black vs. e4: Accelerated Dragon
- Black vs. d4: King's Indian Defense or Modern Benoni. Probably should just stick to KID which is what I actually used to play but never learned properly.

2) Play some games.

- Blitz to get in opening reps (although iirc I always saw different OTB responses than I experienced in online blitz)
- Longer format games online and possibly OTB at some point.

3) Tactics. One thing I have done the past year is done some chesstempo tactics stuff. My rating is ~1900–1925 the last few weeks fwiw.

4) Pick a middlegame or endgame book to study from. I feel I should choose between these for the short-term and not try to do both. Here are books I own from which to possibly focus (you can see most are from ~2004/2005 right before I quit, lololol):

Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy (John Watson)
Chess Strategy in Action (John Watson)
Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual (Dvoretsky)
Victor Bologan: Selected games 1985–2004 (Victor Bologan)

The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played (Irving Chernev)
The Art of Attack in Chess (Vladimir Vukovic)

I thought I had a book on the Benoni (Watson) and Modern Chess Strategy (Pachman) but maybe they are at my parent's house.

Psychology
This could also be titled "How to make sure I have fun." Also probably the most important part of this entire log.

Historically I definitely like chess, often I love chess. Given my background, though, it seems I may simply love seeing my rating go up.

As soon as it got more difficult, playing in rated tournaments became a lot less "fun." I've also always had a bad habit of offering premature draws even though endgames used to be my strength. This often would happen later in multi-day tournaments so I'm sure is partially a stamina thing (I very rarely had quick wins or losses).

Playing rated tournaments or any rated games imo is similar to taking the SAT or midterm/final, it takes a lot out of the player. This is the largest reason I don't really play chess. It's tough pill to swallow after a stressful day of work or to dedicate a normally relaxing weekend on long, grueling games.

I don't really know what to do about this but to "push through it" lol. But it seems I will just quit again if I try that.

Initial questions
1) What is a reasonable amount of time to schedule each week considering I'm going from basically zero chess to some amount of chess? Maybe three hour long sessions a week?

2) How should I split up my time overall? Perhaps 15% tactics, 15% openings, 25% playing, 25% middlegame or endgame studying?

3) Any psychological tips? I am pretty sure my own hangups are extremely common, .

4) Should I get a coach? I always wanted one when I was younger but my parents and I couldn't ever really find one. I like the idea of John Bartholomew via chess.com b/c he also lives locally. Also when he was younger Sean Nagle had to step in for him at the Chess Renaissance festival b/c I was grinding him down, . I have no clue how much coaches do or should cost.

Cliffs
USCF "B" player. Wants to live the dream of being an expert. Played barely any chess in the last 10 years. Is he up to the challenge?

3/15 log

- 27 chesstempo.com standard problems. Didn't do well and rating went down ~30pts or so, wasn't very sharp yesterday or patient.

- Spent way too long trying to see if there are any new tools for going over Colle - Zukertort then finally realized the entire point of playing that opening is so I don't have to spend hours and hours trying to keep up-to-date or w/e.

Going to just review move orders from the surely outdated Colle book I have but mainly go through some Yusupov games with aid of a chess engine. Annotations would obv be better but my extensive/waste of time search yesterday indicated to me that I'm not sure getting any additional materials will be worthwhile at this point.

3/16 log

- 17 chesstempo.com standard problems so far. Seeing things much sharper. I'm spending too much time on this, though. Probably fine if it's slow at work and I have a few minutes here and there but I can see myself getting addicted and only doing this, lol.

- I also emailed a coach, IM John Bartholomew, on chess.com but who also lives locally to me to see about rates. I noticed TexAge has a couple of games going on with him right now on chess.com so not sure how they know each other but I should probably pm TexAge about that at some point.

It is the good ole' University of Texas at Dallas - Dallas Chess Club connection

Props for having a realistic goal and a plan to achieve it. I also want to play more live tournament chess, but it's hard to commit to a weekend of 3 90 30 games each day in a two day period.

For pattern recognition -- i.e., pure tactics practice -- solve easy problems quickly. Your current regimen has a big slant towards calculation, which is related, of course, but not quite the same.

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual will be hard as **** if you want to learn from it properly. I'd consider it better to start with the intermediate part of Silman's Complete Endgame Course, maybe at the 1400 section (reprising the fundamentals is always great).

Stay away from the Watson middlegame books for now. Afaik, his material builds off of (directly opposes, at times) 1400- to 2000-level concepts, so you'll want to understand them very well first. How To Reassess Your Chess is a good all-purpose book, as long as you don't carry Silman's wordiness over to your thought proces. Chess thinking in-game shouldn't be literary or narrative in nature, imo; that's a luxury of post-game retrospection. For the fundamentals, Seirawan's Winning Chess Strategy is great -- and it also covers concepts on pawn play that are relevant at the 1800 level and above.

I don't have any opening advice, but why those openings? The KID has an insane theory workload, but the Colle-Zukertort is a system; the KID is ultra-sharp and aggressive, but the Accelerated Dragon often commits to a passive defense of the Maroczy Bind. So I'm wondering what the organizing principle is.

Ahhhh, that would make sense.

. If lifting for the last few years has taught me anything it's that having realistic/sustainable goals is a lot better than random goals that seem doable but only if you run good.

Would chesstempo's blitz problems be more like "pure" tactics training then? Past a certain relatively beginner level, aren't all tactics calculations anyway? Or you mean just getting better at flawlessly not missing simple tactics vs. calculating problems?

I'm somewhat aware of how high level that endgame book is. I'm not sure working it into my short-term goals makes sense but I think it could be really good long-term to go through it as long as it doesn't take away from more "bang for the buck" study.

I might have a simpler endgame book/primer, I don't remember. If I do I will go through that for short-term.

That was the reason I got them. They definitely will be higher level than other books but I probably have a decent grasp on 1400-2000 concepts from a middlegame POV. I am saying "decent" not expert btw.

I went through that in HS or something. Or at least most of it. It's helpful although I completely agree with what you're saying in terms of his methodology carrying over to in-game planning.

At one point I also spend a decent amount of time with that Pachman book. i think my parents have it or I'd maybe go back to it, I think it's just a higher quality of analysis than Silman's book, tbh. Silman in some ways is a "pseudo IM" and his stuff always struck me as not terribly dynamic-slanted plus tailored more for beginners or intermediate players who are intermediate by strength of tactics/calculation vs. sound strategy.

Having said all that I remember some moment in HS when I got him to sign one of my books at a tournament and felt semi-"starstruck". Although he wasn't too friendly, I do at least remember it, lol.

I don't have this book but could certainly go into it.

I never developed or spent a lot of time on some sort of coached approach to openings.

I play the Colle b/c George Koltanowski was close friends with my family. Also, it is obv easy for a beginner to learn. I think what this opening does bring to the table (gets you into the middlegame and/or endgame with sound structures and is hard to mess up) tend to be how I play chess anyway. Although it could be I developed in that manner b/c I play this opening, I don't know.

I play KID for absolutely no good reason and don't play it terribly well. I literally play it simply b/c at some random point when I was younger I wanted to just avoid d4-d5 theory lines which people seemed to know better than I did. I don't remember falling into ultra-sharp stuff in the KID so I assume I choose more boring lines. Iirc, I'd say I typically come out of that opening worse off but there's very rarely any disaster.

The Accelerated Dragon was chosen b/c I wanted to avoid e4-e5 lines that, again, people seemed to know and it seemed like one of the less sharp Sicilian defenses. I don't think I've actually had to play it vs. the Maroczy Bind very frequently tbh. I think most people who play chess at an under 2200 level probably don't really handle the Maroczy Bind properly anyway as White anyway. My memory of it is that it requires a sense of patience, build-up, and proper timing to be fully annoying to Black.

I am supposed to know the Benoni but only studied/played it in blitz b4 quitting so certainly don't feel comfortable playing that OTB in a tournament game.

If I had to describe my style of play I'd say it's prophylactic and "passive." I actively try to improve my position but I tend to avoid adding complexity to positions unless I feel it's clearly in my favor. I tend to grind small advantages while avoiding big problems and try to capitalize on mistakes as I go along.

My strengths in the past have been knowing the openings I do play well enough to not lose games during the opening, and setting up things in the middlegame for an advantageous endgame. Before I even studied endgames much I think I had a bit of a natural ability in that area vs. others. But who knows, I'm just some random fish "B" player who basically hasn't played in 10 years.

One thing to note is that I've always had a history of offering early draws in almost any position where I have a slight advantage. E.g. positions that will take a long time to convert but will be hard to convert but also hard to lose. Opponents either accept this b/c no one wants to play a long drawn out game where they have to work really hard to keep the draw. Or, if they turn it down (this is how I rationalized doing it), there is even more psychological pressure on them to convert, knowing all the pain could have been over previously. That is one reason I probably quit, playing long OTB games felt grueling and I figured if I was going to just spend 3.5 hours to "give up" and offer a draw I might as well not play OTB. The main reason, though, is I started playing poker and never really got back to chess.

if you're looking for a coach, i'm in the business. my rate is high, but hey, if you want quality, you gotta pay for quality. it looks like you qualify for the senior discount though.

my mommy says it's bedtime. we can talk numbers later.

3/17 log

14 standard problems on chesstempo. 8/14, lost a few rating points. I was too stressed after work to even lift and didn't really feel up to tackling something requiring more initiative than firing up chesstempo.

I need to set some sort of goal this week or for next week if all I do is continue to chesstempo. Maybe go through the opening repertoire I have unless Rei or Judit can convince me to abandon brushing up on those as the best short-term thing to do and learn a new opening instead.

Btw, Judit, I may very well be interested in coaching but I'm wondering logistically how you manage it. If you use Skype primarily, isn't a lot of time wasted while you walk around the keyboard typing responses? I apologize in advance if your typing speed is faster than I'm assuming but that just seems like a hurdle for covering enough material during coaching sessions.

Yeah it's closer. Here's one IM's take on it. Not sure how much is science or not ("your brain can probably take on 2-3 new patterns between sleeping"), but multiple sources seem to stress the importance of getting to the point where basic tactics are robotically easy, and I think that sounds right.

Lol, before clicking on that I wondered if it was that David Pruess. I saw that when researching tactics trainers to begin with and it's probably why I'm a bit concerned with how much time I'm spending in chesstempo so far.

I don't know David very well personally but I have a close friend who does and grew up in the same area. My impression has always been that he may get a bit tilted on issues like people not following his advice "to the letter." But whatever, I think what he's saying may hold a lot of value. He doesn't really support it directly but it seems somewhat reasonable and he's obviously a very strong player.

I don't think I'd want to be quite as efficient as he recommends simply because I wouldn't enjoy the exercise as much, it's probably worth it to spend 30 minutes instead and:

a) Enjoy the challenge of really trying to solve a tricky problem I don't see right away.

b) Get more practice as visualization/calculation

c) Reinforce the new pattern.

I think I should just go with a cutoff point. Like, after I either take longer than 2 minutes or fail 3 problems I have to quit for the day since that means I will have seen at least 3 new patterns.

Yugo, coaching is usually done via Skype call, not typing (video is optional). Then coach either uses screen share option, or you both use one of the live chess interfaces, like chess.com, Playchess, ICC or even FICS. The entire logistics is worked out at this point and it's actually pretty easy

YKW — I was trying to reply to Judit, specifically, in a way that would build upon her gracious potential offer.

The Yugoslavian, not sure if you know this, but YKW is a pretty dang salty chess coach

Wait, salty is not a good thing as far as I know?! How dare you!

Hahaha, salty is a good thing, you salty MFer

Salty can be good or bad, obv being used as good here. Also good to see Tex is still on the loose after being banned.

YKW — Do you actually coach and if so do you take students and if so what should I take a look at to find out about your style of coaching? Feel free to PM if you prefer or whatever. It looks like Judit Bowlgar is probably out of my class (pay grade), . She wants solid gold mice as payment which sounded fine until I looked up what they cost on ebay. JFC.

Tex — You seem to know Mr. Bartholomew. Is he usually quite responsive via email and/or chess.com PMs? I kind of assumed I'd have heard back by now (I contacted him Monday) with more info one way or the other.

You know, I should also probably contact my friend (board 1 on our college team) to see if he coaches. He just crossed 2400 (USCF ldo) which should be plenty strong. And he is a teacher. Although I don't think he coaches chess...hmph.

3/18 log

chesstempo: 6/7 problems. 5 took over 2 minutes (4 to 7).

Anyone have thoughts as to going over previously done chesstempo problems (like ones from the previous week) that you missed or took over 2 minutes on? I could note any where I didn't seem to pick up the pattern or some other method of reinforcement. Or does this just sound like FPS?

Tex — Scratch that, he responded, . Now to see if I can find enough change in the couch. Obv more reasonable than Judit but more than I was hoping. Yes, one can play "hope chess" in real life too, :P.

Eh, seems it is too late, but I do coach and take students You know, in case Johnny B thingy does not work out

3/19 log

chesstempo 13/23. Plenty took over 2 minutes. I think I went on a bad run and then kept going trying to get "unstuck" while on what may have been my "B" or "C" game. Lol. Well, gonna do a few today anyway to keep up the streak of every day. Going to spend some time shoring up openings and maybe playing a few blitz games this weekend.

FPS. It seems like you're using "solved in two minutes" as a proxy for "recognized the pattern", but that seems very arbitrary and unreliable. In some problems you'll be able to spot the main idea very quickly but have to do a lot of calculation to make sure everything is sound. In others, the main idea will be elusive, but once you spot it it'll be donezo. You should grade your success with a combination of spot-the-main-idea times and solve times.

What I do -- or did, when I had enough time/energy to solve exercises regularly -- is analyze what went wrong whenever: a) I failed to solve a problem; b) a problem or a part thereof took longer than it should have; c) I got the problem right but missed a key defensive resource. (I think that spotting and refuting all of the defender's important resources is somewhat more meaningful than getting the tactic "right".)

You should get rid of the two-minute catch-all and determine on your own which problems took you too long, imo.

Also, Judit types >15 wpm, fwiw. It's like Dance Dance Revolution.

3/20 log

chesstempo 4/5

The one I missed I saw the theme, just screwed up the move order of 2nd and 3rd moves. One problem took me over 4 minutes but I saw the theme fairly quickly just had to go over some harder to calculate positions in my mind (knight endgame position, which iirc are easy to miss things).

I spent some time last night researching research for openings. Possibly not as practical as actual study but I was way too tired for actual study at that point and did enjoy it quite a bit. I found a 2003 chessbase CD I have that has all Colle games up through 2003 and I figured out how to properly filter them for Zukertort. A couple days ago I tried to kinda do this with a free database but it wasn't going so well. I assume chessbase has come a long way and if I just purchase their "immense database" at some point I could do this for every opening, .

I also "obtained" a copy of Bogdanovich's Zukertort System which is endorsed by Yusupov. It is not a full system as white but if I and/or my coach decide I will continue with a flavor of Colle (which I'd like to do for at the very least sentimental reasons), this seems like an actual good chess book with real middlegame analysis and not just some quasi-superficial opening line book. I'm very excited about this book for some reason.

I took better stock of books I already own. I will shelve Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual for now and instead go back to "Mastering the Endgame" by Glenn Flear as my endgame primer.

I also found "winning with the Sicilian Defence" by Silman with is the accelerated dragon plus responses to "anti-dragon" lines. This is much less interesting from a middlegame or chess theory perspective but will help me brush up practically if I face 1. e4.

I probably will just muddle through 1. d4 as black as I have always done. I realize this doesn't seem like a very good plan but I have no idea where the crappy book on KID I own is.

Well, yes, I do realize that but I also need some easy metric to review my session to "grade" it if I'm going to bother. Is what I've done above more like what you're thinking?

I definitely do this. If I miss a problem and don't easily see what went wrong I look at the comments and go over the solution and pitfalls and play through them. I don't just fire up another one. I probably can be more intentional about going over these problems since they provide the biggest learning opportunity.

I still kind of like the idea of maybe marking these and reviewing them later to see if they "stuck."

Agreed. Thanks for the help.

Well, that's pretty good. Sounds like she's also far superior to me at DDR although I don't think I'm looking for coaching in that.

3/22 log

chesstempo 8/14
- missed 2 due to move order issues
- missed 2 due to not putting together the tactics involved (saw the tactics but wasn't able to connect them)
- missed 1 due to not calculating a perpetual check far enough to realize it wasn't perpetual
- missed 1 completely

Played 5 biltz 5/0 games, the first chess I've played in several years
- 3 (all as white) wins due to one or two move tactics to win significant material
- 1 loss after winning material due to taking way too much time to extract myself from some very poor opening/early middlegame choices
- 1 loss from some very poor late opening/early middlegame choices and my position just completely collapsed

Felt pretty nervous playing but felt tactically I was stronger than I expected. I was relatively lost in the opening in every game which was a pretty big problem in my two games as black and one as white, lol.

3/23 log

chesstempo 14/23. Missed quite a few. I didn't have tons of patience and tried quite a few moves without seeing actual solutions. So obv results will suffer. Very few did I not see in any way but many I saw either the foundation of the disparate tactics involved but couldn't connect them properly or I thought a certain tactic was stronger than it was (e.g. a mating net wasn't actually a mating net).

I also browsed through Bogdanovich's Zukertort System in a bit more detail. Man, I kind of can't wait to get into it but it is not any sort of complete system as white and I'm not sure careful study of it will make sense for quite a whiel once my openings overall are shored up more.

Played 2 15/10 games against a high 1500 player. I had no rating so figured it was nice of him to play me so I didn't have to play 1200 rated player(s). Hopefully he enjoyed the game. At one point he wanted me to move more quickly. However, he probably would have done better himself if he had spent more time thinking *before* he ended up down material, lol.

I also scheduled my first lesson with a coach! This is very exciting. I hope he doesn't mind me to mention it but YKW will be seeing if there's anything he can do to keep me on track and improving, .

P.S. Tex — I'm coming for your "#1 2p2 student" spot!

3/24 log

17/33. What a bloodbath. I did a bunch on my lunch break at work and missed 5 in a row at one point, going way too quickly on the first 4 and then simply not finding the 5th one.

I guess around 1800-2000 I really don't see any solutions automatically, I have to usually do a lot of calculation to check the tactics I do see and often combine multiple ideas in the correct order. Today I wasn't seeing the board very well 1 or more moves deep, like my "board periphery" was hazy. Plus, just like in poker, I tend to chase losses rather than hunker down and do my very best calculating on each.

Suffice it to say I thought my standard tactics rating would climb up to 2000 rather than steadily fall back down. But, w/e, it's not really that relevant. The practice calculating and reinforcing certain tactics is more valuable than the exact win/losses.

I also liberated a copy of chessbase 13 so I can now build a digital library of past and current games. Apparently chessbase reader cannot do this although it would have been nice instead of simply not letting me use certain functions to at least return error messages so I realized sooner I could do basic saving of games with it.