Several things I want to touch on:
1) Reply to Sugar Nut - excited to have one more lurker who may participate in my log!
2) Woodpecker Method
3) Current monthly tournament
1)
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Originally Posted by Sugar Nut
I started writing my response to you, and then, for whatever reason didn't stop.
Lol, no problem, that is the best post on my blog in quite a while!
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I started playing organized OTB last October. I've been interested in chess all my life (played in a club briefly in my childhood and then had on-and-off interest phases all the way up to now (I'll be turning 40 this year)).
Ooo, I will be quite interested in your progress and techniques given that you are also firmly an "adult learning" like myself.
Also, while I'm not quoting it, very cool to hear about your recent success playing OTB.
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Still an incredible result, though, of course. My DWZ is now in the 1440s.
If that's ~1800 then, yes, you're playing quite well to say the least. At least in my opinion.
Some of what I'm doing for sure may be interesting and possibly helpful for you too (and vice versa).
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The guys I played with last season were nice enough dudes. They won't become my BFFs or anything, but there was good comradery. For away matches we usually meet at our club venue, and drive to the matches together in one car. During the ways there and back we discuss anything and everything chess related, and obviously also our games. Most of us are reasonably able to visualize and "talk in notation" as it were, to at least give the others a general idea of what's going on, so the talks on the way back are mostly focused on our games, and they are very interesting. I'm quite happy with that. It certainly felt like a team, but I obviously only have one season's worth of experience, and I'm sure other teams are different
That's much better than the team I'm on. Although we don't need to travel for matches, just drive (~25 minutes for me) to a place where everyone in the league plays once a month. I'd just show up (often barely on time), play my game, then leave to go home and sleep. Or, if my game was last (often it was) chat for ~2 minutes with my teammates about basically nothing and then leave.
I would have loved to have some sessions between monthly matches to go over our games or whatever but we never did anything like that.
2)
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For whatever reason I am not ordering WoodPecker Method but instead will likely bootleg some version and then maybe buy it. That seems really lame and bad. It's tough, with so many books I already have (and the two Gelfand books I just bought) I have a hard time not feeling guilty buying more. However, I seem to feel less guilty bootlegging one and skimming it to just get an idea of where it should go on my list of books to actually buy/work through.
Also, I'm really not sure if the physical woodpecker method is the way to go or the forward chess version. If training in the forward chess app works/makes sense it seems that version would be waaaay better in terms of efficiency. However, I do have a feeling part of the advice is to set up all positions on a board.
Ok, turns out I am ordering WoodPecker Method. Went for the hardcover since I've enjoyed having the Gelfand books in my hands so much (and there is no paperback). Not sure if I'll regret the actual book vs. forward chess app but:
a) I don't have a tablet and using the app on a phone is crowded to say the least
b) I have a feeling I won't take things as seriously or focus as much as I should trying to do it on my phone. I already am finding that when I do this on chessable on my phone I often get lazy or distracted
c) I never actually bought Pump Up Your Rating yet read a decent amount of it. I'm trying to get better at not just doing bootlegged stuff and simply buying things. This being said, since I've bought it, I think I'd be okay bootlegging a PDF version of woodpecker method if I did ever want to continue on my phone or something in situations where I don't have the book available. But I doubt this will be necessary.
3) I drew my first game this month - botching a significant advantage against an 1800 opponent. As my coach said after looking at the game "it seems you played fine except for these 2 moves where you played as if it were a blitz game." I was lucky to draw.
Then I won against the 2000 NM who is at his rating floor. I think this is 4/4 against him. I did have a slightly similar moment to the first game of the month where I played a move too quickly and missed a tricky response of his. However, rather than blitzing yet another move I took my time and played well afterwards.
Then I drew last week against the 2200 FM at his rating floor. But he is much stronger than the 2000 NM. I lost last time after having a significant advantage then blowing it into a draw, and then blundering a mate in 2 to lose. I felt I played consistent this game and was happy with it.
However, even more exciting is that I learned after the game he was Boris Gelfand's 1st coach when he was 6-12 or so. Wow, I had no idea. While not mentioned by name in the Gelfand book I've been reading, he was actually mentioned in a story at the beginning of the book. He also coached all of MN's strongest homegrown players. I thought he was just an engineer or something from Russia who happened to be an FM. No, dude *is* chess culture. Will be fun to see if I can ask about more stories from him in the future.
Tomorrow I'm scheduled to play the top player (~2240), with White. However, I'm sick...again. I don't feel that bad but have been quite tired the last couple of days and am not sure if I should play or not. On the one hand I want to play but on the other, I do not want staying up all night playing chess to make me get worse and I'm not sure how well I'll be able to concentrate. I for sure think I can concentrate better than last month when I struggled at the National Open, but going into a 7pm game when you're already feeling tired and somewhat sick doesn't seem ideal.
Anyway....I guess I'll just decided tomorrow, lol.