I posted there a *ton* many, many years ago but much less after black friday and then not at all.

Oh wow, congrats on being able to "well kind of" play full time . It really seems like a very tough gig the last 10 years or so.

Amateur to IM? Or are you talking about a player reaching IM as an adult? In that case, probably Erik Kislik?

Yes, yes this. I started playing chess again when my wife was pregnant with our first daughter. She's now 4.5 and we have a 1.25 year old. I was still managing up until the second kid and since then it is significantly harder to actually focus. I think my life fatigue finally just reached a high enough point where it's hard to spare any for chess even if I make time.

YouKnowWho (Tautvydas)? He is awesome although doesn't post too much any longer. He coached me 3 years ago for a while and in many ways he is still the best coach I tried.

Although, it turns out I really don't need a coach the way some or many people probably do. It's more like I want a trainer or even just training partner to help keep things fun and talk chess with.

Well, fundamentally I need time to play and study and the WIM to do it after handling the rest of my life .

Two of my former students sriking a friendship. Awwwwwwwwww.

I still lurk here everyday. Kinda miss coaching, have to say... Glad to see you guys are still going at it!

P.S. buffy, I am still an FM, not an IM... very close, and hopefully one day will get there

I believe the guy who became a IM (actually GM in the end) was Jonathan Hawkins.

I googled him and seems he became a GM at 31. In his twenties he was just a strong club player. Devoted tons of study to endgame and became a IM. It seems from Google he also won the British chess championship (twice shared it once) and hit GM.
Apparently his endgame book is very good and focuses mainly on plans etc and how to transfer endgame theory knowledge to practical play.
I don't have it myself but have a similar plan kind of (not to hit IM or GM) but focus on endgame. In fact weirdly I have fallen in love with endgames having hated them when I played regularly in my 20's.

Anyway perhaps worth checking out his book its called amateur to IM I think.

2p2 is all about <3 and togetherness! lol

Any chances you will start coaching again in the next few years or are you still up to your eyeballs in kids and work?

Yes, you are about as close as can be. Please do not let it get completely away from you .

Yes. I have his book but only read the first chapter a few years ago. It's highly recommended by Jonathan Bartholomew (and others I'm sure).

The more I "learn" about improvement and especially adult improvement, the more I realize that it really is all about consistency and working on a part of the game you actually like. Tactics training whether you like it or not is probably important but calculation should be trained since what you're studying you should really enjoy and be looking at deeply already.

It seems if you don't want to be some openings expert, that's fine. And if you don't want to be some endgame expert, that's also fine. You may need to do some relatively minor work in those areas at our level but those holes probably won't be too big until a pretty high level.

What you can't really just get by on too long is superficially doing chess - that will work for quite a while if you love tactics and play a lot but at some point you need to be going deeper in some of your study/playing to improve.

Inspired by Buffyslayer (and perhaps to give him added motivation too?) I will start blogging again.

Here is my current, tentative, plan. Of course, I have to be using some kind of tracking spreadsheet. Probably because I hate myself.

I'm going off of a modified version of the "expert" study plan from ChessGoals: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=902616687.

It is way simpler and less work than the spreadsheet I had created and was using. Also, at least for now, the every other week change in focus seems exciting.

5 hours/week

Week A:
50% play rapid games online
20% analyze those games
30% openings

Week B:
60% play blitz
10% analyze those games
30% openings

I plan to reduce the openings % after fully learning the QuickStarter versions of the chessable opening repertoires I have and once/if I increase my weekly time commitment.

While this weekly split seems exciting, I may have to completely abandon blitz or something. I seem to be unable to do it in moderation and don't seem capable of reviewing my games afterwards. And after the first .5-1 hour of playing it I am more on some form of slight tilt than continuing to enjoy it (as all the other things I'm not getting done pile up in the back of my mind).

Ideally, I'd do some simple tactics every day and 1 calculation problem. However, in the past when I've tried this I ended up feeling burnt out and it all felt like work.

Ok, time for a monthly update - which I forgot but then saw Buffyslayer do it!

So, I tracked 37 hours of chess play/study this month:
17.5 hours 15+10 games
5.5 hours 3+2 games
4 hours tactics (puzzle rush survival and 5m)
1.5 hours analyzing my games (lol)
8.5 hours openings

I also read The Anand Files (I did not go through many ancillary games/sideline variations in detail) and watched maybe 1 hour of opening repertoire video. I basically abandoned reading manga before bed and now plan to read chess books. Not sure what to read next. I know, I will create a poll and see if anyone looks at it!

Hi Yugo,

We are of similar playing strength and share an interest in HU, I played semi-profesionally a long time ago, 50´s, 100´s and 200´s until the games dried up. Maybe we can play some games on Lichess, my blitz rating hovers between 2000-2100 there. Besides, I´m a Fide Instructor and might have some ideas about improvement. Cheers.

I'm definitely interested but it seems I cannot send you a private message. Can you post your Skype or send me a message on chess.com or something (ptSmooth on chess.com)?

Have never used this handle before, so no pm priviliges yet, will post some random stuf today and tomorrow and send you a pm here.

So I have been on a chess grind, just not updating this log. I've been mainly concentrating on learning a full (and mainly new) opening repertoire since that level of ambition is about all I've been up for. The plan has been:

Black vs. d4
Budapest Gambit (learn full repertoire)
KID (learn deviations and the basics of classical and fianchetto systems)

Black vs. e4
4 Knights
Anti-Sicilians

White
Trompowsky (already "know")
Pseudo-Trompowsky
Miscellaneous 1st moves (1...d6 is the biggest issue since it seems no matter how I respond I end up needing to know a bunch of theory)

I'm through: Budapest Gambit, KID stuff, Trompowsky, and half of the Pseudo-Trompowsky. Then a couple of months on Black vs. e4 and I'll basically be "done". Wooo!

I was playing a bunch of 5+3 games but I didn't really go over them much or feel like they were even helping with my openings so I'm not playing exclusively 15+10 and many of the games end up pretty interesting so I should be able to learn from reviewing them.

Speaking of which - here is a position from a game earlier today, White to move.



What is your evaluation and what moves/plans/ideas do you have as White here? I'm curious what people think after looking for under a minute or so, this isn't supposed to be some Dvoretsky 30+ minutes analysis study.

Black seems better, swapping the a-pawn for the e-pawn looks dangerous for the black double passer but your King is out of play now, so my first option would probably still be Bxe4 and then a quick f4 for counterplay.

The fans need updates!

Well, in the last two weeks I've:

- Played three 15+10 games
- 60 minutes of 5m puzzle rush
- Watched 6.5 hours of video (mainly on the openings I'm learning but also a lesson on chess.com and a bit of a chess24 video looking at a few alireza firouzja games)
- 6.25 hours of chessable opening study

I'm at 3702 out of 6674 moves of my repertoire learned. That is the minimum I want to learn at least for now. But there are still some alternate lines vs. e4 I should learn, plus the KID unless I want to play the Budapest forever, and at some point I should learn white main lines vs. ...d5. But all of that would end up being more like 12,000 total moves so lol.

We took the kids out of daycare at least until January, so not too much time for anything else. Going to stick to openings + videos as the main thing I'm concentrating on. Maybe work in @saychess' blindfold exercise book into the mix for some real chess training.

At 4753 out of 6911 moves for my repertoire.

I was supposed to just skip learning anything in December but instead I went over Anti-Sicilians. Now on to 4 Knights.

Not sure I really like the pseudo-tromp "solution" to d4 d5. I may end up feeling like I want to learn all of the d4 d5 mainlines. So....yeah, but I will cross that bridge when/if I come to it.

Maybe my new goal should be to have the most chessable points across all of Kamil Plichta's courses. Although I'm afraid there are a few users who have too many points in just one of his courses for that to even be motivating.

I've started doing the 25 puzzles on chess.com I get each day with gold membership. Rating may be starting to stagnate. We'll see though.

I've bene gunning for YKW's 2850 on chess.com puzzles. Hit 2850 in puzzles on chess.com yesterday. Then found out he did some puzzles the day before and was up to 2907.

Worst day of my life (j/k).

In other news, my wife bought me a chessgoals.com premium study plan for my birthday and I started it on Monday. They have a forum on chess.com so I will be logging there. Maybe making my very inconsistent updates here if anything notable happens. But, let's face it, 2p2 is dying in general and this forum is barely operating at all.

Well, me being first to respond a week in kinda proves your point. The chess forum though, has never been one of the hotspots on 2+2. The rest of the forum is kinda doing okay I think, it´s just that there are so many alternatives compared to 15 years ago. Still gotta get some 15+10 games going. I´m up 2.5 - 0.5 in the 5 minute part of our feud, somewhat undeservedly so, yes.

I do read everything that gets posted here

But I am now pissed at the fact that you sneakily tried to overtake me on chess.com puzzles!!

But also I am very impressed about that fact

P.S. I just saw your message on chess.com, LOL! I should log on there more often as well I guess.......

Well, I think 3000+ is possible but it's a matter of how long I spend on each problem. I'm definitely taking a lot more time than you for a 2850 rating. Chess.com has that sneaky system of giving you more than 5 points if you do it quickly. So even if you are being very careful you can accidentally get one quickly and then it really makes me want to do the next few quickly to see if I can get a bunch of points (this always ends up with me losing a bunch of points of course).

For me the bigger problem is (in)ability to concentrate properly. I usually do them to pass the time when waiting for something, etc., and I just cannot manage to concentrate, the yearning for instant gratification wins and I try almost the first things that come to my mind (luckily, sometimes they are the right answer lol). 3000 is indeed possible for sure, and now that we had this conversation, I will set that as a goal and do it, maybe having a goal will make me concentrate harder

I mean, Logozar's (chessable super user and author - NM and adult learning) brother is 1600 USCF or something and is 5000+ now on chess.com puzzles. So I have a feeling that patience is the secret sauce (and being good at tactics/calculation).

3006 it is!

Now catch me

Logozar (and I assume his brother as well) is rote learning entire problem sets (chess.com, chesstempo). That's impressive in its own right of course, but nothing to aspire to imo.

Memorizing tactical problem sets may be something to aspire to if it unlocks massive pattern recognition and 400+ rating gain or something .

I'm not saying it does nothing for your chess. It certainly does. But I don't think it's the most efficient way to spend your time on chess. I mean, the guy is really young, basically a chess professional (if what he says is true and he spends upwards of 8h/d on chess), and still only an NM. But he has Super GM ratings on tactics trainers.

Granted, without Covid he might be an FM now for all I know, but you get my point I think.