4/8 log
-Reviewed response to Rossolimo and Grand Prix.
-about 15 mins tactics. The mobile version works super well on my phone. It only takes a bit longer in solve times and I assume a misclick is slightly more likely by not by much at all.

4/10 log

Had a lesson where I talked through my thought process as I went over a Pandolfini "test" coach had me do. I felt like I got lucky with a couple of moves and one of the moves I got no points for should have been negative points (it dropped a pawn) imo but allegedly I did a good job analyzing. It will be interesting how this affects lessons as we continue and YKW gets a better idea for my play.

- 30 mins tactics (had to make up for the previous day I missed)
- Went over my Alapin response. The game we went over was me vs. the alapin but my opponent didn't take advantage of my opening mistakes so I figured it was time to review it lol .

I really need to play some longer games but it's hard when traveling. Much easier to fit in short sessions on tactics or to go over openings. Hopefully I can carve out some time as a routine where I play longer games X times a week during specific days.

Anyone have thoughts on how long they should be? I've been instructed to do at least 15/0 games but my worry is those aren't very helpful for practical OTB play since they are so short. Heisman recommends a minimum of 30/5 and really more like 40/5 or 45/5. But that can eat up so much time it's hard to squeeze them in...

You might want to consider the studying of chess books,tactics trainers, post game analysis as a way a to build up your actual chess strength, and look at playing blitz and rapid games as a way to sharpening your competitive edge and trying out what you have learned in a pressure environment.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I have been playing some blitz periodically. That's why I'm a bit concerned with 15/0 or 15/10 type time control. It seems like a weird hybrid that more tests one's ability to adapt to a blitz environment after playing a faster than normal standard game. Which I'm sure is valuable but playing 30/5 or 45/5, if I can play enough of those games, will provide practice for this too vs. playing enough OTB tournament games to get that experience.

4/11 log

- ~15-30 mins tactics training
- Finished reviewing response to 1 e4. I definitely should have some impression of how to respond now. I think rather than going over anything more I should play blitz (or anything really) and go back to look at how I handled the opening with my book as a resource.

4/12 log

- ~15 mins tactics
- Started going over the Zukertort. I am a bit worried I may not even get to play it too often considering it may not be a good fit against a lot of black systems. But I'll won't worry too much about that. I'm really excited to go through this b/c previously I've basically played this opening without a real good idea or picture in my mind of how to execute various thematic plans (e.g. kingside attack vs. center break vs. the different methods of each).

Yeah, I'm not a fan at all of the 15/0 time control. It's like you get one decent think and then it's a blitz game. To really practice a proper thought process for tournament games, like you said, at least 45 minute/game, or maybe 30 with a decent increment.

If I just have a half hour to play, I think it's better to play a few blitz games. I like blitz for opening practice.

I think 15/10 provides most likely a couple of thinks and is somewhat helpful. But, yeah, I really need to find a way to schedule in longer games.

4/13 log
tactics: 55/57 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
1 30/5 game
12 5/0 games

4/14 log
tactics: 34/36 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
Reviewed previous days games to look at better continuations for opening lines

4/15 log
calculation: 5/11 on standard problem set

4/16 log
calculation: 5/10 on standard problem set

4/17 log
tactics: 26/26 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem

Picked up a new dog (from a rescue based in Texas who was in our area this month). Never owned a dog before. Man, it's a big transition, .

4/18 log
tactics: 35/36 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
calculation: 2/4 on standard problem set
15/10 games 2/2 - one game I saw a mate in 6 which I was very proud of. Coach demonstrated the next day that a previous move would have been much better and more decisive if my opponent played a better defense instead of walking into the mate in 6.

4/19 log
30 mins looking at demonstrative games in "master the endgame" book
tactics: 28/29 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem

4/20 log
30 mins looking at demonstrative games in "mastering the endgame" book

4/21 log
tactics: 60/61 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
calculation: 6/12 on standard problem set

4/22 log
tactics: 40/40 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
calculation: 10/19 on standard problem set

4/23 log
So far:
tactics: 11/11 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
calculation: 7/10 on standard problem set

I think 15/10 provides most likely a couple of thinks and is somewhat helpful. But, yeah, I really need to find a way to schedule in longer games.

4/23 log update

calculation: went 3/9 on more standard problems. Should have quit while I was ahead/more patient, lol.

4/24 log

15/10 game
tactics: 40/40 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
calculation: 0/1 on standard problem set

4/25 log

15/10 game. I think that's about it.

4/26 log

tactics: 100/103 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem

It really seems like I'm getting these are a very high accuracy, very quickly, even when it's not looking at the problems I've already seen.

What are you supposed to progress to after achieving 85% accuracy 15 sec/less for "bain problem's"? I'm not sure what Heisman specifically recommends. I guess it would be to up the rating range of the problems I'm doing from, say 950-1200 to something like 1100-1300. At some point, though, I'm not sure it's realistic to try and do them within 15 seconds.

Any thoughts?

I'm also thinking about joining the wed or thur "knighters" next month which would be one game/week OTB USCF rated at the local club. Time control would either be 70+30 or 100+30 depending on which night. Leaning towards 70+30 since playing 7pm – 11pm seems rough and unappetizing.

Or I can just not do that and make sure I play a 45+45 once or twice a week instead...Sounds less rough, lol.

A couple of others on here have knocked the 15/0's and 15/10's as a caught in the switches type hyrbrid, too but remember that this is (15/10) FIDE's Rapid Chess time control. Further, online, 12+3 and 15+0 are now playable as rated USCF quick chess games. Personally, I love them. I think that they are a radically different beast than the 5/0's and require you to know when to calculate and when to play on intuition. They're helping me improve quite a bit.

That said, as others have echoed, we need to be using 5/0 and 15/0 as a supplement to our classical chess. I'm not sure if you'd make out better playing several 35/5's a week or just two 45/45's but ...I know you should try to play as much as you possibly can. The guys I'm seeing make progress on ICC around me are literally on there 20 hours a day. I know not everyone can (or would want to) do this but the point is that game experience is just so crucial in today's game because everyone is using the internet to play more games than they ever could before. There are guys playing hundreds of blitz games a day and a few OTB games a week. They're obviously going to get good.

Some of the guys around me at the local club have been playing for 15 or 20 (more in some cases) years and are still rated 1500-1700 and their tactical vision is absolutely horrible compared to the 1300-1500's I play online. What do they all have in common? These guys WON'T play online because they "can't trust the internet"...whatever that means. I think the internet, sites like ChessTempo, and programs like Stockfish, are the key to guys like you and me catching up to, and surpassing, those around us who have more experience.

This isn't obvious at all. There are countless people with high-volume routines who have plateaued.

I didn't mean that progress was a guarantee I just meant that I don't see any possible way that someone playing a couple of games and week and doing a little bit of book study on the side could ever compete with them in the long run. They're simply playing games online or OTB constantly.

I've seen plenty of players (in the past) play tons and tons of chess and seemingly never get much better while others play sporadically and get better much faster. There are a lot of things involved imo. "Natural talent" I guess is what you can attribute that sort of thing to but probably also the way people are playing or studying.

Simply playing a bunch of chess for most will be helpful to some degree but they'll never get better unless they actually learn from their games.

Right now you likely still have relatively easy gains you can make in terms of calculation, tactical awareness, and simply practical experience. But those will dry up and to move them forward you'll have to challenge yourself more in those areas. Maybe even more importantly, you'll need to look at your own games, identify weaknesses and simply get better at identifying the stronger moves vs. the weaker ones. Study of a lot of high level annotated games seems great, so does having a chess coach.

I can't really say I have know what the "best studying" method is but I'm pretty sure just playing a lot is not any sort of magic bullet, even if at long time control. I see some names of players at the local club (checking recent results) I recognize from 10 years ago and while their rating has moved in that time period they are basically the same strength player even while playing what I would consider high volume OTB long time control games for years. And these are not 2000+ players or 70+ year old players. I.e. They should not be at a "life plateau" imo and should be able to get better within the time they allot to chess if they have time for such long time control games.

My approach is trying to take into account all facets of training I'm aware of. But I likely don't spread my time out optimally or even have an optimally constructed plan. I was hoping there was a way to do this but from talking so far with my coach, perhaps it's hard to identify what is the single best thing when I can probably make gains in every facet of my game.

Yugo said it well.

One of the things that is fairly clear, however, is that on top of being good at tactics/calculation and having whatever book knowledge you need (of opening variations, of endgames, etc.), is that you should be able to recognize lots of "typical ideas" quickly and reliably.

(Put aside whether any of these moves are best or work concretely, etc. You have to recognize an idea first before you can check if it's any good.)



The idea of 1. Rc1, putting the rook on the half-open file, is very obvious, but does that quickly lead you to the typical idea of 1. d5, to restrict the weak c6 pawn?



Or how about the temporary pawn sac 1. d5 (yet again) in this position and the minority attack starting with 1. b4?

I wanted to post around ten positions, but I'm feeling lazy now. It's pretty clear that guys like chessexplained and John Bartholomew have hundreds and thousands of these patterns in their arsenals. It's clearly one of the most important things to acquire, and it's why the most important part of instructional books isn't the text (usually! sometimes it is); it's the actual positions!

Well, it's both isn't it? If we could recognize this from the positions alone, we wouldn't need the text, but the text lets us know which positions are crucial and what ideas make them crucial.

Fwiw from very quickly looking at each board my plan was Rc1 then b4. I did not think of d5 to start with or sacking that pawn even after Rc1.

I also just did a Heisman tactics quiz and did way worse than I thought I would. Estimated tactics 1522. It is a bit tough since I'm used to doing chesstempo "rules" (you need to find a ~+2 eval or else you have not found the right moves) since winning pawns was involved and answering questions. I actually got the question problems both wrong but if it were presented without the question I suspect I would have gotten both correct without much trouble.

Maybe he has other quizzes since I really want to immediately redeem myself, lol. Guess I'm going to keep studying simple tactics, .

Often in a lot more words than needed. (Like Silman. )

What I really mean is that there are people who focus mostly on the text and only skim over the positions/exercises (I was one of them when I was a kid), when it should be the other way around, when a compromise has to be made.

I got all of them right in ~20 seconds. I'm not 2400 FIDE or better, lol.

But I did the exercise roughly a year ago (and got around 2100). I didn't remember any of the positions, but I'm sure the prior experience helped a lot.

Yeah, see, that's why I need a new quiz. Taking it again, even after a year, and I'm pretty sure I'd do way better than I should.

I took 5 minutes and got 3 wrong. Unfortunately the ones I got wrong I took only 1 or 2 seconds on, . I also think most of my 5 minutes was spent on just one or two problems. But, whatever, I'm not going to necessarily try to specifically get better at a quiz. I just need to get better at quickly recognizing all sorts of tactics in any position. I feel I am getting better at that but it certainly didn't show up on this particular quiz at this particular time.

I have no doubt that I'll hit eventual sticking points. None at all. I see that it's a part of longterm improvement for everyone. I just have seen and heard a bit of players not playing enough and putting too much time into study rather than OTB w/ review afterwards. Like we had talked about in PM, I think a nice balance of the two is in order but for guys still in the club ranks like us ...I think play trumps study for the simple fact that the concepts and ideas that you'll be reviewing in study are naturally encountered in your games. I think the quickest way to identify the holes in our game is by losing games because of them, you know?

Of course, it depends on what kind of study. I'm spending a ton of time on tactical study and surrounding it with fractions of strategic and conceptual study. If I was to be carrying around a book on opening theory, for example, I know I'd be completely wasting my time until my tactical prowess reached a certain level.

4/27 log

40 mins calculation: 4/7 on standard problem set

4/28 log
15-20 mins tactics: 74/75 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
30 mins calculation: 5/8 on standard problem set

4/29 log
10 mins tactics: 16/16 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem
5 mins calculation: 0/1 on standard problem set

4/30 log

Online game: 1/1 30+5 game. Guy "missed" a simple fork and although I played passively for a while after that and wasn't perhaps as precise as I should have been in the endgame, a piece for a pawn is a pretty solid winning advantage, .

5/1 log
5 mins tactics: 12/13 on nonmate problem set ~15s/problem

Signed up for "Wednesday Knighters" for this month. So I'm going to play a 70+30 game every Wed for the next 5 weeks. I also may play some "action quads" (perhaps even next weekend) which is 3 30m /w 5s delay games.

If you like playing the Zukertort, this book has a complete repertoire built around it: http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Chess-O...dp/1906454183/

wlrs — Thanks! I have seen that book. I've also noticed there are a couple of Rudel books (although I may be a stronger overall chess player than him, lol) that a lot of work went into for a lot of different lines. The best book it seems to me is the Bogdanovich book on the zukertort which I really like, but yeah, it literally has no lines or games if black doesn't play e6, so it's not much of a repertoire.

Are the 150 and Barry attack legit openings? I guess my worry about that book (and Rudel's) is that they offer gimmicky lines if black doesn't play e6 and white can't go into the zukertort.

150 attack: legit
Barry: well, i'd rate it about Zukertort level . It's not too bad but not that exciting if Black plays it well.

Zukertort is super legit. A former #3 player played it as one of his main openings!

But sure, it is still not mainly employed at top levels (maybe many levels at all) given that there doesn't seem to be any clear way for white to have a definitive advantage out of the opening (except that he is more familiar with the resulting positions and black maybe isn't very experienced).

I probably should pick up that book. Any chance you have a "liberated" PDF copy I can peruse in the meantime? I have, like, 10 books I want to buy and my big problem is if I start buying one, I will just end up buying a ton and that is not how I want to go about improving my chess, . One book at a time!

so you're taking advice from a cat after all

5/2 log

I think I put some lines into CPT while checking them with engine/book.

5/3 log
10 mins tactics: 41/41 on nonmate problem set 15-20s/problem
20 mins calculation: 2/3 on standard problem set

5/4 log
15 mins tactics: 48/53 on nonmate problem set 15-20s/problem - wasn't super sharp and/or a bit distracted as I played a few quick moves that were blunders
15 mins calculation: 1/2 on standard problem set

5/3 log
10 mins tactics: 41/41 on nonmate problem set 15-20s/problem
20 mins calculation: 2/3 on standard problem set

5/5 log
10 mins tactics: 23/23 on nonmate problem set 15-20s/problem
10 mins calculation: 0/1 on standard problem set

5/6 log
15 mins tactics: 41/41 on nonmate problem set 15-20s/problem
45-60 mins calculation: 5/6 on standard problem set

Playing an OTB rated G/70+30 later today so I should probably take a break (slow at work today, though). Maybe look through some Dutch lines since this is literally all I know about the Dutch and I intend to play it:

1) Stop e4
2) If you can't, play e5 vs. e4
3) If you can't stop e4 or play e5 vs. e4, play f4
4) Play b6, Bb6 if white lets you

And, try not to force an attack if I don't have enough pieces on the K-side. Probably need 3 pieces over there even if it looks juicy with 2.

So, yeah, I should still probably look at a few basic lines at least just in case it comes up.