5/31 log

tactics: 35/41 intermediate set
chess lesson going over last Wed night tourny game

6/1 log
tactics: 30/34 intermediate set

6/2 log
tactics: 47/50 intermediate set

6/3 log
tactics: 27/30 intermediate set
calculation: 6/10 standard set

6/4 log
tactics: 22/24 intermediate set
calculation: 4/10 standard set

6/5 log
tactics: 41/42 intermediate set
calculation: 8/16 standard set

Spent way too much time on standard problems this day. The entire week I didn't study much in the way of openings, just this tactics stuff.

6/6 log
Played in 1 day tourny. 3 games at a time control of 60min + 30sec increment. Went 2.5/3 playing a 9XX rated kid, a 12XX rated guy, and drawing a high 1800s player where I played the Dutch fine, then maneuvered myself into a worse position, then lucked into an even position, then blundered into a lost position, then lucked into a better position but Q vs. Q endgame with no time on my clock and agreed to a draw.

Here is the game: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=102212

So in the 7 rated games I played as a tune-up for the National Open I went 5.5/7 and my rating likely went from 1778 to ~1825. However, only 3 of the games actually "mattered" against two high 1800s and one 1500s player. The rest of the games were opponents +/- 300 points from me.

Very helpful as a tune-up although long-term I think I need more games vs. players within 300 points of me. There are plenty of those at the chess club here, just ran a bit unlucky in terms of drawing stronger players in the tournaments I was in.

tactics: 4/4 intermediate set

6/7 log
tactics: 35/38 intermediate set
chess lesson: One big theme that is becoming clear I'm very glad coach keeps bringing up and highlighted very well for me is that while I can just get better in general, I need to be more willing to go into speculative lines where I'm not exactly sure how to evaluate vs. just playing safe moves that don't do much. Safe moves are fine, but some of the speculative lines I'm looking at are better/more dynamic and while a bit less clear, they will be unclear to my opponent too and if I feel good about them at all it's worth trying them out.

6/9 log
tactics: 53/61 intermediate set
calculation: 0/1 standard set

6/10 log
tactics: 26/29 intermediate set
calculation: 6/11 standard set

6/11 log
tactics: 15/17 intermediate set

6/12 log
tactics: 17/18 intermediate set

6/13 log
tactics: 32/38 intermediate set
5/10 blitz games. I noticed that all my wins were fighting wins while a couple of my losses were just me dropping a ton of material randomly. Which is probably a relatively good sign all things considered. I also think I drew two games where I was up a queen but had so little time I just traded it for my opponent's last pawn.

I've since turned on premove so I should have a much better chance to win those types of games.

6/14 log
tactics: 14/14 intermediate set
1/1 blitz games
chess lesson

I felt really off/bad the entire week and really didn't do anything except some small amount of tactics each day. I slept a lot this weekend and feel more back to normal, which is good b/c I fly to Vegas on Thursday.

As discussed with coach, my main prep left to do is to look at the gambit/early aggressive lines vs. the Dutch so I am not clueless about them and continue tactics.

I'd also like to review 150 attack and Barry attack as white b/c I'm pretty sure I'll face g6 at some point in this tournament. I also need to review Rossolimo since I never looked at hyper-accelerated lines after all (except Rei's great link to that Bartholomew video, although John doesn't go into any hyper-accelerated line and instead does a solid Bc4 main line setup, which I allegedly "know" already).

Also, I learned that Tex will be at the National Open too. I gave some thought to some sort of gentleman's prop bet with him but he is playing up a section and I'm basically playing down a section (my rating is on the books at 1778 in the June supplement so I can remain in u1800) so better point total really makes no sense. Since this tournament actually has significant prize money it seems silly to bump myself up if I don't have to. Playing 1800-2000 players is better short-term experience but 1600-1800 players still are close to my general skill level and I have some sort of realistic chance rather than complete dream chance of binking 5+ points.

Tex — If you see this and have any ideas let me know. My goal is to score above 4 points fwiw. If your goal is to score 3 points or something we could do results vs. goal type prop bet, I dno.

At a tournament like that, there will be lots of underrated players anyway. If you get near the top of the table it will feel like playing up


Prop bet could be TPR vs. rating, something like that

Possibly but my first round was as close as I got I think.

I was sick all weekend (was before most likely and still am to some degree) and ended up only playing 5 games.

Went 3.5/5 and likely lost ~5 rating points. Healthy I really think I was better than everyone I played and had a shot at 5 or more points. I definitely shouldn't be playing in the u1800 group. Or, rather, playing u1700 players (I didn't even play anyone over 1700!) I certainly could have played the sixth game of the tourny and tried for 4.5 which might have been good for $200 but my 5th game was a disaster before getting lucky and winning and it hurt just to calculate out any somewhat complex position. Concentrating had just gotten to be too much a struggle and I had much more fun just looking at my family's (and a few GM) games for like, 1 minute at a time and not calculating very hard, .

My cousin posted 5 points in u1600 and ended up with $2,100 b/c first place had a provisional rating and one of the other guys tied for second did too. Pretty sweet ship imo. And in the only game he lost he just picked the wrong plan but had a better position that was actually pretty easy (imo) to play and not lose. He did credit one of his wins to going over my second round game. Perhaps some of the other games we went over and my advice helped too. Probably it's just that he should be rated 1700+ and also had a few good pairings.

My other cousin posted 3 and uncle posted 3 so as a group we did quite well. I was happy about that and overall considering everything I had fun.

Tex was at the same tourny and went 2/4, seems he didn't play the last two rounds but I don't know/remember if that was planned or not. He was playing up and that result is pretty good imo.

A guy at the local club here was in the tournament also and had a nice win in his last game. It was cool to see someone else all the way from MN out there too.

This week I think I may take a break from training and just annotate my 5 games from the tournament. I have to say I do not feel like playing chess or studying chess at the moment. Just thinking about it makes me a bit dizzy, lol.

What's TPR again? Seems like something I normally should be able to figure out but I'm blanking. Either way, too late at this point. The fact that Tex's rating is going to go up quite a bit and mine will go down slightly is probably all the measuring stick one needs, .

TPR = (tournament?) performance rating. What is this american nonsense about playing some random amount of rounds? In Euroland you a) start a tournament of n rounds b) play n rounds like a man

Haha, fightin words

So this weekend was sort of a chess trip and also a 5-year anniversary trip for my wife and me. Our anniversary was on Friday the 19th, and also her birthday was on Sunday the 21st. Since she already let me play two games on our anniversary, I wanted to take both games off on Sunday to we could spend more time together in Las Vegas.

6/15 log
tactics: 42/43 intermediate set

Looked at aggressive lines (g4 and staunton gambit) vs. dutch

6/16 log
tactics: 53/55 intermediate set

Looked more at aggressive lines (g4 and staunton gambit) vs. dutch

6/17 log

Looked more at white avoiding d4 or c4 (Lisitsyn Gambit) but have completely forgotten it by now, lol.

6/18 log
tactics: 48/52 intermediate set

Looked at anti-sicilian lines and 2. Nc3 or 2. Bg5 lines against dutch for a couple hours on the plane.

A solid third of the plane was flying out for EDC. Forgot about that. Lol playing through chess variations while everyone else was getting bombed out on booze and yelling "EDC woooo!" every hour or so.

6/19 log

1st and 2nd games at National Open. Looking over my games and my cousins' games. Lying in bed. That was pretty much what my entire trip consisted of.


6/20 log

3rd and 4th games at National Open.


6/21 log

5th game at National Open. I then withdrew.


6/23 log

Went over my first two games from the tournament with an engine and tried to annotate them. Not sure how good my annotations are since I had an engine looking with me. Really makes it seem like I missed a ton in both games. I knew I had missed quite a few moves in each but didn't realize how many.

6/26 log
Annotated my last three games from the tournament. Felt much better and perhaps finally not sick. However I was still quite tired.

I started going through Build Your Chess - 1 (Orange). This series is advertised for "u1500" however I've ready several threads that suggest it's good for up to u1800 players and was reading one blog of a 1700+ player who failed a significant portion of the chapters. So, I figured I'd start here. I assume I'll have an easy time with some chapters and maybe a hard time with a couple but I really don't know. I probably could have started with the second set (Blue) of books but I'm not. My only real reservation is that it will take quite a while to get through these books so it could end up being quite a bit of inefficiently spent time if I realize I was fully ready for the second set.

Chapter 1 (mate motifs) exercises: mate on open lines, Anastasia's mate, Arabian mate, Boden's mate, Q+R battery, and Q+B battery mates.

Chapter 1 test: 15/16 - excellent

6/27 log
Not tired (after 10+ hours of sleep) and not sick. Huzzah!

Chapter 2 (mate motifs) exercises: Legal's, Damiano's, Greco's, Lolli's, Blackburne's, and Pillbury's mates.

chapter 2 test: 19/20 - excellent

Any interest in me posting each of my games with commentary?

I'm interested.

me too!

6/28 log
Chapter 3 (opening) exercises: rapid development, control of the center, preventing opponent's ideas and fighting for the initiative.

Chapter 3 test: 26/31 for an excellent. I got 0 points on one of the 3 star problems (there were a lot of them!) and 2 points on two of the 3 star problems. I felt a bit lucky to get 26 tbh, none of the positions seemed to be from openings I play and many were super tricky! (not surprising as most were 3 star problems).

Also had a chess lesson and went over my first three games from last weekend. Tough to come to any complete conclusions since I was sick but I still need to be more patient and also more willing to go into speculative lines (well, no examples of the latter yet from the tournament but I was playing weakish opposition). Most of my annotations below are directly from my coach tbh. Most of my annotations were just of me struggling to calculate due to being sick, lol.

Also, here is my first round game and annotations below: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=102467.

8. Ne5 may be premature in light of Nb4. I also should probably finish developing with Nbd2. Honestly, I haven't looked at move orders in the Zukertort which hasn't bitten me in the ass yet but I really don't have a good feel for when to play a3 or c3 or when I should actually rush Ne5 and when not to.

10. f4 doesn't seem great in light of Nb4. I don't remember having a plan against Nb4 tbh but I probably was going to just let him take my bishop or something, which I'm not crazy about.

11. I probably should still play c3 or a3 or Nbd2 and finish developing before the rook lift. In the game I spent a long time trying to make Bxh7 work but it doesn't so I played Rf3 to prepare it as a real possibility.

11. ...Qb6. Oops!

I did realize when trying to calculate out mates and how to win faster that concentrating was more difficult than normal and so I eventually "gave up" and played out an easy endgame. After this game I suspected I was probably sick to some degree or not my best but it wasn't until the second game that I realized I was really being affected by it.

As an additional note to my first game, it does look like I botched my move order from my repertoire and the points where it's recommended I play a3 is after 9...Qc7.

However, due to playing Ne5 too early I have to play f4 and then black can get in Nb4 at a time when it is most annoying. I'm not sure if playing a3 (or c3) right after black plays Nc6 wastes too much time or not but I may just want to do that b/c I'm not crazy about black getting Nb4 in even though it wastes time for black and will allow me to make another developing move if I just leave my bishop on d3.

6/29
Chapter 4: Simple Pawn Endings including key squares, opposition, rule of the square and rook pawns.

Test: 20/22 for an excellent score. I missed one two star problem and it was the one I actually started moving the pieces around to try and find a win but couldn't. The winning move was simple and I dismissed it at one point, completely missing the point of the move. Lol @ me. I've definitely used that tactic/plan in pawn ends before so kind of surprised I missed it completely.

Chapter 5: Double check. Seemed like it'd be pretty easy so I did it out of the book rather than setting things up on a board.

Test: 15/16. Missed a mating line in one of the two star problems. One of the easiest tests without any 3 star problems.

tactics: 44/49 intermediate set. Def was taking longer at the beginning of this having not done any of this for over a week. But by the end while I still wasn't super accurate I felt I was seeing things pretty quickly.

I liked the part where Black captured his own king; then moves 29-30, when White's bishop and knight turn on invisibility; and then White of course made sure to capture his own knight. All of that is too advanced for me.

maybe it's time to rewrite the FAQ and recommend something more reliable (and more featureful) than chessvideos for posting links to games. Any thoughts?

http://chess.tuxtown.net/game/add is perfect.

Oh JFC, I was all excited to have comments in my log lol.

Yeah, I'm gonna start using that other replayer. This thing sucks, I've had issues with it before but didn't go through the entire game. Pretty nifty trick by my opponent to make the game go so long by disappearing pieces, though!

OTOH, you'd think I could have ended it much sooner if I could turn invisibility on and off for my pieces...

6/30
Chapter 6: The Value of Pieces including relative strength and uneven material distribution.

Test: 19/19 for an excellent score and my first perfect score. I actually thought I would do the worst on this test and in many ways it was the hardest given it had no three star problems. I almost missed one problem but as I was writing down my answer the real answer suddenly came to me. Also, I got a couple tougher ones right without being able to see the full calculation out, but that wasn't required for the full points on those. So, basically I luckboxed.

tactics: 29/32 intermediate set

7/1 log

tactics: 46/47 intermediate set. Accuracy was super high but I did take over a minute on at least a few problems. Concentrating more on calculating them out more fully than just trying to get a low solve time.

Chapter 7: Discovered attack. Pretty self explanatory. Figured it would be a super easy chapter and it was.

Test: 15/15 for my second straight perfect score. All of my tactics training really helped with this chapter since so many are based on discovered attacks of one form or another. There were also only three 2 star problems. I'm sure 3+ star problems involving discovered attacks could get trickier and trickier but these were all pretty basic.

About the game you posted - you have a right idea on how to look at a system such as the Zukertort. What are my possible plans? Which good setups/ideas does my opponent have (like Qc7+cd+Nb4/getting in e5/Qe7-cd-Ba3) and deciding yours accordingly (such as Ne5+f4/e4/a3+dc+b4+c4). And then try to react accordingly.

wlrs - That's high praise! Of course, it mainly applies to my coach, but I will take some for myself, .

7/2 log

tactics: 30/30 intermediate set.

Chapter 8: Centralizing the pieces. Figured this would be tough but doable. Man, it was really tough. I thought there was a chance I might not have passed. While I passed, I did not get an excellent (first chapter not to) and not only that, I didn't even get a "good"!

I did consider many of the best moves but couldn't tell how they were better than others or in a couple of cases, wanted to execute the proper plan but made a different move first that doesn't really work. The one problem that was somewhat similar to a Zukertort position I got, very quickly (of course he had an example of playing f4 to support the N on e5 in his examples, but still, that one I had no trouble with at least lol).

Test: 16/27. One shy of good. At least not failing!

Here are the positions that gave me the most trouble (and which I failed completely, although at least in two of them I considered the winning move but didn't calculate it out enough).

8-6


8-8


8-10


8-12


7/3 log

tactics: 28/30 intermediate set.

Chapter 9: Mate in two moves. I honestly thought this chapter would be pretty easy. However, while all the tests were 1 star, they were quite hard! To get full credit you had to write out every response for move 1.

I spent quite a while finding the mates, then checking all variations and writing them out. Still missed two problems. While I am not supposed to repeat the chapter, I think this may highlight a slightly relative weakness which is that I had a hard time calculating many short variations and keeping them straight in my head. More training on this is probably helpful at some point. It definitely explains why I like tactics training but hated puzzles when I was younger. B/c they were always mate in 2 or mate in 3 and not practical but weird studies that involve strange moves.

Test: 10/12 for good but missing excellent by one point.

Here are the two I missed:

9-8: White to move, I marked it wrong when entering the position for posting.


9-10


Chapter 10 is on more complex opposition examples and I took three of the test puzzles and so far have gotten none of them fully correct. We'll see, I should be able to pass but it is getting ugly. There is even a 4 star problem in the set. One thing about the endings is calculating them out completely is difficult b/c they are somewhat complex and "long opposition" is a bit confusing b/c sometimes it seems helpful but sometimes you need to out flank your opponent. And to know for sure, I have to calculate everything out and it's easy to miss something and think I'm winning when I'm not.

In short, endgames are tough and the one thing I haven't really reviewed from 5 or 10 years ago. Mainly b/c I remember being good at them but perhaps I'm not. I guess we'll see. At least I don't think the book is too easy. I was a bit worried having gotten excellent on almost the first 3rd of the book that I wasn't spending my time very efficiently. But, things are going much more according to plan now that I'm finding some tests that seem much more tricky to me.

7/4 log

Chapter 10: Opposition: corresponding squares, mutual zugzwang, reserve tempi, flanking, distant opposition, different forms of opposition.

Test: 18/26 for "good." Missed the first couple right off the bat. One thing I haven't been doing which I think I'm supposed to is after looking at the position without moving the pieces, if I don't think I've solved it, I'm supposed to move the pieces.

I basically never do this to either check my answers or check lines. I think in the chapters I've had the most trouble, especially this one, it would have been very helpful. But it feels like cheating, lol. Still, though, it's really, really easy to miss lines of King moves just 1 or 2 ply in to a calculation and that can screw up the entire rest of the analysis.

Here are the problems I missed points on:

I got 0/3 on this one:

10-2


I got 1/3:

10-1


I got 2/3:

10-3


I got 1/2:

10-8


I got 3/4:

10-11


Chapter 11: The Pin: absolute (against King), winning material, attacking the pinned pieces /w a pawn, exchanging on the pinning square, exploiting the pin by zugzwang, combinations, pin as a position device.

I was careful to work through each exercise on a board and the test too even though I thought it might be easy for me. That helped but I still finished the test very quickly and got a perfect score. I'm a bit curious how I'd have done before starting tactics training a couple of months ago. It seems directly related to how easy some of these tactics chapters are.

Test: 21/21 for an excellent.

7/5 log

Chapter 12: The Double Attack. Was expecting this to be pretty straightforward and easy. I had a hard time seeing the double attacks in some of the exercises so was slightly concerned. But the test went fine. Even after getting a really bad migraine yesterday which is still affecting me today. It made the test harder but still scored perfectly.

Test: 17/17 excellent

7/7 log

Chapter 13: Realizing a material advantage. Attacking play, playing to simplify, exchanging correctly, transition to a won pawn endgame, returning part of the material advantage, correct attitude, and allow no counterplay.

Test: 19/21 excellent

Here is the problem I missed. I looked at the correct first move but didn't notice the strong follow-up that makes it work. Instead I went in for a line that simply draws, although it does seem a bit tricky for White to draw in it and it was thematic with a theme of the chapter. But alas, it was not good for any partial credit.

Great thread and great approach, I think other people posting improvement logs would do well to follow your example.

Thanks, even more high praise! We will see what kind of results there are after months/year of this, .

7/8 log

Chapter 14: Open Files and Outposts: struggle for the open file, doubling rooks, outposts, controlling entry squares and invading entry squares.

So, I figured this chapter would be kinda easy. I mean, I remember games in the past where all I do is look to double my rooks and that is basically the entire gameplan. I assumed I could write an algorithm for the test along the lines of:

Identify open or half open files. Put a rook on it. If a rook is on it, see if rook can invade. If not, see if other pieces can secure an invasion point. If not, move rook to double up rooks on the file.

I have to admit the instructive exercise positions, while interesting, did not seem testable. The moves didn't really seem to directly involve what the chapter was about. or did in a very vague way. In other words, I wasn't seeing them. So I probably spent too much time on several problems overthinking them rather than playing a move that simply followed the algorithm above. Or only following it after looking for longer than I should have.

Still did very well. Also, I think I need to play out some of these games on a board since the continuation looks to be very advance (a couple of Karpov games) in terms of converting an open file but otherwise equal looking game into something more.

Test: 17/20 - just hitting excellent.

Missed this problem completely:

14-4


Got only partial credit on this problem. I'm very interested to play out the game with the best move played since I'm having a lot of trouble seeing how it is so strong:

14-5