A Week in the Life of an Adult Chess Improver

Every time I read or type "Adult Chess Improver", I impulsively want to initialize it and say ACI and then I almost immediately hate it. ACI sounds like a part of my leg I don't wanna f*** up or some kind of insurance I'm supposed to get when I buy a house. I'll stick with adult chess improver.

I thought it'd be interesting to track how much time I spend on chess in a week, rounded off to fifteen minute increments. The week started off a bit lighter than usual because I haven't had quite the same motivation as I'd had on average over the last year but overall it's a pretty good spread and representative of what I'd consider a typical week. 

Some Definitions

I think I've been over this before, but I usually put chess work into one of two categories: active or passive. Examples of active chess study for this week included playing chess over-the-board (casual rapid games in a park), working through Yusupov's second book, working on memorizing my opening repertoire, and doing checkmate problems from Polgar's giant book. Passive "study" time included watching the FIDE Candidates Tournament, reading the introduction to a Hellsten book on Amazon's sneak peak page, and browsing /r/chess or twitter. It's still chess technically, but I'm not really stretching any muscles, if you will.

The Numbers

Here are my estimated times per day:

The week started on Sunday April 25th and ended at 11:59pm on the night of Saturday May 1. In this time span, I was able to spend 20.25 hours on chess. About 13.75 of that time was active chess study. Again, this was a relatively light week compared to some of the weeks I was working on the first book in Yusupov's series, for example. I'm able to get in chess study time while at work most weekdays and that's actually where most of my chess time is accumulated. On an average weekday, I'm able to spend 3.3 hours on chess--although some of that time is browsing online chess communities, or passively watching some chess content on youtube. (The 2.89 average hours per day in the chart below is taking into account the entire seven-day week, 3.3 hr/day is my average for Monday through Friday.) When I'm home, I'm doing fiancé stuff like planning a wedding, making dinner, and watching after our senior dog so I do not have quite as much time to get in as many chess games as I'd like.

Conclusion

I ended up with a touch over twenty hours:

For a rather light week, I think this is pretty good! I wish I included some more numbers in the summary chart. For instance, 13.75 hours of active study comes out to an average of almost 2 hours per day of performing active chess work (playing/analyzing games, calculating tactics, solving positions from books). And I multiplied my total weekly hours by 52 to conclude that I might spend around 1053 hours a year on chess. Which I think is great, and in a decade, I'd surpass the Gladwellian 10,000 hour mark (see Malcolm Gladwell, among others), whatever that might mean. However, I should probably only calculate my active chess hours for that metric. So 13.75 * 52 = 715 hours per year of active chess work. At that pace, It'd take me about 14 years to reach the 10,000 hour mark. Or, if you want to reach ~1000 hours of active chess work every year, then that would require about 19.25 hours a week. Well, this past week I spent 20.25 hours on chess so if I simply transform some passive chess "work" like youtube videos into harder chess study, I'd be very close! I hope this was interesting for some of you and it might inspire you to track your own chess habits. 

Best of luck.

Completing Yusupov's Build Up Your Chess 1

This book makes me feel like I'm doing serious chess work. It was largely review so that's nice although there were some very hard chapters that I outright failed. The book is a great mix of familiar tactical motifs, principles, and even exact positions I'd seen before but most everything still requires some level of calculation...and I didn't always nail everything perfectly. Yusupov's grading system helps you quantify your strong areas and your weaknesses. It should be noted that this is nowhere near comprehensive since it's only the first book in a nine-book series. My goal is to eventually finish the three orange books.

About the book
The book is tactics-heavy, which makes sense as it's the first book in the series and newer players are always told to hit tactics hard. I've done my share of beginner tactics and so I was able to perform well in those chapters. Ditto with the endgame.

Number of chapters in each category:

• 11 Tactics
• 4 Endgame
• 3 Positional Play
• 2 Opening
• 2 Strategy
• 2 Calculating Variations

There were a few puzzles, especially endgames and tactics types, that I'd even seen before. No surprise there. I'd have to assume that as the series progresses, there might be a better balance with the Positional and Strategy chapters. As an aside, I couldn't quite figure out how Yusupov differentiates Strategy and Positional Play.

My Results
Here's a summary of how I fared. Red indicates my worst chapters. After you tally scores, Yusupov provides a remark based on your totals for the chapter. Best to worst, these are: Excellent, Good, Passing, or Not Passing. If you didn't reach a Passing Score you are told to re-do the chapter. I only quickly reviewed those before moving on (more on this later).

For all of the Tactics, Endgame, and Calculating Variations chapters, I scored Excellent or Good. I'm happy with that. These are foundational skills and I think I have a solid grasp on the basics of each of these areas. Of course, it's very helpful, while solving, to know the type of puzzles I'm doing as well as the difficulties. Strategy was a mixed bag as I scored Excellent on one (Open Files and Outposts) and Not Passing on another. This highlights the non-comprehensiveness (I'd be surprised if that's a word) of the book: I couldn't really use this to say my strategy needs work or is up to par. But this is a reason for continuing the series as a whole. Positional Play and Opening were the worst.

Here are my points grouped by category and sorted by percentage:

Strengths
As expected, I excelled at the tactics, endgame, and calculating variation chapters. As far as the tactics and endgame chapters, there wasn't much I hadn't seen before. This series of books intends to fill in gaps, and I think I can safely say that I don't have a gap in understanding of the basic tactics and endgame knowledge. And of course, calculating variations is generally a matter of finding the forcing moves. I assumed I'd do well in these areas and it's nice that I did perform well. However, I'm more interested in the chapters of the book with which I struggled.

Weaknesses
I had a hard time with most of the the positional and strategic chapters (in my opinion, the opening category is vague and the puzzles seemed to be either slightly tactical like the Gambits chapter, or strategical like knowing where your pieces go). Even with the themes categorized, these chapters seriously tested my positional understanding and thus my major weaknesses were made clear, as Yusupov claimed the book would do. The chapter on Weak Points is the one most clearly in my memory and it is a good example. I would take large amounts of time for each exercise and miss half of them. This experience is completely opposite to the simple tactics chapters. 

A large reason is that I've spent countless hours looking at tactics. I've been looking at pin tactics for years and it was one of the first things I learned after hearing the term "chess tactics." So if Yusupov gives me a chapter on pins, I'll spot the pin-motif in every example almost immediately. In contrast, when Yusupov introduces Weak Points/Squares and gives examples, everything took longer and I lacked the clarity to know how to solve. I can find a pin in a second, but seeing positional weaknesses would take me at least a minute or two. I'd even spend 30-45 minutes on some positions when I was determined to figure it out. I'd inevitably see the move at some point in my calculation, but often I'd revert back to the more forcing move that I thought was nearly working aside from one defense I couldn't see past. In spite of this, I still wrote the forcing line down as my solution only to see the answer was a different move I'd considered but hadn't concretely calculated. 

If you look at a position long enough, the "right" move will probably come to your mind as it did to mine, but I kept wanting to go back to the forcing lines even if I didn't see all the way to the end. I just thought it had to be right since it was so forcing and I could at least see the future up to a point. The lack of clarity I found in the other moves (that were often the beginning to the correct solution) led me to eventually give up on them and return to my other candidates. Perhaps because my mental energy had been spent on the move that I'd been trying to force to work, I'd rarely follow that analysis fully and just assume it had to be right. This is a major pitfall and a big source of frustration due to spending 30 minutes on one idea when it had been another move I'd barely looked at.

I think my tactics training has helped me to the point which, if given a basic tactical position, I can spot three or four forcing moves immediately then a few seconds later, I then can sort to the most forcing, and I start to see the key motifs in the position. Then it's a matter of calculation, visualization, move order, and a check for counter-play and safety. When given a similarly basic strategic position, every aspect takes me longer: it might take a few minutes to find a handful of weak points, then a few more to find the best one to attack/exploit, and finally it may take ten to twenty more minutes to come up with some line that appears best. Then I check the solution and half the time my execution was still off, either a little bit or a lotta bit. 

So as a positive, I can see the ideas usually if given enough time, but executing the right plan to exploit it was not always accurate. I think the ideas themselves are simple: I can explain outposts, open files, weak squares, and color complexes to anyone, but learning to apply them in the examples given was a difficult task. To me that means I don't fully understand them. At the least, this minor hardship most surely means I'm learning since I'm not very comfortable in solving these types of exercises. I need to push myself a lot harder in these positions.

Re-doing My Worst Chapters
Yusupov provides a scoring system at the end of every chapter and if you score below a threshold, he suggests the following:

Slightly edited for inspiration :)

I've decided to move forward with the final test but later on, I intend to review my problem chapters and see if I can perform better...

• Ch. 3 Basic opening principles  (14/31)
• Ch. 6 The value of the pieces  (10/19)
• Ch. 8 Centralizing the pieces  (11/27)
• Ch. 13 Realizing a material advantage  (13/21)
• Ch. 20 Weak points  (9/23)
• Ch. 24 Gambits (13/20)

July 2021 Edit: I've completed my review of this and wrote about it here.

Final Test
On April 16th, I completed the final test. I did score above the Passing Mark which is nice to see, although it wasn't totally smooth sailing. I ended up with 33/47 points. 36 points would have been in the "Good" category but oh well. I surely would have done better if the puzzles were provided with a category but that is not a true test and it's honestly a major hint/crutch when solving the chapters one at a time. The final test does its job at finding your true standing. Yusupov did provide the category of each puzzle in the solution. Here is a breakdown of those along with my cumulative scores in each of the categories:

It looks like the final test is a pretty good representation of the entire book in terms of proportions of each category. Notably, he left out any opening positions but that's about it.

Conclusion
More than any of my other serious chess projects--like Part 1 of The Woodpecker Method, 1001 Chess Tactics..., or analyzing a game a day for a month--completing this book feels like a BIG accomplishment and the start of serious chess work. My problem-areas are becoming obvious and I'm excited to start seeking out methods to work on them. I'm nearly ready to jump in to the second book with the realization that any non-tactical chapters are going to be very difficult. I want to try to focus most of my energy on those sections and I hope that, overall, I start to see an improvement in the harder chapters.

My First OTB Tournament Experience!

In February of 2020, I played my first USCF over-the-board games. As mentioned in other posts, I was able to play six before the COVID-19 shutdown stopped everything. Chess-players in Missouri had to wait a year before any rumblings of a weekend tournament came around but sure enough one sprung up in Columbia, MO! It's something that's been on my chess "TODO" list ever since I started playing over-the-board so I jumped on the registration list as soon as possible. The tournament was ran by Blakeman Chess and it took place during the weekend of March 6th and 7th.

As some background, I'm in my mid-thirties and I've been playing chess seriously for over three years working very hard on improvement with a focus on slower time controls. My classical and rapid ratings on lichess are currently around 1800-1850. I've played less than ten bullet games in my life and rarely play blitz lately. My USCF rating before the tournament was 1096 (provisional/6). The tournament games would be 90m+30s with three rounds Saturday (9:00, 2:00, and 7:00) and two on Sunday. Sounds exhausting.

Expectations and leading up to the Games

As far as my chess life goes, I've never felt quite the level of "nervous excitement' as I did in the day before and the morning leading up to the tournament. It was close to the same feeling when I played my first games at the club over a year ago, but there was more anticipation leading into this weekend. Both then and now, it came down to a matter of  the "unknowns" for me. Last February, I simply didn't know a lot of basic things: 

• What was it like to score an entire game?
• What if I get put in the wrong section? Are there sections?
• What if I hang mate-in-one?
• Do you shake hands like they do in the super-GM tournaments?
• What if you make an illegal move?
• Do you have your opponent sign your scoresheet when you're done like Magnus and Fabi do? (The answer is nope)
• What do you do when it's over?

This post covers those learning curves from 2020. So I'm glad I was able to get some experience and I knew what it was like to play a classical game in the real world. Those questions were answered. However, a full tournament came with its own set of new unknowns:

• What's it like to play three games in a day? Then two more the next day?
• My only other OTB games were a maximum of two hours. These games might be 3 or 4 hours long, oh gawd. How mentally-taxing will this be?
• Do I need my own scoresheets?
• Is there a larger tournament strategy I should know? Should I take strategic byes?
• What do I do in between games?
• How do they announce the first round? Do I just chill in the lobby until something happens?
• With hotel and entry fee, this was a few hundred bucks, What if I lose every f***ing game and I want to quit chess after this? Am I putting too much pressure on some silly little tournament?

That's where I was coming from. Maybe that's helpful, maybe it makes me look crazy. The best thing about new experiences is they are a guaranteed education. You will learn so many new things. These range from the logistical operations of a tournament to the little nuances you notice in the tournament hall to the struggles and choices you make in the face of new things. The more experiences you have, the more you learn to embrace the nervous excitement. The best thing of all is this ultimately results in growth regardless of outcome.

On to the games

I won't use this space to deeply analyze the games. Instead I'll add thoughts and observations about each one, how I spent my time between rounds, and what it's like to be at a weekend tournament in general.

Round 1

After breakfast and a quick jaunt back up to my room to make sure I had everything, i.e. a writing utensil, I came down to the lobby a little before nine. As the lowest-rated player in the field, I had a "see the TD" note next to my name on the pairings list. He said there was an odd number of players so I could take a bye and play a rated or unrated game with him if I'd like. I said sure since I'd come here to play chess and didn't want to kill time for five hours. Turns out he's a 2100-rated player and so the game didn't last long. He was very nice afterwards when he told me I was under-rated. We talked for a second then I peaced out to my room with about four hours until the next game. 

Even though I did not have a strenuous game in the least, I tried to practice what others had recommended during my break: don't rush up to your room and cram chess between rounds. I laid down on the bed for a while since I didn't sleep well the night before, watched some tv, and eventually finished reviewing some of my opening notes I had. I grabbed lunch then right before next round, I did a handful of puzzles.

Round 2 (first rated game of the tourney)

Finally, actual chess against somebody on my level! I started to try out a pre-game system even though I was largely unprepared for these things. The tournament website said boards and clocks would be provided but to bring your own if you'd like. Many did. I didn't. It would have involved me carrying around my rolled up vinyl mat under my arm and the pieces in a Sony headphones bag. I didn't even own a clock until yesterday. I fixed all that and I've even got a little case on the way now too. I'll be super-pro next time. I'll also consider getting a scorebook since I had to notate the first game on blank printer paper. Anyway, at this point, the TD started printing generic scoresheets for players that needed them. I grabbed one of those, wrote down my opponent's information and the board number and went in. 

Just like when I first started playing games at the chess club, I realized there were some things that might go overlooked by those that have played hundreds of club and tournament games. There's a trial period where you're trying to learn the motions you like to go through before a game, how you become familiar with the playing hall and general environment, how you like to navigate through the game itself in terms of snacking, getting up, and drinking water. These things are not really mentioned to you when you go to your first tournament. They're simple things but I found that finding a comfort level with what to expect before and during each game was helpful in calming me down. From round two onwards, I started to get a grasp on how I like to do my pre-game setup.

I had the white pieces against a 1600-rated player. I know these people have families and friends and jobs and interests, so it feels a little wrong to relegate them to some four-digit number. Such is chess though. Anyway, the game was a slav with a symmetrical structure that went to an endgame where I eventually won some pawns and converted four pawns and a knight versus two pawns and a knight. It took four hours and it felt great when it was over. Getting this win was a tremendous confidence booster. Totally worth the time. It was 6pm now and I had an hour before the next game.

Round 3

There are some in-between-game choices you'll have to make that you might not think about until the time comes. For this one, I opted to skip dinner until the 7pm game was over. I'd rather snack before the game and play on a partially empty stomach than eat some crappy takeout or fast food then rush back to the hotel. I was black against another 1600 (provisional but I didn't know or care at the time--people may not have known my rating was provisional either) and he played a london opening. He was probably better after the queen trade but then I won a pawn towards the end and he resigned when I had a winning pawn endgame. This one took two and a half hours. I felt good, more confident, and pretty tired. I celebrated with Taco Bell. Naturally.

Round 4

When I went down to the lobby on Sunday morning right before the round. I felt great so far in the tournament. I'd won my two games yesterday so I thought whatever happens on Sunday is icing on the cake. I was assured my worst fears--losing all my games--weren't going to come true. I'd beaten two solid players. I figured I'd gain some ratings points. I had already learned so much about what it's like to play in a multi-day tournament. That's a win.

I hadn't even considered my place in the standings and it hadn't dawned on me that the first round bye was a full-point. I was solely concerned on playing each round and learning from it. By this time, I'd settled on a pre-game routine when I entered the lobby:  Grab scoresheet, write down opponent and rating, who has black and white, the round number, and the board number, go into the playing hall, find my board and set up everything on the table how I like it, then adjust my pieces and make sure the clock is all good to go. After I found this groove, I was so much more relaxed compared with the moments before round one when I entered the playing hall with nothing but a pen. I'd imagine anybody's first round at a new tournament might be similar. It's probably a good idea to scope out the playing hall and chat with some people before the first round ever begins to feel a little more comfortable.

I had white in a slav that featured middlegame fireworks that eventually settled to an ending in which I was up two pieces to one but my knight was stuck in the corner. I found a skewer tactic that my opponent didn't see (not sure if it's winning otherwise) and took the game. We chatted afterwards and that's when he alerted me to my standings and that I was going to be playing for first place in the lower division. After room checkout, I hung out in the lobby for the rest of the time which was a great idea. None of my other games finished at good times where I could shoot the shit with fellow players and the TD but if you have the time to do so, I recommend it. 

Round 5

It's the final game and I'm playing for first place. My mindset ever since the night before was that I had already performed better than expected and yet I still tried very hard in this game. I ended up messing up and playing some aggressive-looking move that seemed clever but didn't really amount to much and so I was eventually down a few central pawns. My opponent had two serious threats and in the end I lost the exchange. After he stopped my last-ditch idea--what I believe the redcoats would call a cheeky lil mate-in-one threat--I resigned.

Conclusion

And so with all the nerves and excitement and unknowns, I ended up tying for first in the U1800 division and winning the prize money for highest U1500 finisher. This was a great way to wrap up the weekend and I couldn't have been happier. It was a strange experience to not know I was in the front until the very last game and that undoubtedly helped me. It's not naivete or a sense of "Gee-golly I keep accidentally winning, is that good?" Honestly part of it was that I didn't even know the ongoing tournament scores were posted as part of the pairings list for each round so it was truly off my radar and there was zero pressure. For better or worse, I'm certain I'll be paying much more attention to these things in my next tournament!

Before last weekend, I felt like a 1500 rated player was scary and that I didn't even know if I was at that level to comfortably compete with such a player. I'll be less intimidated now. There is certainly a recency bias and a rose-tinted perception here since the tournament was only last weekend, nevertheless, the experience of my first OTB tournament was a massively positive one on a personal level as well as a results level. It's given me tremendous confidence in progressing up the ladder. Time will tell how I handle the inevitable bad tournament in the future. 

Moving forward, I'll feel far more comfortable at the outset of weekend tournaments like this. My ultimate goal is still to reach 2000 USCF and this tournament has given me a lot of positive energy towards that goal.

The weekend also made it abundantly clear that I have to agree with IM Andras Toth that this is real chess. To put it more diplomatically, this is the chess I want to play. I'm talking about real chess pieces, clocks, and long time controls. I like taking twenty minutes and doing a mediocre job at exploring a position. It's fun to hit a clock and write down a move. It's nice to meet people and share experiences. Go play some chess in real life when you're lucky enough to take part!

Post-Tournament USCF Rating: 1391 (P10)

Setting Goals

Sometimes I feel like carving in stone all my goals to make them official. Other times I think it's a bit of a wasted exercise or at best, not worth the small effort. Instead, I've usually chosen to "just do it" and focus on playing and studying and let the achievement milestones come when they do. In this post, I'll bite the bullet and lay out what I want out of chess.

Short-Term (next ~6 months)

• Continue spaced repetition work with 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players (Erwich). Currently about 12% through the book. My goal is to complete the entire book in one day. 
• Continue spaced repetition work with Practical Chess Exercises (Cheng). Currently about 1/6th through the book. My goal is to complete the entire book in one day. 
• Get a record of 100 classical games since June 2020 when I started my rigorous tactics-training.
• For study time, focus on equal parts Openings : Games/Analysis : Tactics. This mainly means focus more on openings because I've lacked in that area. Begin building a repertoire (i.e. experience) with the Sicilian as black. I'm bored of the caro-kann and want more fireworks in my games.

Mid-Term (1-2 years)

• Play more OTB games to get a non-provisional Classical Rating. Pre-requisite: Help my buddies at Pfizer find a vaccine for COVID-19.
• Join a weekend tournament out of town.
• Get over 1600 USCF.

Long-Term (slightly before death)

• Reach over 2000 USCF. 

My First Ever USCF Rating!

Well I finally played a rated over-the-board game. Four in fact. They were my first real-life, big-boy chess games with actual meaning, although I'd been to the local club many times for the Sinquefield Cup and the U.S. Championship--as a spectator, I should add ;).

That's right, my local club is in St Louis. I'm lucky and also a bit surprised it took me so long to get up the nerve to play in person there. I found out that they run a month-long tournament with games every Tuesday evening. I believe the tournament designation is 4SS, meaning four rounds of a Swiss System tournament. After four weeks, they determine the winner of each section and I think they pay out some cash prizes! After getting registered with the USCF on the night I showed up, they stuck me in the U1600 section. These games were G70; D5. Did I do that right? I'm still getting used to some of the terminology and customs. Online you just click buttons and you're playing and everything is automated. So yeah, G70; D5 meaning the game is in 70 minutes and there is a five second delay. I'd never played with a delay (or a physical clock) but with over an hour for the game, it doesn't matter that much to me. I won't use this space for deep analysis of the games so I will just provide some general observations and I hope readers can derive something from it.

Game 1 - Tuesday February 4, 2020
Soooo, it's true what they say: you're gonna play a lot of children.

In the U1600 section, there were a lot of elementary-school aged kids. Perhaps fifteen. Then maybe a few teenagers, a few guys my age (30s) and an older gentleman. I'd say something like twenty players. The 1600+ section had six or eight total. In the first round, I was black and paired with a 12xx rated player. In my entire life, I've played three casual OTB games with someone that is somewhat serious about chess (has an account at chess.com so that's something I guess). Beyond that, I've played once with my great-uncle when I was in high school and then a handful of less-serious ones more recently against friends that "just know the rules." It was helpful that I have played through games with a real board so at least I knew what it was going to be like viewing the three-dimensional pieces. Still it is something to consider and to get used to when playing your first OTB games.

When playing in person, there's a lot more going on in regards to stimulants, figuring out order of moving and recording the move, board vision, etc compared to loading up a game on your phone or laptop.

Where do I set the pieces when I capture?

Why didn't my opponent adjust his pieces BEFORE the game?

Move the piece-->Tap the clock-->Record the move ... Move the piece-->Tap the clock-->Record the move ...Move the clock-->Tap the piece--...aw shiiiit. Wait, I went to the bathroom, where the hell did he move? Fuck how did I get blood on the scoresheet?!? Do we hand these in at the end? Why is my pen in my hand while I'm trying to capture with my queen? That's awkward. Wow kids are restless. They play a move and if I don't immediately play, they're up and walking about. .... Holy shit is someone crying?!

So all that is happening but please don't read them as excuses. I actually found I was able to concentrate just fine. I don't think focus is a problem. But it's a warning to everyone else that you should prepare yourself for the unknown--I mean, I knew I'd be recording moves but didn't quite imagine the learning curve with actually doing it, getting into a groove, and remembering to hit the clock. I'd say I missed it about three times which isn't so bad for an 18-move game. Oh yeah, the game....

I lost in a Giuoco Piano Four Knights Variation--I think that's what it was at least. I basically wanted to castle as early as possible and stay simple and solid since I wanted the game to keep under control while I figured out all the little things I mentioned above. I played some slow moves to fianchetto my queenside bishop while my opponent wasn't even castled, yet he was able to get some pieces in on the kingside and sac on h6. I was going down a piece with no king safety so I resigned.

Brutal.

From the pairings list, I knew my opponent's rating was in the low 1200s. Who knows if that affected anything on my end. I know my inflated-as-fuck 1700 lichess classical rating is meaningless here but I really thought I could handle a 1200. The weeks ahead proved otherwise.

Pros - Hey I made it! I drove myself to the club, signed up, and played a game! You learn so much doing things you're not used to. I found it helpful to look at the positive things I learned from this experience to improve for next time. I liked that I took my time, unlike many of the other players. Maybe they have better opening knowledge than me, or just don't analyze so much, or don't need to, or they're bored and were forced by their parents to play so they want to get out of there in thirty minutes. I like that I could now plan ahead and develop a small routine for moving, hitting my clock, scoring the move, etc. Sometimes it's the little things. I should add that my opponent was incredibly respectful at the end. He whispered that it was a good game and that I "played very well." I didn't. Haha, anyway I'm sure it was a canned line but it really doesn't matter. It was refreshing to hear that and overall, losing a game over-the-board is far easier to digest than losing to a faceless internet stranger.

Cons - Woulda been nice to win. I put my game in a lichess study so I'll have it for later. I did for all games actually. I will analyze them further.


Game 2 - Tuesday February 11, 2020
I played somebody more my age and I was white. I think my opponent was around 1100 rating. There isn't much to talk about since I covered so much in the summary of my first week. I won a piece (thanks to a blunder) and safely consolidated down and got checkmate on the board. That actually made me wonder if most of these games at this level are played to checkmate? No idea at that point. I think that I'll try to test my opponents even if I'm in a losing position, just until I'm not having fun or I can judge that they'll be able to mate and it's pointless to play on.

Pros - I won. That's always nice. It was still stressful because even getting a knight before move ten doesn't mean that much in chess. I had to remain vigilant and I still took maybe too much time in some positions but you really don't want to give up counter-play.

Cons - None. It always helps to win. I was ready to think about playing in the 1600+ section soon to really gain experience......(riiiiight)

Game 3 - Tuesday February 18, 2020
I guessed I would be black and so I was prepping the caro-kann beforehand. More or less just cramming some ideas in my head 30 minutes prior. Naturally, she played 1. d4. I tried the King's Indian and it was actually my type of game, lotsa positional moves, few captures. Anyway I dropped a pawn and was inactive. We analyzed afterwards which was fun but not comprehensive.

Pros - Another game under my belt I guess.

Cons - Second loss, I'm guessing my provisional rating will be bad.

Game 4 - Tuesday February 25, 2020
This game was last night so it's fresh in my memory. I played a 600-rated player as white and I played my normal, comfortable opening. He seemed to want to trade material and I tried to find clever ways to do this, eventually allowing lotsa trades then I won a center pawn. I didn't see incredibly far ahead and missed a check but it was innocuous and I remained up a pawn with two active rooks on the 7th. I was for sure winning but for a few reasons, I went ahead and traded way down into a pawn ending. The reasons were I was low-ish on time--I had about 20 minutes left while my opponent had over an hour on their clock. That's right. I don't think they took more than thirty seconds for any move. That's a bit crushing to your ego though, when you can't find completely winning moves in an hour of chess while your opponent is just blitzing out moves. That's chess though. I was cracking my brain figuring out advantages and he played simple moves that I couldn't find anything wrong with. The other reason for heading to a simple pawn ending is that I've been studying endgames a great deal lately so I figured I could go into a 5 vs 4 pawn endgame and figure it out. Anyway it was probably a +1 ending but he had a slightly better king and was able to gobble up some pawns where I had to use some tricks to defend. He queened while I had a pawn on the 7th with my king on the promotion square. He really should have taken 55 of his minutes if he needed it to find the win but he played quickly and let me promote then we traded. Blah blah, I was at least able to use my endgame "skills" after that to sac my rook-pawn but force the draw.

Pros - Well, I didn't lose to a 600. I sensed he wasn't incredibly serious about improvement but he played good enough moves to draw so what can I say?! I'm happy I was putting in work to calculate the last king maneuvers to ensure the draw. If it weren't for my recent endgame study, I'm almost certain I would have lost the game at the end there but I knew the technique for the draw. Drawing a 6-700 rated player instead of losing surely saved me tons of rating points so there's a direct benefit of endgame study! I'm proud that I can focus for these long games and not let my opponents speed or style of play affect my thinking too much. I'm also lucky that he didn't take some time to find his win. Probably a lot to analyze in the opening since he played some moves I hadn't seen before. I get my provisional rating after this game!


Conclusions
So I finished with a 1.5/4 score. I was getting my footing in the first one, played fine in the second, got outplayed in the third, then just had a poopy game in my fourth in which I felt I should've had better control. Fine. After four games, USCF gives you a provisional rating and I will keep that designation until 25 games. Sooooo, without further adieu.....

My rating.....

is......

973P4

(I'm pretty sure the P4 means provisional over four games. I read somewhere that sometimes it's listed as 973/4.)

10/28/2020 Update: I played two more games before the COVID-19 Pandemic cancelled OTB games for the year. I won one and lost one and my rating was finally updated again to 1096 (provisional based on 6 games). So I finally got to four digits ;)! I just wanted to add this in so people can see how much your rating can fluctuate in the lower ratings--even after going 1-1! The game I won was against a ~1200 player and my loss was against a ~1450 player, and I still gained over 100 points!

There ya go. It's way lower than I would have guessed. A fourth digit would have been nice! If you asked me four weeks ago before I played a game or saw any of my opponent's ratings, I would have said I'd be over 1200 after a month and that maybe I'd be in the 1600+ section in another month or two of playing. That's not happening. Realistically, what else could I have asked for? It's fine and actually I find plenty more to be happy about with my rating than upset. I have a rating, even if it's quite low. I'm excited that I should only go up from here. I just need more games. I hope it's true.

I'm happy that I now have a rating and a foundation on which to build. I really am excited to see how I can rise through the ranks. Moving forward, I want to shoot for at least equal scores each month, to improve my time management, to focus on game quality and analysis and not rating, and ultimately get to the 1600+ section.

Fall Update

Due to a run-in with /r/chess involving me mindlessly posting a link to copyrighted material, I've decided to remove all book notes from my blog. I've saved those posts as drafts so I can still review them when I see fit but I don't want them out in the ether. This blog isn't widely viewed but I don't want the wrong person seeing it and reporting any posts with copyrighted material in it--even if it's just a diagram or verbatim quote.

Beyond that, I've taken a short 1-2 week break from playing a classical game but I did get my rating up to 1721. I'm about to embark on the Lichess4545 and Lichess Lonewolf Leagues so that'll absolutely force me to play games over the next six or eight weeks. I have a game tonight in the Lonewolf league (I think it's 30+30 time control) and then tomorrow I play my 45+45 game. I'm seventh board on the team.

I plan on getting ready by doing some mate-in-two problems from Polgar's 5334 puzzles book. I hope to analyze some of my slow games from these leagues on this blog. In fact, today I came up with a spaced repetition method for that book since they are all pretty simple and straightforward patterns.

Spaced Repetition on 5334 Chess Problems
I've been going through the book slowly at work. The book is massive and it's broken into:

306 mate-in-one problems
3412 mate-in-two problems
A few hundred mate-in-three problems
600 miniature games, etc

I've gone through all the mate-in one problems and ~150 of the mate-in-two problems. I want to set up a system of review such that:

1) I go through, say, 500 problems once
2) Go back over those same ones a second time, keeping an eye on time. Any problems that take longer than 20 seconds, I will write down and review later before my next cycle through.
3) Keep cycling through until I feel confident I can do the problem set in an average of 5 seconds per problem.

Housekeeping

I'm not sure what the topic of this post will be but I'll call "housekeeping" to borrow a Sam Harris usage.

So I've been trying to play a classical 15+15 game a day and sometimes throw in a blitz or rapid here and there. I believe I am 5 games away from getting to my magical 200. I've won a few, drew one or two that I shouldn't have, and lost some to higher-rated players. Anyway I'm still focusing on analyzing and learning stuff from every game.

Beyond playing games, here's how I've been studying the "four areas" that I laid out in an earlier post.

OPENINGS

I was trying to memorize some classical lines and othe rpopular openings from that spreadsheet I made. I was doing pretty well in the open and semi-open games (not sicilian yet though) when I sorta decided to halt that some. But I was able to do a lot of it at work, for which I'm pretty grateful.

TACTICS

I'm still trying to do some of the chess.com tactics every day. My puzzle rating on that is in the mid-2000s and I'm pretty proud of that. I attribute that to my idea to spend at least 10 minutes on the puzzle if I need to. They are noticeably tougher but fun to think through, and very satisfying if I get the right answer. Beyond that, I have Polgar's 5334 Chess Problems always pulled up on my work computer and in downtime I might do a page or two of those. I'm currently on the mate-in-two section. I still have it in the back of my mind to try a spaced repetition routine on this book at some point. It's a treasure trove of pattern recognition.

I'm also going through some of Dan Heisman's videos on youtube--I strongly recommend those if you haven't checked them out--and he mentioned one of his favorite chess books is called "Winning Chess Exercises for Kids." I managed to find a copy and, well, aside from the childish delivery of the material, it is actually a pretty great book. It's more or less 100 pages of worksheets. Each worksheet has nine problems and one short question for fun. It's three rows of three positions each, the first row being three mate-in-X problems, the middle row are material tactics, and the final row is three "find the best move" positions which might be strategical or defensive and it looks like the final one in the row is always and endgame position. As usual, I have a spreadsheet going at work where I record my answers for a page then grade myself and mark in red those that I got wrong so I can review at the end. I'm finding it pretty simple yet I still miss one here and there.

MIDDLEGAME/STRATEGY

I finished the reading and note-taking for Silman's Amateur's Mind but I haven't got through all the positions in the end of the book. I still want to go through all those at least once, but he goes through the entire game so I keep thinking it'd be more beneficial to play the whole game through since he gives more notes on it. Hard to do that at work.

I'm also trying to analyze my games with the middlegame strategies in mind but I think I need to focus on pawn structures more as I've allowed worse structures for myself in many games.

Another idea is to play through annotated master games, as Dan Heisman said that's one of the main reasons he thinks he reached NM so fast.

ENDGAMES

I read through Part 4 of Silmans Endgame Course but I must go back through and take more notes. There was a LOT of good information in there and it is the longest chapter in the book. I also need to practice more pawn endgames. I fucked up one in my most recent 15+15 game and it went from winning to drawn to losing and back to drawn. I was up a pawn, and....yeah I was thinking draw the whole time. Lame. So frustrating.

I need to begin practicing basic endgames against the computer.


Things TODO

Continue going through the tests in the back of Amateur's mind (ideally I go through them a second time more thoroughly). 

Do the 4-moves-at-a-time visualization with some famous games (see "visualization practice" post).

Go through Part 4 of Silman's Endgame Course and take notes.

Start to practice endgame positions that are provided in lichess' mobile app and in Bernd Rosen's endgame book I have.

Do a few pages from "Winning Chess Exercises for Kids" a day.

Work on 5334 problems.

Continue watching Dan Heisman's videos

I recently bought his book "Most Instructive Amateur Games" (Something to that effect) and I will start working through those games on my physical board at home.

Try Heisman's "20-minute drill" where you pull up a random position from a master game, assess it, find candidate moves and decide on one. Key is to take exactly twenty minutes on the position before finding your move. I can also do this with the 25 positions in the end of amateur's mind actually.

Take a deeper look at this online book: https://archive.org/details/Simple_Chess_New_Algebraic_Edition

Update - Quest for 200

Ugh, for as much as I talk about chess and refresh /r/chess during my workday, I don't play that many games. I'll throw in a few blitz games while killing time on my toilet phone, but my last 15+15 rated game was over a month ago!

I am sitting at 188 games in the classical control so I need 12 more to get to my magical yet arbitrarily-chosen 200th game. It's perfectly divisible by one hundred so it must be important!

I'm going to pledge to get to 200 and try to get a winning score from it. I'll treat it like the world championship match (that coincidentally lasts 12 games in recent years) and analyze them all carefully using some of the knowledge I've picked up in the first several chapters of The Amateur's Mind.

Today, I'll try to mix in some tactics while at work and prep for a game tonight after work before I go on my bike ride. I've been throwing in some chess.com puzzles--the five free ones per day--but I'll work with chesstempo some if I can. 

Tonight, I'll play game one of my world championship match and analyze afterwards. If it's instructive, maybe I can post the analysis here.

I'll be honest and say that I can get nervous when playing. I don't want to lose 9 ratings points when I'm so close to my goal because then that means two more wins before I can make it up and get back to the rating I would have been if I had just won that first game! That's not the right way to think, though. I've always said to look at each game as an opportunity to learn something, not as an opportunity to gain or lose some number of rating points. I actually need to practice what I preach. 

Overall, that hesitation to take the time to play another game plus the emerging beautiful spring weather makes it harder to fire up lichess on my laptop and take an hour or two out of every evening to play. But if I focus on a simple intermediate goal of just playing games and analyzing, that should help me. So this is a committment to complete that simple task by May 1. 

An Experiment in Classifying Games

I did this with a run of twenty games a few weeks ago and it was kind of interesting and helpful to see where I most need to study. I know lichess has some game "insights" tools but I like doing stuff hands-on as well.

Why was the game lost???
I want to classify my last 50 games according to what factors I think decided the game. This could be:

TACTICS - From both sides! Were tactics played out that created a significant imbalance? Or were significant tactics missed?

STRATEGY - A game with few exchanges, lots of slow moves and maneuvers in the opening and middlegame

ENDGAME - Did the game come down to an ending with fewer pieces on the board?

PERSONAL BLUNDER - Did I f*** up in a major way and not see something that changed the course of the game?

Many games will be hard to classify but I will put myself into the brain of the losing side and try to find the most annoying reason/s the game was lost. Obviously this will be pretty subjective and most games will probably be a combination of factors so I'll use a points system. 

Example:
A game was equal through the opening, then my opponent blundered and missed a queen-rook skewer so I went up the exchange then we quickly and easily simplified down and I had a bishop and passed pawn that I was going to promote when opponent resigned. 
TACTICS: 1
STRATEGY: 0
ENDGAME: 1
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 0

There was a struggle of positioning pieces with only one pawn trade and one minor piece trade through the first 20 moves, then I slowly got choked out and misplayed a rook and pawn endgame and resigned.
TACTICS: 0
STRATEGY: 1
ENDGAME: 1
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 1

There were maybe some strategic moves and a complicated tactic that let my opponent go up a pawn then we went to a knight and bishop vs knight and bishop endgame wherein they had a passed pawn. I had to play defensively and eventually let their knight in to get another pawn and I couldn't maintain my defenses.
TACTICS: 1
STRATEGY: 1
ENDGAME: 1
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 0

Solid opening but no exchanges, lots of strategic slow moves by both sides then I struggled to find a play and was under SOME time pressure and eventually straight up blundered a bishop when I moved it to a square I thought was protected.
TACTICS: 0
STRATEGY: 1
ENDGAME: 0
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 1
______________________

So from this collection of example games, my totals are:
TACTICS: 2
STRATEGY: 3
ENDGAME: 3
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 2

From this I should have a solid plan on what to focus on!

My plan for this week

I've kinda a busy week coming up but I should be free tonight for some chess. I should be able to play a classical game and then do some tactics. 

Tactics Trainin'
My short-term goal: In my 1200-1400 problem set, I have 133 problems I'm "learning" so I should be able to get to 150 or 160 on that tonight and then to 200 by my next session. I can continue reviewing the 1000-1200 as well as the 1200-1400 

Longer term: Build a 1400-1600 set and get 200 problems in it. Review the 10-1200 and 12-1400 ranged sets. Continually review all problem sets: every night open ChessTempo and go through the "Scheduled" problems for each set until I can do them all with ease.

Book Learnin'
Whatchu readin' fer? My short-term goal is to start and finish Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals with note-taking. I skimmed through it at work and it looks like it requires a chessboard with playing through the moves but it shouldn't take me too long.

My longer-term goal is Amateur's Mind. Develop a plan for Silman's Complete Endgame Course as well.

Game Playin'
Get 4 more classical games under my belt! I also want to go over my last 20 or 30 games and classify them (see blog post on that!)

My progress after a few days

The blog just began but I'm doing really well lately. I'm not playing perfect chess but I'm winning, including some of my highest-rated wins ever. Confidence is high and I feel like I'm pretty much at the right skill-level to reach the 90% in the lichess classical pool. I should remember that my confidence was much less high a few weeks ago. Chess is a motherfucker and you can get down on yourself very easily. I guarantee that I could play three games right now, lose them all, and probably think this blog is stupid and I wasted so much time on tactics this winter. 

It's okay to feel bad about your chess progress. It's okay to feel good about your chess progress. One is negative and one is positive but the absolute value of the feelings are the same -- they both show that you care about improving.

Here's my overall progress graph for classical. At times it feels good to see this, but it also makes me think I need to be playing so much more so it eventually evens out because I still don't know where my first "plateau" is.

I'm at 176 games as of today. It's snowing so I could play 4 more classical games today to get to 180 total games. I had a good start this morning so I feel good. If I can win at least 3 of 5 then I'll feel okay and I can see my progress after that.

First!

A blog about chess improvement for the "advanced beginner" chess player! In talking about my own goals and improvement plans, I hope to help others near my skill level. Off we go. I'll start with where I stand and where I want to go.

I have accounts at the two main chess sites but I spend most of my time on lichess.org. Here are my starting numbers from that site:

     BLITZ: 1320 | 41.8% (152 games)

     RAPID: 1478 | 56.2% (111 games)

     CLASSICAL: 1683 | 83.0% (170 games)

     CORRESPONDENCE: 1805 | N/A% (83 games)

CURRENT GOAL: Increase my classical lichess rating to the 90th percentile

I chose to begin in classical for a few reasons:

• Primarily, because it's recommended to newer players to improve by playing slow time controls. You have more time to calculate, visualize, and plan.
• It's a smaller pool of players so it's easier to move up. Not many GMs or IMs are playing 45 minute games online :) 
• Blitz can be infuriating and I rarely feel like I learn much. I learn so much more in a classical game because I know the moves I played were my best ideas. I can see in analysis why they worked or why they didn't.
• My idea is Improve in Classical --> Improve in Rapid --> Improve in Blitz

I began taking tactics training more seriously a few months ago and have steadily been increasing my rating. My current win/loss/draw ratio in classical is W97 L69 D8 so I'm still winning a lot of my games. That is encouraging!

My plan to improve:

• Play more games - I haven't played all that many classical games! I follow someone that's played nearly 10,000! I always felt that when my win rate is close to 50% that's when I will be at my first plateau. Since I'm still winning more than losing, I think I haven't hit my "real" rating.
• Study tactics - Spaced repetition tactics training in ChessTempo.
• Continue reading books - My games against better players this week have been getting slightly strategic in nature so I want to focus on that element and I have a few books that can help. 

So from that, here are my Short-Term Goals:

• Play 30 more classical games to get to 200 total!
• Continue my ChessTempo tactics training and make a post outlining my routine.
• Work through Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals which appears to cover two things I need a lot of help on: endgame principles and general middlegame plans.
• Work through Silman's The Amateur's Mind for more middlegame help.