Finally made it, don't feel any different. It took a little over three years, but to be honest I've been mostly lazing up the last one. Have turned into a slightly more well rounded player though, due to the endgame training, which has opened up my understanding of the other phases of the game as well. Although the slowly cumulating experience probably didn't hurt either.
My openings still suck, as do my middlegame. My calculation is abysmal, and I'm really not even remotely satisfied with my tactics either. A lot of work needs to be done to cover even the basics of endgame, which I've only scratched so far. If anything, I see more holes in my game than I saw a year ago. But I guess that's positive, to know at least some of what needs fixing.
If this is 2000, I'm not impressed. I still feel like a beginner, blindly fumbling his way through the ropes. I'm turning 34 in two months, started at thirty, and getting here wasn't really that difficult (in the sense that everything's been simple repetitive training, instead of complex deep & mystical secrets). Only laborous.
Right now I'm quite confident that anybody can reach 2200, regardless of age. Probably more. There's so many simple basic things yet to learn that it isn't even funny. When those simple things are exhausted, that's the first possible 'ceiling' for an adult. Until that it's just going through those things one by one, training them until you can't get them wrong. Train more, read less.
RHP: 2002, 307 games, +212, =17, -78.
Chess.com: 2097, 15 games, +14, =0, -1.
CTS: 1632, 107832 problems, 80.0%.
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Impressive ... impressive indeed. How many years and/or months have you been playing on RHP?
my first games on RHP, three years ago, were also my first games against human opponents (and it shows!). I learned the rules in june, started doing tactics on first or second week after, and found CTS within the first month I think. about three months and 6000 problems later I begun to play on RHP, which has been daily routine since.
Hey, great job! RHP is tough at that level. Now, maybe you're confident enough to play OTB. :P I'm just teasing.
I hope to break the magic 2000 barrier OTB next year. That would give me the first professional title, USCF Expert. It will be extremely difficult since I'm currently more than 200 points under that but I'll work hard to elevate my game as time allows. In fact, I'd like your feedback on this,
Tactics are important at every level and I want to hone them. However, there are a lot of options. I've tried CTS for instant board vision (~1525 rating) and Chess.com's Tactics Trainer for more realistic problems (~2000 rating) but I've also heard of ChessTempo. There are even software programs like CT:Art 3.0, ChessMentor and Chessimo - not to mention books. In this sea, I'm not sure where to steer. What did you find most useful to emphasize and learn from?
Thanks in advance and good luck in the future too.
I'm probably not the guy to ask from how to break 2000 OTB, as I'm practically a 100% CC player. but my uninformed guess would be that the difference lies in visualisation & calculation. at which I suck to no end.
I'm basing this to the fact that I do well against OTB peers in CC. it's not because of databases, as I haven't used them for at least a year, with no significant degradation in performance. I don't know my openings thoroughly either, but I've focused my efforts more on understanding the positions than memorization. "good positions come to those who are patient" is also something that has guided me. and every time I disregard it I end up in trouble.
and endgames.. my games are often lost or won (against peers) far before that. against lower rated it's made a huge impact though, the U1800 tend to always throw their position off a cliff in the ending, even against my meager endgame. the 2000+ tend to be rock solid though, and I've won only one game in roughly equal ending against such players. it's an area I obviously have to work on, as I can't imagine their endgame can possibly be perfect, I just can't see the cracks because of my inferior endgame.
basically all I've done so far is CTS & CC. and although I think it's an excellent way to improve, it probably lacks the crucial element for OTB: calculation. - in CC it's enough to spot the opportunities (CTS) and planning well (countless hrs working on positions), and all the fuzzy stuff you can play out on analysis board until you get it right. there's no need for calculation as such, at least not precise calculation.
so that pretty much leaves calculation as the main difference between OTB and CC, in my opinion.
my guess is that calculation would be best worked on slow tactical problems. I'm not sure they have to be extremely difficult though, but it certainly can't hurt. (well it WILL hurt like a bitch, physically, forcing yourself onwards without mercy. I got headaches & nausea doing CT-ART with high accuracy. which is also one of the reasons I think it would be so effective. I'll start doing it again eventually.) - many people have suggested long endgame lines, but I've never tried it. and I believe slow tactics have the additional benefit of building the tactical muscle.
in a nut shell: if I were to push for 2000 OTB, I'd put a lot of effort to CT-ART. torture myself with it. in addition to CTS & CC. well I probably wouldn't have the energy to keep up CTS in that case, so maybe I'd drop it.
and of course playing as much as possible against higher rated players, that goes without saying.
training instead of reading, pain before comfort, and never give up. that's the recipe I've followed. I think it applies to any area of chess. and any other skill. talent is nothing, training is everything.
congratulations!
I’ve been stuck in a time machine and am just now catching up on your blog. I follow BDK, tempo and a handful of others quite regularly. I did the CT-ART seven circles of hell thing back a couple years and found that improved my baseline and calculations. Now I am building on correct positional analysis through studying old tournaments. I use a raw pgn of the games. Annotate on my own. Then I cross reference the tournament book and follow it up with an engine’s analysis.
So after the tactical training I hit a plateau. I went from 1300’s to 1600’s in OTB. Now with the positional game studies, I am approaching 1800’s. I am intrigued by the fact that you have only been playing for a few short years. You approached learning chess from a skills acquisition approach and reached a level in the virtual world of an expert.
I hope to reach expert in couple more years. I still train with tactics. I continue with my marvelous history tour. I started with the London 1851 last year to get a feel for the romantic period of chess, then I went to Hastings 1895 to get a feel for the classical positional modern period. Now I am covering the New York 1924 Hypermodern period and this spring I plan on working through the Zurich 1953 event for neo- modern. This process has filled an immense void in my understanding of positional styles and analysis skills.
I augment this with endgame studies which will be critical to get me through the 1800 barrier OTB. I think to break through to 2200 (master) will require a closer examination of openings that I employ to steer to ideal positions and endgames favorable for me and knowing which ones are most critical for the competition.
This will require more foundation work like the barrage of tactical studies or positional studies to form a base. The broad brush approach to studying these aspects is a quick way to build up the baseline. Further refinement is what pushes me through a ratings barrier. For instance, I found that knowing specific tactical themes that came up more often in my games gave me a better edge then just knowing ALL tactical puzzle of a certain level in CT-ART. Likewise, as I am studying games collections, I play more in a closed style so studying those types of games tend to be more beneficial.
However, being too rigid in style will hold me back like only knowing one opening. So again, a broad brush approach I feel is necessary to first build a knowledge base up.
We’ll see where I am OTB in another couple years.
I enjoy your site. I will link to this.
-George AKA blunderprone
sounds like you have a good solid program going there, bp. and I wouldn't read too much into the rating numbers, they're mostly irrelevant to any particular game. also CC is very different from OTB, and I have my doubts against being able to reach more than 1800 OTB myself at this point, because of the various shortcomings mentioned in the blog.
I think the uscf 'expert' is such a confusing term. most countries don't have anything like it. the closest is the candidate master, which is 2050 in finland (corresponding to about 2150 uscf), and even that is widely ignored. a uscf 'expert' couldn't break into top 200 in my town for example. (and before someone gets his underwear twisted, I'm not trying to disrespect the expert term, I'm just stating facts.)
I still consider myself a beginner, and that will remain so until I have the basics covered even in a half-assed manner. - I've seen countless times people throwing claims like 'a 1800 will know these things' or 'a 2000 will have solid endgame' etc, but it simply isn't true. -well, maybe some of them actually do have these things down, but I know I certainly don't. and didn't kasparov say something like "there's no point in studying openings below 2000"? -I don't think I can fully agree on that, but I can certainly agree with the idea. which I take is: 2000s don't know much anything yet, and should work on their basics first.
I've wanted to start going through the famous tournaments myself for some time now, but never seem to get around to it. there's so much else to do, and only so much time. recently I've been doing a huge amount of work on my openings, which will continue for some time. -I wish there was something like leningrad dutch against 1.e4, so I could save the huge amount of time spent on sicilians & antisicilians. but dragon is the only thing I feel comfortable in, so right now I really don't have a reasonable option. I know it's sort of stupid to take on such a huge body of theory as a beginner (much more practical & efficient to play something simpler and use the time to other things), but at the same time I know the themes and especially defensive techniques will serve me well in the long run.
and then there's the neverending salt mine of endgame...
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