Monday, November 10, 2008

2002 On Red Hot Pawn

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%.