Another milestone reached. It took a full year getting from breaking 1500 to here, which makes it twice as fast as getting from 1400 to 1500. The main difference no doubt is that I've been on a more or less steady diet of blitz since last december. Roughly 1300 5/0 blitz games during that time, the longest breaks having been a couple of weeks at most. During this time my slow chess hasn't improved one bit. Yet more weight to my belief that blitz is mostly about experience, mileage.
Haven't been training much, but the little I've been doing has been openings. Zero endings, zero tactics. Just playing blitz, playing, playing, playing. And it seems like the way to go regarding blitz. Still got a staggering amount of work left with my openings though, so if what I've been saying about blitz & openings has any point in it, there's nowhere to go but up.
So onwards to 1700!
ICC 5-minute: 1613, 1318 games, +643, -652, =23.
RHP: 2031, 335 games, +230, -87, =18.
Showing posts with label RHP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RHP. Show all posts
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
1506 on ICC 5-minute Blitz!
F i n a l l y ! It's been over two years since I first crossed 1400 on ICC 5-minute, and even though the effort has been sporadic at best, it still took more than enough time. I've had these spells of blitz in which I decide to work on it properly, but they've seldom lasted for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Then 3-8 months of hiatus, and back on it. -It's always been hard to keep myself motivated to train blitz more, as slow chess has always gone so much better for me. Obviously you always much rather do things you're good at. Hopefully that'll change for the better now after reaching a basic level of not dropping everything in every game, so my strat
egic/positional strengths should also begin affecting the games. Still much to do on the basic technique though, and I'll also no doubt dive back under 1500 soon enough. Gotta just keep hammering.
It took me 1002 of 5-minute games on ICC, and 2679 on FICS, so roughly 3700 games in total over the four years I've played chess. From what I've heard from other people, they've needed less than half of it to get onto the same level. Maybe it's a side-effect of starting chess 30-years old, but frankly I doubt they've been that counting the amount that precisely. It's so easy to underestimate things like this, forget old accounts and whole sites you've played on. If I'd have to give a guesstimate on my own total amount without my training diary, I'd probably say something like a thousand games in total. But I know I've played exactly 1002 5/0s on ICC, 149 other blitz time controls, 2679 5/0s on FICS, and about 60 games on other sites. So I'd guess their real number of games is much closer to my 3700 than the 1000-2000 they often estimate. Then again, my long pauses in blitz training can't be good, so maybe... Well, I don't know for sure. But I wanted to document these things so other beginner can have at least one exact reference of how much work it took. I would've killed for data like this in my first two years.
So what worked and what didn't?
Well, for one, I must say that tactics never did anything for my blitz, even though it's always advertized as the holy grail of fast chess. It has benefitted me hugely on correspondence chess and the ability of solving tactical puzzles, but my blitz never improved on bit before I begun playing blitz heavily. Although obviously you have to have some basic proficiency in tactics, you can't just expect to survive in blitz if you never drilled tactics. But it isn't the bottleneck, at least on the low levels.
Endgames, well, that's a sort of mixed thing. Although my endgame studies have been far from what I'd like it to be (in quantity/quality), it has had some effect. But, I think the blitz endings get played 'wrong' far more often than 'correctly', so the theory doesn't have that much impact. I'd assume the training effect of playing blitz endings 'incorrectly' for thousands of games is much more relevant in practice, as is any other kind of training practical endings. On higher levels the correct theory will have an increasing effect of course, but at 1500 everybody is still playing everything 'wrong'.
Slow games haven't had much effect either. It's the area I've always used most time since the beginning, analyzing positions for hours every day. The outcome has been that I'm great at seeing what I did wrong afterwards, but that's just too little too late. The ability to analyze slow games is just too, well, slow. The revelations must come instantly, without thinking, or otherwise you lose on time. -Perhaps the slow games will some day reach a critical number, so I'll have seen all the basic situations so many times that playing them correctly becomes instinctive, but after 4 years it still takes conscious thinking time. People who've played for decades are probably in a very different situation regarding all this.
That pretty much leaves openings. The unappreciated love of beginning players, on which the experienced players always tell you not to waste study time. -And in slow chess that's actually true. But in blitz... I don't think so anymore.
During the past year that I've finally focused on my openings properly, it's become obvious that my opening knowledge has been abysmal. The shallowness and uncertainty on even the things I thought I knew has been simply enormous. As the cliché goes, I'm only beginning to undertand the extent of my ignorance. I now study openings every day, and it's paying dividends especially in blitz. I'm actually outplaying my opponents on book knowledge, and to top that I'm even understanding why their non-book moves are inferior. Of course that still happens mostly in the mainlines, and quite early at that, but it's a promising start. I'll continue on that vein and see where it'll get me.
ICC 5-minute: 1506, 1002 games, +484, -504, =14.
RHP: 2061, 324 games, +226, -81, =17.
egic/positional strengths should also begin affecting the games. Still much to do on the basic technique though, and I'll also no doubt dive back under 1500 soon enough. Gotta just keep hammering.It took me 1002 of 5-minute games on ICC, and 2679 on FICS, so roughly 3700 games in total over the four years I've played chess. From what I've heard from other people, they've needed less than half of it to get onto the same level. Maybe it's a side-effect of starting chess 30-years old, but frankly I doubt they've been that counting the amount that precisely. It's so easy to underestimate things like this, forget old accounts and whole sites you've played on. If I'd have to give a guesstimate on my own total amount without my training diary, I'd probably say something like a thousand games in total. But I know I've played exactly 1002 5/0s on ICC, 149 other blitz time controls, 2679 5/0s on FICS, and about 60 games on other sites. So I'd guess their real number of games is much closer to my 3700 than the 1000-2000 they often estimate. Then again, my long pauses in blitz training can't be good, so maybe... Well, I don't know for sure. But I wanted to document these things so other beginner can have at least one exact reference of how much work it took. I would've killed for data like this in my first two years.
So what worked and what didn't?
Well, for one, I must say that tactics never did anything for my blitz, even though it's always advertized as the holy grail of fast chess. It has benefitted me hugely on correspondence chess and the ability of solving tactical puzzles, but my blitz never improved on bit before I begun playing blitz heavily. Although obviously you have to have some basic proficiency in tactics, you can't just expect to survive in blitz if you never drilled tactics. But it isn't the bottleneck, at least on the low levels.
Endgames, well, that's a sort of mixed thing. Although my endgame studies have been far from what I'd like it to be (in quantity/quality), it has had some effect. But, I think the blitz endings get played 'wrong' far more often than 'correctly', so the theory doesn't have that much impact. I'd assume the training effect of playing blitz endings 'incorrectly' for thousands of games is much more relevant in practice, as is any other kind of training practical endings. On higher levels the correct theory will have an increasing effect of course, but at 1500 everybody is still playing everything 'wrong'.
Slow games haven't had much effect either. It's the area I've always used most time since the beginning, analyzing positions for hours every day. The outcome has been that I'm great at seeing what I did wrong afterwards, but that's just too little too late. The ability to analyze slow games is just too, well, slow. The revelations must come instantly, without thinking, or otherwise you lose on time. -Perhaps the slow games will some day reach a critical number, so I'll have seen all the basic situations so many times that playing them correctly becomes instinctive, but after 4 years it still takes conscious thinking time. People who've played for decades are probably in a very different situation regarding all this.
That pretty much leaves openings. The unappreciated love of beginning players, on which the experienced players always tell you not to waste study time. -And in slow chess that's actually true. But in blitz... I don't think so anymore.
During the past year that I've finally focused on my openings properly, it's become obvious that my opening knowledge has been abysmal. The shallowness and uncertainty on even the things I thought I knew has been simply enormous. As the cliché goes, I'm only beginning to undertand the extent of my ignorance. I now study openings every day, and it's paying dividends especially in blitz. I'm actually outplaying my opponents on book knowledge, and to top that I'm even understanding why their non-book moves are inferior. Of course that still happens mostly in the mainlines, and quite early at that, but it's a promising start. I'll continue on that vein and see where it'll get me.
ICC 5-minute: 1506, 1002 games, +484, -504, =14.
RHP: 2061, 324 games, +226, -81, =17.
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%.
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%.
Friday, December 14, 2007
The First Tournament Victory On RHP
I just won my first tournament on RHP, the August 2006 Banded Quartets 1550-1750, when Billnad, the other finalist, was a no-show in the rematch final. We tied for the win in the first final, because of my stupid opening blunder against him (the other game is the one a few posts ago). I would of course have rather won the final games by playing, but I can't control whether my opponent shows up or not. I did get to play him before though, and I feel I was slightly stronger, so I still feel pretty good about the win.
As usual with banded CC tournaments, both of us had grown well out of the original band, ending up to 1900+. It's pretty much customary that these 1500+ tournaments are eventually won by players in the 2000's, partly because winning the group usually means you have to win something like 80-90% of the games on every round, but also because the events span over years. I'm still playing the very first tournament I took part in, a 1600-1699 banded, and currently tied for the win with a 2070-player.
RHP: 1977, 287 games, +198 -74 =15.
As usual with banded CC tournaments, both of us had grown well out of the original band, ending up to 1900+. It's pretty much customary that these 1500+ tournaments are eventually won by players in the 2000's, partly because winning the group usually means you have to win something like 80-90% of the games on every round, but also because the events span over years. I'm still playing the very first tournament I took part in, a 1600-1699 banded, and currently tied for the win with a 2070-player.
RHP: 1977, 287 games, +198 -74 =15.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Here Be Dragons
I think I'm done with it. I've played the Sicilian Dragon exclusively in my slow games for maybe half a year now. And while it does offer some crazy attacks, those never really seem to materialize outside blitz. I always feel I'm a dead man walking, waiting for my opponent to screw up. And I really don't like that, it's a way too passive way to play for me. I crave for the initiative, no matter what the cost.
Here's a perfect example from RHP a couple of days ago. I don't really think I did any bad mistakes, the guy just tightened his grip ever so gently throughout the game. It was like he had a knife on my throat, and whatever I did his hold just got stronger. It took me 17 moves to even get equality. Which fortunately also provoked his mistake 18.Nd5. At that point I knew I was doing very well, but at the same time very aware of the complications I would be facing when the white queen finally lands on h6 with a check. I calculated my ass off to see whether I can escape the mate or not, because I knew he'd be mated if I could just escape his checks for a move or two.
23.Qh6+ and white queen finally landed into my position. I was still unsure if I could escape via e6, which now in hindsight looks obvious. So I chickened out and took the safe way to victory with a queen exchange. Sure it's more reasonable to exchange down into a won, safe endgame, but it just isn't the same as crushing your opponent with devastating massive blows.
[White "LightSoul"]
[Black "wormwood"]
[WhiteRating "1932"]
[BlackRating "1862"]
[Result "0-1"]
1. e4 c5 2. Ng1f3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nf3xd4 Ng8f6 5. Nb1c3 g6 6. Bc1e3 Bf8g7 7. Bf1e2 O-O 8. h4 Nb8c6 9. h5 Nc6xd4 10. Be3xd4 Bc8e6 11. hxg6 fxg6 12. Qd1d2 Qd8a5 13. f3 a6 14. a3 Ra8c8 15. g4 Be6c4 16. Be2xc4 Rc8xc4 17. b4 Qa5c7 18. Nc3d5 Nf6xd5 19. Bd4xg7 Rf8xf3 20. Qd2xd5 Kg8xg7 21. Qd5g5 Rc4xe4 22. Ke1d1 Qc7c3 23. Qg5h6 Kg7f7 24. Qh6xh7 Qc3g7 0-1
To put a long story short, I think I'm going to take up Scandinavian also in slow games. It's just so incredibly nice to harass white straight from the start, develop with ease, and crush! crush! crush! Well at least try, but no waiting for the coup de grâce anymore.
Here's a perfect example from RHP a couple of days ago. I don't really think I did any bad mistakes, the guy just tightened his grip ever so gently throughout the game. It was like he had a knife on my throat, and whatever I did his hold just got stronger. It took me 17 moves to even get equality. Which fortunately also provoked his mistake 18.Nd5. At that point I knew I was doing very well, but at the same time very aware of the complications I would be facing when the white queen finally lands on h6 with a check. I calculated my ass off to see whether I can escape the mate or not, because I knew he'd be mated if I could just escape his checks for a move or two.
23.Qh6+ and white queen finally landed into my position. I was still unsure if I could escape via e6, which now in hindsight looks obvious. So I chickened out and took the safe way to victory with a queen exchange. Sure it's more reasonable to exchange down into a won, safe endgame, but it just isn't the same as crushing your opponent with devastating massive blows.
[White "LightSoul"]
[Black "wormwood"]
[WhiteRating "1932"]
[BlackRating "1862"]
[Result "0-1"]
1. e4 c5 2. Ng1f3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nf3xd4 Ng8f6 5. Nb1c3 g6 6. Bc1e3 Bf8g7 7. Bf1e2 O-O 8. h4 Nb8c6 9. h5 Nc6xd4 10. Be3xd4 Bc8e6 11. hxg6 fxg6 12. Qd1d2 Qd8a5 13. f3 a6 14. a3 Ra8c8 15. g4 Be6c4 16. Be2xc4 Rc8xc4 17. b4 Qa5c7 18. Nc3d5 Nf6xd5 19. Bd4xg7 Rf8xf3 20. Qd2xd5 Kg8xg7 21. Qd5g5 Rc4xe4 22. Ke1d1 Qc7c3 23. Qg5h6 Kg7f7 24. Qh6xh7 Qc3g7 0-1
To put a long story short, I think I'm going to take up Scandinavian also in slow games. It's just so incredibly nice to harass white straight from the start, develop with ease, and crush! crush! crush! Well at least try, but no waiting for the coup de grâce anymore.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
CTS 1587 on 86.3% Success Rate
So the big wheel finally turned, and my success rate jumped from 77.8% to 77.9%. It took 1008 problems, give or take a couple of dozen tries, yielding an actual success rate of 86.3%. Slightly less than what I was aiming for, but I had quite a lot of bad days which drop the percentage quite easily. I'll keep pushing for the 90%, so hopefully the next increment will happen around 900 tries from now.
Winning streak on RHP keeps continuing, and regardless of some problems against the lower rated, my rating graph just keeps going up. I don't really lose much anymore, only one single loss and a draw in the last 30 games. It's probably not because I suddenly got a lot better, but because I'm getting more diciplined in the way I play my games. And most of the opponents have also been hundreds of points lower rated, so that's a factor too. Can't really do much about that, as the tournaments almost always have a lot of lower rated players. But it's still always nice to win, even though I'll only get 1 or 2 points for the win, and risk losing 30 for the occasional blunder. That's also where the diciplined approach comes in.
CTS: 1587, 85972 tries, 77.9%
RHP: 1923, 239 games, wdl 167-13-65
Winning streak on RHP keeps continuing, and regardless of some problems against the lower rated, my rating graph just keeps going up. I don't really lose much anymore, only one single loss and a draw in the last 30 games. It's probably not because I suddenly got a lot better, but because I'm getting more diciplined in the way I play my games. And most of the opponents have also been hundreds of points lower rated, so that's a factor too. Can't really do much about that, as the tournaments almost always have a lot of lower rated players. But it's still always nice to win, even though I'll only get 1 or 2 points for the win, and risk losing 30 for the occasional blunder. That's also where the diciplined approach comes in.
CTS: 1587, 85972 tries, 77.9%
RHP: 1923, 239 games, wdl 167-13-65
Friday, May 25, 2007
1902 On Red Hot Pawn
My RHP games have been going very well for a while now, regardless of my chronically oversized game load (47), and I've committed only a few glaring mistakes. Subtracting the negatives, it really works.
The goal for 2007 was 1900, and it's only May. I had a feeling it might not be that difficult goal to reach, but wasn't really expecting to do it so quick. More time to work on my useless blitz I guess.
There's a couple of games in which I'm being run over, but not for those typical simple oversights, which is always good. I don't mind being outplayed strategically, as it always gives you a burning scar that won't fade away for a long time (won't be underestimating the bayonet against KID again in a hurry). It's the simple blunders which bug the hell out of me.
I've been winning most of the games, but some of the lower rated opponents have & are giving me a really hard time. They seem to just buckle up when they see my rating go up, damn them. It was a lot easier to win against 1500's when I was in the 1600's. Fortunately my endgames have come a long way, and I've even managed to draw some lost games. And no more losing won endgames against 1500's. All Hail Karsten Müller!
Nevertheless, a huge amount of work left on endgames, for I've still only scratched the surface so far. Tactics, well that's a neverending graveyard shift in the salt mines, but I think I'm pretty okay for now. Could be a lot better, especially on calculation, but there are more pressing matters to concern myself with.
Like always, I sense the impending doom looming right behind the next corner, and expect to drop back to 1800's before long. But if I do, I'm now pretty confident in staying over 1900 once I get my game load down to a manageable size. With some nice victories coming in, I might make it even now. Although I'm somewhat sceptical about that... But like always, we'll see what future brings.
On CTS I've been doing around 90% success rate for a while now, hovering around 1600, and today the overall percentage finally did budge from 77.7% to 77.8%. It's now 84 964 tries, and I thought I'd write it down so I can calculate what kind of average I've actually had when the percentage moves the next time.
RHP: 1902, 234 games, wdl 162-13-65
CTS: 1595, 84964 tries, 77.8%
The goal for 2007 was 1900, and it's only May. I had a feeling it might not be that difficult goal to reach, but wasn't really expecting to do it so quick. More time to work on my useless blitz I guess.
There's a couple of games in which I'm being run over, but not for those typical simple oversights, which is always good. I don't mind being outplayed strategically, as it always gives you a burning scar that won't fade away for a long time (won't be underestimating the bayonet against KID again in a hurry). It's the simple blunders which bug the hell out of me.
I've been winning most of the games, but some of the lower rated opponents have & are giving me a really hard time. They seem to just buckle up when they see my rating go up, damn them. It was a lot easier to win against 1500's when I was in the 1600's. Fortunately my endgames have come a long way, and I've even managed to draw some lost games. And no more losing won endgames against 1500's. All Hail Karsten Müller!
Nevertheless, a huge amount of work left on endgames, for I've still only scratched the surface so far. Tactics, well that's a neverending graveyard shift in the salt mines, but I think I'm pretty okay for now. Could be a lot better, especially on calculation, but there are more pressing matters to concern myself with.
Like always, I sense the impending doom looming right behind the next corner, and expect to drop back to 1800's before long. But if I do, I'm now pretty confident in staying over 1900 once I get my game load down to a manageable size. With some nice victories coming in, I might make it even now. Although I'm somewhat sceptical about that... But like always, we'll see what future brings.
On CTS I've been doing around 90% success rate for a while now, hovering around 1600, and today the overall percentage finally did budge from 77.7% to 77.8%. It's now 84 964 tries, and I thought I'd write it down so I can calculate what kind of average I've actually had when the percentage moves the next time.
RHP: 1902, 234 games, wdl 162-13-65
CTS: 1595, 84964 tries, 77.8%
Saturday, February 24, 2007
1650 On CTS
Another milestone reached. I just did about a hundred problems staying on the 1645-1650 level, even though I had slept only three hours last night. My eyes felt weary, but it was like the pins, skewers and double threats were flying at me, and I solved a lot of them in less than three seconds. Still, I got only 6 wrong of the last 50 problems. That's a solid 88% success rate. Weird.
I had been forcing myself to look for my own king safety first for a couple of days, which felt very awkward and difficult to maintain. It also slowed me down quite a bit, and didn't seem to make that big of a difference. So now I just went with the feeling, mostly not concentrating on the king safety. And I just flew through the variations, spotting all relevant aspects in the positions like they had big, red lights blinking on them. I hope this isn't an isolated incident.
Feeling quite tired with my CC games. I divided them in three and now try to force myself to run through a group on most days. But I've clearly overdone it, and I'll need to cut my gameload down. Once again. There's also the 7/14 Clan Leagues starting in a week or so, which will apparently land me another 18-20 games playing board two. Which will probably mean the opponents are rated 1600-2000 depending on the clan.
I don't even have much energy for the 30 30 games, so I've slowed that down as well. Not to mention CT-ART and PCT. No sense in doing them until I have the necessary energy back.
Started going through Kasparov's KID games though, which seems nice and interesting. Taking maybe 30-45 minutes a game, not trying to wreck my brain or anything. Just getting some easy fun. I'll probably be trying KID out myself on 30 30 games soon.
CTS: 1650, 77546, 77.6%
RHP: 1822
FICS standard: 1623 (1662), wdl 28-2-16
I had been forcing myself to look for my own king safety first for a couple of days, which felt very awkward and difficult to maintain. It also slowed me down quite a bit, and didn't seem to make that big of a difference. So now I just went with the feeling, mostly not concentrating on the king safety. And I just flew through the variations, spotting all relevant aspects in the positions like they had big, red lights blinking on them. I hope this isn't an isolated incident.
Feeling quite tired with my CC games. I divided them in three and now try to force myself to run through a group on most days. But I've clearly overdone it, and I'll need to cut my gameload down. Once again. There's also the 7/14 Clan Leagues starting in a week or so, which will apparently land me another 18-20 games playing board two. Which will probably mean the opponents are rated 1600-2000 depending on the clan.
I don't even have much energy for the 30 30 games, so I've slowed that down as well. Not to mention CT-ART and PCT. No sense in doing them until I have the necessary energy back.
Started going through Kasparov's KID games though, which seems nice and interesting. Taking maybe 30-45 minutes a game, not trying to wreck my brain or anything. Just getting some easy fun. I'll probably be trying KID out myself on 30 30 games soon.
CTS: 1650, 77546, 77.6%
RHP: 1822
FICS standard: 1623 (1662), wdl 28-2-16
Sunday, January 21, 2007
1805 On Red Hot Pawn
Wupee! Finally there. Well, at least for a while. No doubt I'll fall back under 1800 soon, but the first time you break an even hundred is always a cause for celebration. The mental barrier has been broken, and now I'll just have to establish my rating above 1800 for good. It took me 1½ years, 202 rated CC games and 73 882 problems on CTS to get there. It's time to set the sights for 1900.
CTS has been going extremely well also, after I stopped daily training. During the last two weeks I've hit another bumb, and risen up to around 1630 (1639). I think it's because I've been at it really hard the last six months, averaging at about 200-300 problems a day, so now that I've taken it easy I'm more alert and less exhausted.
I've been slacking a bit with CT-ART, mainly because I don't want to do it tired. I would just start guessing, which is the exact opposite of what I'm trying to gain from it. Which is exhaustive and complete calculation training. But I'll get back to it as soon as I feel more alert.
RHP: 1805, 202 games, wdl 134-11-61.
CTS: 1621 (1639), 73 931 problems, 77.7%
CTS has been going extremely well also, after I stopped daily training. During the last two weeks I've hit another bumb, and risen up to around 1630 (1639). I think it's because I've been at it really hard the last six months, averaging at about 200-300 problems a day, so now that I've taken it easy I'm more alert and less exhausted.
I've been slacking a bit with CT-ART, mainly because I don't want to do it tired. I would just start guessing, which is the exact opposite of what I'm trying to gain from it. Which is exhaustive and complete calculation training. But I'll get back to it as soon as I feel more alert.
RHP: 1805, 202 games, wdl 134-11-61.
CTS: 1621 (1639), 73 931 problems, 77.7%
Sunday, January 07, 2007
The Year 2006 And Goals For 2007
I guess it's time to make a quick summary on the year 2006. Looking back, chess improvement went reasonably well, although I didn't get around to playing standard games. Other than that, I pretty much reached my goals for the year. broke 1600 on CTS, 1200 in FICS blitz, and would've even broken the 1800 on RHP without the 40 swindled points I mentioned in my previous post. So, all in all, things went pretty well.
For the year 2007 I'm making some minor changes in my training program. Tactics will no longer be the primary training I'll be using my efforts on, instead I'm concentrating on endgames. I'll still be doing some CTS just for fun and CT-ART for calculation exercises, but the bulk of my time will be devoted to mastering the material in the 3 Karsten Müller endgame dvds I acquired. I have watched through the dvds 1&2, and now I'm drilling all the examples against fritz until I can instantly recognize and perform the necessary procedures. I'm now drilling the pawn endgames, and needless to say but it has made all the difference. I'm pretty sure all of my explicit knowledge of the related theory was almost useless, as in reality I had to actually calculate K+P vs. K. Now I recognize the critical squares etc. instantly, and can tell with great certainty if the situation is won/drawn in 20 moves, and what needs to be done to make it so. Suddenly, the deadly boring endgames have actually become fun! It's almost like magic when you know the theory, and know without calculation that no move exist for the opponent to break the theory, no matter how he answers.
Goals for the year 2007: RHP 1900, FICS blitz 1500, and let's say 1600 for FICS standard if I (hopefully) get around to playing standard games. I realize the standard goal isn't exactly on par with the other goals, but I'm going to work first on my blitz, and only then standard if there's time/energy.
For the year 2007 I'm making some minor changes in my training program. Tactics will no longer be the primary training I'll be using my efforts on, instead I'm concentrating on endgames. I'll still be doing some CTS just for fun and CT-ART for calculation exercises, but the bulk of my time will be devoted to mastering the material in the 3 Karsten Müller endgame dvds I acquired. I have watched through the dvds 1&2, and now I'm drilling all the examples against fritz until I can instantly recognize and perform the necessary procedures. I'm now drilling the pawn endgames, and needless to say but it has made all the difference. I'm pretty sure all of my explicit knowledge of the related theory was almost useless, as in reality I had to actually calculate K+P vs. K. Now I recognize the critical squares etc. instantly, and can tell with great certainty if the situation is won/drawn in 20 moves, and what needs to be done to make it so. Suddenly, the deadly boring endgames have actually become fun! It's almost like magic when you know the theory, and know without calculation that no move exist for the opponent to break the theory, no matter how he answers.
Goals for the year 2007: RHP 1900, FICS blitz 1500, and let's say 1600 for FICS standard if I (hopefully) get around to playing standard games. I realize the standard goal isn't exactly on par with the other goals, but I'm going to work first on my blitz, and only then standard if there's time/energy.
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