Progress Report

I have been absent awhile because I've been to Brighton (San Fransisco of the UK) for some birthdays, catching up etc...so I have fallen somewhat behind, but now I'm back in the game.

-Irving Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move is now completed. Moving on to his Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played.


On the tactics front, let me first describe my circling method:

CTB is split into 5 sections of increasing difficulty, so I am mastering each section before moving onto the next - concentric circles. The drill is begin with section 1, go through once in practice mode, that is doing all the exercises by theme to get started, then split up the section into elo ranges in test mode (normally about 3 sets of 100 exercises), and circle these each individually about 6 times, then circle the section as a whole about 6 times - a whole lot of repetition.

I haven't been keeping diligent records of my training, but I do know what has been completed:

Section 1 - Complete
Section 2 - Complete
Sectiion 3 - Complete
3.1 - 99%
3.2 - 99.7%
3.3 - 99.7%
3.4 - 100%!
3.5 - 99.7%
3.6 - 99.7%

So the first 3 sections are completed, and I am now beginning section 4. I find it impossible to get 100% often because I will invariably drop the piece on the boundary between the wrong and right square a few times even when extremely familiar with the position.

Also I have played a fair few games on playchess, 7 of which were rated. It was an interesting experience as I have found that all I had read about playing 'real chess', about blunderchecks and thought processes went out the window in the adrenaline of the match. I think improving this aspect will do the most for my game at the moment, but I think what is necessary is more experience, but probably also to strive early on to develop correct habits. The rating system seems extremely odd there, but I assume that you must play alot more games until it settles down, I peaked at 1617! and have now fallen to a lowly, but still massively overrated 1417. It seems a shame to play more and bring my rating down but it is the only way to get better obviously. (Does anyone ever get confused by elo ratings and the 24 hour clock times...just me then heh).

There are no games worth discussing as yet: I am proud of none of my wins, and embarrassed by all of my losses. The whole point of this training is to reach a point where ideas, strategy, nuance etc... play a part greater than a distracting sideshow to the blundering ups and downs of material.

Cheers.

My Study Plan

Goals: 1600 at playchess to start with, more generally to reach a level where (obvious) blunders do not determine the course of my games, and as such allow me to appreciate chess at a higher level.

Plan:

1. Tactics, tactics, tactics

-I am doing concentric circles of Chess Tactics for Beginners (CTB), to become extremely familiar with simple tactics, the number of circles I do is variable, but at least 6, more likely 10 or more. (Also to write down the number of exercises that I take longer to solve, as CTB does not take note of this, and work on them separately by repetition, narration etc...)

-Go through Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics twice, to expose myself to a wider range of tactics, and just to practice solving more tactics, as opposed to memorization.

-This should be enough for the near future, but after this I plan to progress to Chess Tactics for Intermediate players, and then Ct-ART.

2. Endgame

-Read the sections of Silman's Complete Endgame Course appropriate for my rating, and practice the test positions against Fritz.

3. Strategy

-Play through annotated games, as Heisman suggests there is a law of diminishing returns on further study, so a large amount of games may be more helpful than intensive study of a few. There is also the school of thought that memorizing master games can be extremely beneficial, and so I will effect a compromise, that is drumandchess's approach, and memorize a select few games that I consider particularly important as I go through them.

-Complete Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move (only a few remaining).

-Work through Chernev's 40 most Instructive Games ever Played, descriptive annotations might be a pain here, but I have the pgn files so it should be minimal. Seems like there should be great games to memorize here.

-Work through a Moprhy game collection (looking for suggestions here).

-Work through a Cappablanca game collection (the Chernev one probably).

-More to follow when I reach this point.

4. Play Games

-Play as many rated games on playchess as possible, with slow time controls.

-Analyse all games, determine where it leaves book and so what I would do next time.

-Identify my and my opponent's blunders.

-Create a database for white and for black of positions that I can drill with Chess Position Trainer. For every tactic my opponent walks into I can drill that, for every tactic I miss, for every tactic I walk into I will drill the correct move, and from the opposite side drill taking advantage of my mistake.

Well that's it for now, progress reports soon to follow, and perhaps some post-game analyses.

Cheers.

Debut

I have arrived at long last in the blogosphere to foist my words upon the world. Please bear with my lack of blogging expertise, I'm sure as time goes on I will learn such elusive skills as 'linking' and whatnot.

You may call me Shallow Blue, as is my handle on Playchess, a title far more accurate than witty. I am a British Philosophy and English Lit student, and have just recently begun my summer. Whilst studying and exams and such were in full swing I had begun my chess adventure, but with little time to spare, decided to begin by studying some tactics to prepare for the summer when I would have to time to, heaven forbid, actually play the game. So it is with shame that I admit that I had been 'studying' chess for a good month before beginning to play it (although I did previously already know how to play to some extent - how the pieces moved).

My plan is a little hazy, compared to some of the systematic approaches I have read, but it is loosely based on the de la Maza 'circles' method of tactics, tactics, tactics.

The books I own are: Irving Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move, Jeremy Silman's The Complete Endgame Course, Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics and Lev Alburt's Chess Openings for White Explained.

The software I own: Chess Mentor, Personal Chess Trainer, Chess Tactics for Beginners, Fritz 11, Chessbase 9 and Chess Position Trainer.

As you can see I have much more than I need, I have an unfortunate habit of buying things online whilst stressed. I begun by studying tactics with PCT, got about halfway through module 1, and began to find it was becoming too hard with 3 move tactics, and that I was continuing mostly by guessing and being given the answers, which I was able to memorise, but obviously it was not particularly productive, and frustrating as the material tactics do not begin until module 2, module 1 containing 50-something units. Because of this I have switched to CTB, with which I have been much more successful. I believe that skills in visualisation and calculation should develop on their own, and that pattern recognition of simple motifs, and then combining these into more complex combinations is the key to progress, and so have endeavoured to become obsessively familiar with the simple CTB tactics, through a method of concentric circles, completing about 100 exercise groups over and over, at least 6 times until able to each in under 10 secs and with 100% score. I have found this difficult as I tend to make at least one mistake in a large group merely by mis-clicking, and also that contrary to others' abilities it takes me several seconds to orient myself with the position, take it in, and even determine what colour I am and which king I am trying to mate; it has happened that I stare baffled at a problem, supposedly known to me, for over a minute before realising that I am the other colour. What also slows me down the most is determining which of the myriad similar positions I am in, where the moves are also very similar (I find this especially with the knight and two bishops type mate with double check, and with the tactics that involve 'checkmating' other pieces such as the queen, I call it trapping, but I assume there is a technical term for it).

I am currently nearing completion of the 3rd series of problems in CTB, and it is my goal to completely finish over this summer. I am also nearing the end of Logical Chess, which I also want to finish, and perhaps go back over (owing to some laziness on my part in following the variations). I originally planned to learn the first 5 moves of the Alburt book, but have to decided to shelve that idea, instead adopting a basic repertoire as suggested by Grandpatzer that aims to expose oneself to a wide variety of different pawn structures, tactics, and to use main openings that will have many master games and will be useful later on in one's chess career; basically I will learn theory by reviewing my games and determining where I left book.

This post has gone on far too long, and I would reproach my self-indulgence if it were not for the fact that I have little faith anyone will ever read this :)

I want to finally express my appreciation for all the chess bloggers whose blogs I have been devouring. My apologies to anyone unfortunate enough to have read all of this, my commiserations for your perseverance.