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.