Hello everyone, my name is Mike. I am 26 years old with a current CFC rating of 1946 and a Fide rating of 1980. http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2602938 My overall current chess goal is to reach 2200 CFC or Fide by Febuary 15/2012. Now I believe at my level openings are failry important as if you get outplayed in the opening by an equal or slightly stronger player it can be hard to get back into the game though not impossible. My positional sense is not the strongest, I instead enjoy playing tactical openings. My black repeortoire is (90% of the time) King's Indian Defence and currently French (70% of the time, though playing on changing.) As white I have played alot of e4 (lots of gambits) and I'm flirting around with sharp d4 lines. I am currently studying the 2 books Calculate Like a Gradmaster: Learn from World-class Attacking Players by Danny Gormally and Secrets of Pawn Endings by Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht. My biggest weaknesses I think are calculating and my endgames. I feel that 6 months ago my largest weakness was defending worse and passive postions. But now when I get a worse position I try and think what a grandmaster would do and that is to defend, defend, defend and try to keep making the best moves to discourge my opponent that I am putting up stiff resistance. At my club I am trying to play more matches than our monthly accelerated swiss tournaments. In playing matches it enables me to prepare my openings more deeply and more focused. One of my reasons for joining chess.com is to play in thematic tournaments to focus on studying specific openings for both colours.
This is my 1 year plan to reach 2200.
- Study for an hour minimum every day (before work starts)
- I want to right now focus on endgames and calculation
- Focus on preparing my openings and learning the ideas not just memorize opening variations (hoping to use chess.com for this)
- Study tactics for at least half an hour everyday (I normally do this at lunch break)
Was wondering if the chess.com community has any other ideas to help me reach master status.