Getting in a Groove

Well, to start off, this is my first chess blog post.  Since I use to do a poker progress blog, I figured a chess progress blog would be suitable.  My sudden need to do this blog was prompted after two substantial wins today.  These wins signify a progression in my chess game which will hopefully lead to more wins down the road. 

Before today, I was in a complete rut.  I was struggling in my tactics, my development and basically my chess game in general.  The frustration was mostly spurred by the fact that I had lost almost all my chess skills that I had obtained from my younger years.  I tried to recall how I played then and implement that into my game.  Yet, I just kept falling and being defeated substantially by players I know I am at the same level or better than.  This all happened a week ago before I decided that I was going to get back into chess shape.

Since last week, I have busted out those old chess books I had when I was younger and decided to relearn everything. I relearned everything from openings, middle games, end games, tactics, development, and even some rules. I started to work from almost the bare basics, except for things like how the pieces move, to try and restructure my game.  Basically, my past few days, especially the ones where I had no power due to storms, have been dedicated to reading chess, playing chess at down times, doing chess puzzles, procrastinating final studies to play chess, you get the picture.

So today, I got on www.chess.com and decided to play a quick live game before lunch.  I decided though instead of playing the usual 1300-1400 player, I will play a 1500 player.  Sure enough in the challenge box, a player just over 1500 has a 25/10, a game I am very comfortable playing and I accepted. I sit down as black and proceed to duel it out with my opponent. The final result was a resignation by my opponent after my 58th move. 

So, being a good sport I accepted his rematch and began play as white. The final result was a win by mate on my 26th move.