Everyday I'm struggling... OTB

Aug 3, 2016, 3:08 PM |

Been a bit over a month since I posted so I guess it's time for an update.

I got my USCF membership and have started to play real OTB rated games. My results have been a bit mixed, I won one game against a nearly 1600 opponent and this last Monday lost all 3 of my games and just couldn't see anything OTB. My provisional rating after 9 games is 996 which isn't terrible to start I guess but surly not where I want to be.

My self diagnosed weakness is the ability to calculate and visualize in rated OTB conditions. I seem to be doing much better when playing online in 2D vs 3D OTB under similar time controls. Naturally part of it is also nerves and the rated game experience.

I have selected two games for this post which I think highlight my online play vs my OTB rated play and I am hoping from being honest about my problems I can improve them.

Game # 1 online:

Game #2 OTB rated.

So what is going on here? Clearly I see a lot more on the computer screen then OTB. Also I am having a difficult time dealing with the experience of playing live rated games IRL. The only cure I think is to play more OTB and practice OTB! No more tactics on a computer screen I'm setting them up on the real thing. I'm also starting a group at work to play casual games once a week. I am also going to discuss it with my coach and see what he thinks.

I also seem to have this addiction problem to playing correspondence games here on chess.com. I enter these tournaments with like 10 games going on at once and it takes away from my productive chess time but maybe I will discuss that in a later blog post.

Everyday I'm struggling... OTB

Road to Improvement