Admitting I Have a Problem, Event Horizon, Training Accountability (3/2722-4/2/22)
The first step, they say, is admitting you have a problem. As I've been analyzing games from recent, less-than-stellar tournament performances, and with no small amount of underscoring from my coach, I'm finally grasping the extent to which I've sometimes been moving too fast relying on "principle" rather than concrete calculation—in particular, failing to look at my opponent's best replies in order to determine how I will meet them or, in some cases, failing to consider key candidate moves. This is a big problem.
As Dan Heisman says in A Guide to Chess Improvement: "Your game is only as good as your worst move." My recent games certainly seem to be proof of that. My coach has called me out a few times in recent lessons for playing certain moves too fast. And he's right of course. There were a number of instances of this problem—playing too fast and without sufficient care—in my January tournament (where I scored 1/4). I did a bit better in February (where I scored 2/4), and better still in last weekend's North Market tournament (scoring 2.5/4). So I've been working on it. But I haven't sorted this problem out 100%. For example, I drew against a player rated 1158 in last weekend's event.
Initially, as my coach pointed out these kinds of instances to me, I thought of them as "one-off" incidents. But the reality is they are endemic to my play. I see it now, very clearly, and dealing with this major issue going to be my primary focus for the foreseeable future. Arguably, this is such a massive roadblock to improving that there's little point in working on anything else until I fix this.
I think the way to work on this is:
- Keep playing slow games (both in tournaments, and between tournaments as time allows)
Condition myself during those games to mentally list all my opponent's critical replies to my candidate moves and enumerate my responses on every, single move. - Do a "safety check" after I think I've chosen my final move (perhaps with a physical "break" of some sort between choosing a move and verifying its safety—e.g. choose a move, pick up my pencil, rotate it 90 degrees, put it back down, do the safety check, make the move; etc. In the old days I used the trick of writing the move first, then making it, but alas the rules don't allow that anymore).
- Continue noting time expenditure for each move on my scoresheet (my coach has got me doing this already).
- Analyze my games with a special focus on verifying whether I'm doing #2 and #3 effectively or not.
- Rinse and repeat.
With summer break approaching and a loosening of my schedule, I'll have time to play longer practice games, and also play in more frequent tournaments. I'll also be able to travel farther afield for tournaments, allowing me to get to some multi-section events (something I've wanted to do for a while now) in addition to continuing with my usual local single-section tournaments. Here are the events I have on the horizon:
- The Indy $3500! (May 14), has a "reserve section" for players rated 1400-1800
- The West Virginia Action Championship (June 11), single-section, but I enjoy the WV tourneys
- The Pittsburgh Open (July 22-July 24), has a U1800 section for players rated 1500-1800.
- Sunday in the Park (every other Sunday all summer), also single section, but again, I enjoy them
In closing, here is my training time distribution for the week:
