Plan for 2024: Add More Structure to My Training Regimen

I've noted before that the core of my training is deep analysis of my games. I also do tactics (both pattern-recognition exercises and deeper calculation/board vision exercises like the Polgár mates), and study from books (endgames, positional play, etc.). But while my game analysis is consistent and steady, everything else has sort of gotten tossed in willy-nilly around the game analysis as the mood has suited me these past couple years. 

Now that I'm trying to reach a bit higher, I think it might behoove me to put a little more discipline and structure into the non-analysis activities as well. Here is my tentative plan for the coming months based on a repeating "cycle" of training equivalent to the time it takes me to analyze two games (typically 2-3 weeks per game) plus a week of "book study" and a monthly OTB tournament tossed in wherever it happens to fall on the calendar (regardless of where I am in the training cycle). So a complete cycle will last about 6-8 weeks depending on how long my game analyses take, with activity structured as follows:

Daily game analysis, at a minimum of thirty minutes per day, has been the sure and steady core to my training over the last two and a half years, and I don't plan to change that. Nothing new here. Analysis remains at the heart of it all. 

What is new is scheduling consistent book study around that core, rather than dropping it in haphazardly whenever and wherever. Doing it like this should provide more even exposure to fresh ideas at regular intervals, and help ensure that I don't hit "analysis burnout." Burnout hasn't been a thing for me yet, but since I plan to keep up my push to improve for another few years, at least, it could become a thing in the future.

Polgár mates are kind of par for the course as well, though these, too, have been sprinkled haphazardly into my regimen. These compositions have helped my visualization skills to such an extent that I really see them as a high-yield, essential activity. I've finished all the ones assigned to my Dojo cohort, but @JesseKraai prescribed all 3412 of them to me as homework about a year and a half ago. So I'll continue to chip away at them by doing at least one puzzle per day.

Training with the Polgár mates in two.

As for the pattern-recognition tactical exercises, I'm still losing points and half-points far too often because of simple, obvious tactical blunders, especially in late rounds of a tournament. I think a large part of this is that certain short-term tactical patterns are just not deeply enough ingrained in my mind that I see them automatically when I'm tired and worn out. Here are glaring two examples from recent tournament games, each of which cost me a USCF category-one norm in the final round! 

The first is from the West Virginia Senior Championship. I went into the fourth and final round with a score of two points, and I reached the following position against CM Lewis Sanders, who ultimately took the championship:

Here I have a better position and a time advantage on the clock. In this position I could have—and should have—simply taken a pawn on b2. Instead I tried to get fancy with 1...Bh3?? losing instantly to 2. Nxd2 Bxf1 3. Nxf1, failing to see, when I played ...Bh3, that after we trade rooks, Lewis's knight is in position to take my bishop and he's just a piece up. This is not a complicated tactic. It's not a calculation error. It's simply a two-move pattern-recognition error, and the pattern is one I should have been able to see instantly and effortlessly. But I didn't see it at all, and it cost me the game.

The second example is from a recent East Market tournament, again from the fourth and final round where I went in with a score of two points out of three to face NM Chuck Diebert. Chuck misplayed the opening, and I had enormous pressure against his king the entire game, until we reached this position where Chuck has just played Nf3:

Here I foolishly captured the knight with my bishop (??). Of course this allows White to take my knight and begin to relieve all the pressure. The obviously correct move was to take the knight with my rook. This protects the bishop, and the rook can't be taken because the g-pawn is pinned to the white king. Had I taken with the rook, White would have had to choose between resigning or suffering mate in the not-too-distant future. Instead, I overlooked the simple pin on the g2-pawn. And I ended up having to settle for a draw via a pawn-down Philidor endgame, which I'm glad to have studied inside-out (!). But a draw is not a win. And, again, this is not a calculation error. Like the previous example, it's a pattern-recognition error, this time a one-mover, that cost me not only a category-one norm (by one half point!), but also a probable first win ever against a NM. 

These aren't the only two examples of this from my play in the past year—just the two most recent. In fairness to myself, it happens less than it used to. But given the levels of fatigue that occur in late rounds, I feel like I really need to be able to see basic things like this in my sleep. And I'm not there yet.

So that's the plan for the New Year, "formally" scheduling in book study and tactics exercises, and increasing my minimum daily training time from thirty to forty-five minutes. Those extra fifteen minutes per day may not sound like much, but they will add up. Every four days will provide one extra hour of training. In a year that tallies up to an additional 91 hours! I think this is both a) doable, and b) necessary now that I'm trying to stretch toward higher reaches of 1900 USCF (and hopefully beyond). But I believe I can swing it, and I think it will help me to make my push. 

A Happy New Year to all, and good luck with your training!