An Adult Improver - Day 51-53 - Near Misses Hurt

Over the last 3 days, I’ve been able to put in a good amount of chess time. I continue to take my time with my tactics puzzles and hover near a  2400 puzzle rating. I’ve spent quite a bit of time playing and analyzing games with my daughter. I’ve also been diligent about working in rapid games. I played a fun 2 game match. I plan to repeat that as soon as possible. I started annotating the games from the Tal-Botvinnik match from 1960. I will post game 3 to the blog soon. 

I had another near miss against a higher rated opponent. In time trouble, I even missed a simple royal fork near the end. I managed a draw, but it felt hollow after the massive lead that I had. The engine really rubbed it in showing +9 numbers. I’m hoping to get in a lot of rapid games over the next two weeks. I think it’s partially an attempt to see if my rating really is closer to 1800, as I feel like my strength is. It’s impossible to prove that if I don’t play any games.

I’ve been enjoying the homework from my coach David Mencik. He is providing me with much needed endgame work. I’m realizing more and more that this is my biggest weakness. But I’ve also realized that unlike my other weaknesses, I have less desire to work on it. I think it’s because studying the endgame feels like a bottomless pit, and the work won’t even be translated into so many of my games. I keep putting it off as a future issue to address. Perhaps David will push me to work on this more.

Day 51 - 2 Hours

1 Rapid Game with analysis - a horrific loss against someone 200 points below me.

18 Chess.com Puzzles. - 11 right 7 wrong - 48 minutes!!

Game with Daughter - 

Vladimir Krammik Chessable course - 15 minutes

Day 52 / 2.5 Hours - 8/8

1 Puzzle Rush 18

Ruy Lopez intro and game from Mastering the Endgame

26 Chess.com Puzzles. - 14 right 12 wrong - 38 minutes!!

Worked on endgame Chess homework from David Mencik - 30 minutes

15 minutes elliptical watched Daniel Naroditsky video crushing a Fantasy Caro Kann

45 Training game with a fellow student of Shavam and analysis. I played a great middle game, getting a huge advantage. I missed a key move, deciding to do a cute move first. Then in the end game under time pressure I missed the winning fork on his queen. In the end, he got a perpetual draw, and once again I leave a game against a 2K player embarrassed that I blew a huge advantage.

Day 53  - 5 Hours

Annotated Game 3 of Tal-Botvinnik - 2 hours

27 Chess.com Puzzles - 13 right 14 wrong. I rushed a bit today on a couple of them. It led to some frustrating close call misses. Still took 48 minutes.

2 Rapid games with analysis (match) 1.5 hours

13 minutes elliptical watching Daniel Naroditsky video

15 minutes game analysis with daughter

15 minutes watching Chess Dojo video

Some puzzles in bed.