DD 28: Progress Update '22 Q4
Quarterly Review
In this article I’m looking back at the final quarter of last year. The good news is that I finally managed to end the excessive navel gazing that plagued me during the last quarter. I was trying so hard to find out what I needed to work on that I forgot to actually work on my chess.
This quarter I started investing again in improvement. I have been doing puzzles and puzzle rushes again, resulting in a higher puzzle rating and new personal records for my 5:00 and Survival puzzle rush. I’ve been enjoying educational chess content again and learning new things.
In terms of playing, the results could have been better. I didn’t play many Blitz games and the quality was pretty mediocre. My Rapid play was better. While also low in quantity, I am satisfied with the quality of my play.
Rapid
Just like last quarter, I didn’t play many games. Overall, the quality of my games was pretty good with an average accuracy of 79.0%. I also played two long time format games (45 min, 45 sec increment) for the first time, which both went well. At the end of the quarter, my rating is still a bit over 1500 which is a good starting point for next year to get to 1600 hopefully.
Best move I played
Brilliant move in my game vs KevinOSh. Very tactically complex position with many ways to mess up. I took my time, because I believed there had to be a move that worked. Eventually, I found the best move and it turned out to be brilliant.
Best move I didn’t play
From my game vs Hunar1234. The game was pretty equal overall with the biggest difference that I was spending more time than my opponent. At this point I was down to 1:39 on the clock vs 5:59 for my opponent. While the engine considered the position to be drawn, practically speaking I was bound to lose the game. All my opponent had to do was trade off some pieces and stall until I would run out of time. I had the initiative, but my opponent had lots of chances for counterplay, so I had to be careful. Then my opponent blundered hard. I didn’t see the best move in time and I had to do something. Alas, I missed my chance.
Lucky for me, I got a chance to go for a perpetual check and draw.
Best move (that wasn’t spectacular)
My best game this quarter was my game vs RathinakumarJayam. My opponent was playing better than I did and I was slowly losing ground. My opponent had a much stronger position according to Stockfish, was up a pawn and had an almost 3 minute time advantage. I kept fighting, hoping to find a way to reverse the tide. My moment finally came when my opponent played 31. Nc4.
Obviously, this is not a spectacular position and the solution is not very impressive. But, I like it precisely because of that. Finding the best move in mundane positions like this one is the difference between winning and losing a game.
Blitz
Similar to Rapid, the number of games I played was pretty low. And the quality of games was not that great either.
Puzzles
After a long time of absence from doing puzzles, I finally got back into it. Over the last 3 months I did about 150 puzzles and gained a little over 50 rating points bringing me back to 2269.
Most of my effort was on Puzzle Rushes. For the 5:00 minute puzzle rushes my previous record was 21. In november I was able to break that record to a new record of 23, which I managed to repeat 5 times (in 10 attempts).
For survival it took a lot more effort to break my previous record of 37 to get to a new personal best of 38. I needed between 35 and 40 attempts. But I succeeded and my confidence got a good boost. With just a few more attempts I broke my record again, this time with a score of 43.
Study
This quarter, I decided to invest more into learning and studying again. I realized I had neglected this for too long. I was too busy wondering what I should study that I forgot to just study. I went over a wide variety of online educational chess content. Lessons on chess.com (e.g. by Anna Rudolph), some opening courses (e.g. by Eric Rosen) and lots of YouTube content (mainly by ChessCoach Andras. Dan Heisman, ChessVibes and Daniel Naroditsky).
Next year
The goal for this quarter, as I expressed here, was to create a comprehensive plan for myself to guide me on my chess journey. I’ve collected data of over 300 of my own games and I gained some valuable insights in the process. My next article will be dedicated to this project, what I discovered and how I will proceed from here.
One thing I can already share is that the key priority for next year will be to play more games. Spend less time navel gazing and more time gazing at the board of actual chess games.
