Duckfest Digest 19 Progress Update Q2

2022: Progress update Q2

I used to struggle against opponents rated 1500 or higher

I still do

But I used to, too

Introduction

This quarter I made progress. Not an awful lot, but slow measurable and definite progress.  My focus was on Rapid and I did okay, no major jumps but solid improvement nonetheless. My Daily was okay and my puzzle rating increased as well.

I've played many interesting games, some of which I will share with my readers. 

I'm still working on my plan for next quarter.

Rapid
At first glance it looks like I haven’t made any progress. After 34 games my rating remains just a tad above 1500, just like the beginning of the quarter. Even though I reached my peak rating of 1538 this quarter, I also dropped down to 1450 along the way and needed the last 6 weeks to get back the rating I lost. 

But there is more to the story. My performance is much better than last year, if you look at the distribution of my results for each rating. As you can see in this table.

While the sample size for the first half of the year is still quite small, it appears I’m doing very well against opponents up to 1400 now.  I still struggle against opponents above 1500 rating but not as much as I used to. 

King of counterplay
One of the most satisfying elements of my play has been my occasional excellent counterplay. This quarter I have won more than my fair share of games I should not have won. The most spectacular one was my game vs shmerpoo, that was good enough to deserve its own blogpost. 

I’ll dedicate a separate post to my games vs mx_Alex and jugacri. 

One of my games was reviewed by Kevin and I’ll share his comments here.

Game vs epd0

Anxiety
There is one issue with my Rapid games and that has to do with mental energy spending. I’ve been playing fewer and fewer games because I find them nerve wrecking. One game per day is sometimes more than enough for me. 
Maybe this is just because the games are stressful games, as shown above, my games tend to be very close and exciting matches.
It could also be that it is because I’m playing at the top of my range. I;m doing well against higher rated players but I have to give everything I have to give. Unless I fight as hard as I can, I’m not performing as well as I can.
A third possibility is that for the first time I’m experiencing higher stakes. In 2021 I just played for the fun of it and I had no expectations. For this year I did have a certain ambition, I’ve spent countless hours on improving, by analyzing games, studying openings and practicing tactics. NOW, if I don’t perform well, it would mean all my effort was for nothing and that would break my heart. 
Whatever it is, I hope I can change my mindset and start enjoying playing again as much as I enjoy studying.

Daily
Stopped playing as much, but I was still in a couple of tournaments.

Overall, my rating slowly improved but I took 2 big losses against a 1300 rated opponent, both against the same guy actually. One of them I blundered so hard because I was blindsided. I’ll write a separate article on that as well. 

Tarrasch
One of the best tournaments I have played was the Tarrasch tournament. I was unfamiliar with the opening, maybe played it once or twice without realizing it. I became a fan of it and I will keep playing it. Since the tournament is still in progress I will not share my games just yet, but I will write an article about it when it’s done.

1,000 Puzzles
The biggest milestone is that I’ve now played over 1,000 rated puzzles. As this graph below shows, my rating went through the 2300 threshold but I have not been able to breach 2400, even though I tried. 

My Blog

This quarter I’ve shared the following articles:

Duckfest Digest 13: Resign or hand Over to Hikaru
One of the best articles I’ve written about never giving up.

Duckfest Digest 14: Organizing my openings part 3: Repertoire Reliability

Part of my series on building an opening repertoire about how I try to keep track of my choices and making sure I'm making good repertoire decisions.

Duckfest Digest 15: Spontaneous Human Combustion Part 1

Just sharing a fun little game where my opponent blew himself up unprovoked.

Duckfest Digest 16: Organizing my openings part 4: Practical Playability

Part of my series on building an opening repertoire, this time focusing on making sure my repertoire choices are aligned with my ability to find moves on the board in real games.

Duckfest Digest 17: Lucky mates. Spontaneous Human Combustion Part 2

A slightly pretentious article featuring another fun little game where my opponent handed me a victory, unprovoked.

Duckfest Digest 18: Breaking Down Brilliant Moves

Another article I'm proud of, where I analyze my brilliant moves.

Scheduled articles

• an article about my best counterplay games of this quarter (Update: article here)
• a short post about my worst Daily loss of last quarter (Update: article here)
• an article about the Tarrasch tournament I'm playing (Update: article here)
• Organizing my openings part 5: structural struggles
• Redefining mistakes and blunders

Next Quarter

My main priority will be to get my social life back on track after two years of on and off lockdowns, which will put chess lower on my priority list. But i love the game and I will keep going!

Maybe I'll start looking for a coach.

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you on the boards!