Progress Update '23 Q2

Welcome back to my blog! As always, after each quarter I recap my progress and share some of my highlights. My focus will be on my own games and results. This may seem pointless to some, but it helps me streamline my thoughts and I enjoy making these.

The main observations this quarter:

• Rapid is going well. My progress is slow but steady. I'm up to 1555.
• Daily games were okay. Some good games and some bad games. Average results.
• Puzzles have been absolutely great. I gained over 300 rating points and I'm above 2600 now.

Blitz will be ignored as I have already dedicated an article to the topic called "Bye Bye Blitz". 

Rapid

My Rapid rating went up this quarter from 1501 to 1555, which is officially my highest rating to date. No reason to celebrate yet, as it’s only a marginal increase from my previous highest rating of 1552, that I reached in September ‘22. But it’s going great. I’m playing at the top end of my range, feeling comfortable doing so and I’m performing well. 
I’ve played only 17 games, but managed to win 12 of them. Five (5) games were lost, one of them due to an unfortunate mouse slip (jorgemz3981). My winrate this quarter for my Rapid games was 71%, which is very good. Adjusted for the mouse slip it would have been 76%.

Two of my other (4) losses (Maro_Bole and magnuscoleson12) were lost on time, both of them while I was in a more or less winning position. Which I consider encouraging.

The remaining two losses were one game where I did a terrible job and got outplayed in the middle game, the other game I blundered a checkmate in 1. Again in a winning position, but still embarrassing. 

Highlights

This quarter there were several Rapid games that I considered to feature in this article. Several Rapid games were interesting enough.  My first consideration was my game vs @vikingvader (annotated version), because that game was short and sweet, not to mention action-packed, The ideal game for readers with a short attention span.  Alternatively, I considered my game vs jochak because it was probably the best game overall. I dismissed it as a highlight because it was an unrated game.  The third game I considered my game vs @ctrboy. Not because it was a great game, because it certainly wasn’t. But he was the highest rated Rapid player (1556) I have ever beaten, so that's the one I'm going to share.

ctrboy vs Duckfest

This episode is called "The one one where they should have played e5". It's the dominant recurring theme during the entire opening. The decisive plot twist however in the game against a higher rated player, was the sudden blundering of the Queen.

The full game is not a very accurate, which has a lot to do with that single move e5. There were four moments when I should have played e5 and I missed it, plus four times where my opponent should have played it and missed it as well. That's eight incorrect moves, with varying degrees of inaccuracy. Not exactly how I imagined a win against my highest rated Rapid opponent.  But, you won't hear me complain. A win is a win. 

The loser is the one who makes the last mistake. This is doubly true when that last mistake is an unprovoked blunder of the Queen.

Daily

Similar to the previous quarter, my rating has remained the same. Even though I won more than I lost (just like last time), because of rating differences. Most of my Daily games were tournament games. 

The Chess Cup Championship 3 went into the next round. In My Mistakes in April I already covered my tough game vs @Sergius44. We were battling for the third spot to qualify for the next round. We played a game that looked like it could go either way, but it turned out to be a decisive victory for him. And I was out in fourth place. It was a very engaging tournament featuring some of my worst games, as well as some of my best.  Below, I'll share my game vs @TinDog, one of my best results against a 1700+ rated opponent.

A smaller tournament with a Slav Defense theme was completed in June. Against some weaker players, my main rival and I ended up tying for first place. The third tournament was the Macrinus 32 tournament. I’ve already secured first place and I’m going to the next (third) round. 

Other than that I played a couple of team matches. 

Highlights

Two games qualify to be featured as a highlight. One beautiful game was played vs AnimalAlgie, but that one will receive a separate blog entry. The other one was an intense game vs @TinDog.

Duckfest vs TinDog

This could have been a great game because I had the chance to win against a stronger opponent. For most of the game I was behind and I didn't give myself too many winning chances. On move 47 my luck suddenly turned around and now I was winning the game. Unfortunately, I lost my lead as quickly as I had gained it and we were back to equal. That is, if I find the right move, otherwise the game would have lost even. 

The game ended in a draw, which seemed a fair outcome to me.

OTB

The event I attended in May, was a Meetup event called "Chess and Beer". No reason to deviate from the plan.  
The event was definitely a success for me. I heard about it through a friend and decided to go for it. It was slightly more amateurish casual than I expected, but rating wise it was as I expected. Ratings were all over the place, but on average pretty good. At least half of the players were higher rated than me, but close enough to create interesting games. The most important thing, I didn’t feel out of place. And I played good enough chess to feel confident and at ease.

Puzzles

Recently, I have been working a lot more on tactics by doing puzzles and the results have been incredible! In the past I had been struggling with my puzzles and I didn't like it as much anymore. With new motivation I went back to puzzles and finally broke through my plateau. It took me a little over year to get from 2300 to 2400. Then from 2400 to 2500 took me less than 15 minutes, lol, what?! After that I stagnated a bit. I almost reached 2590, but dropped back to below 2400. But, I kept going and by the end of June I finally broke 2600.

Overall, I gained more than 300 rating point in this quarter. Nice!

Rated puzzles solved

My short term goal is to reach the 1,000 rated puzzles solved milestone. By the end of March, I had solved 752 rated puzzles. At the time that seemed a reasonable number, but when I started comparing with other players I found out that a total of 1,000 puzzles solved is relatively low.  Really low. Of my closest friends, all of them have solved more than I have. Most of them by a factor of two or three times as much, one even by an even bigger factor (in 2 digits). Incidentally, he is the one that progresses the fastest. To find more data I also checked the rest of my friendlist, with extra attention to players within my league that I admire because they show the most impressive progress.

The outcome was overwhelmingly clear. Almost all my friends have done more puzzles than I have, the ones that are improving fastest have done the most puzzles and the difference is huge.  I only have access to puzzles done on chess.com, many of them are also playing on other platforms and/or using books.  The difference  between my puzzle practice and their is probably even bigger than I can see now.

I thought I was doing okay. I never dedicated myself fully but I kept steadily practicing tactics. However, my notion of what is an acceptable rate of playing puzzles is off. Way off. 

Goals

• My first goal is to reach 1,000 solved puzzles, that remains the same. But I should strive for a lot more.
• Second milestone. I need to reach 2,000 to even be in the top quarter of my friend list.
• Third milestone. If I solve 2,000 more puzzles I’m close to the top in my friend list, assuming they all stop puzzling until I get there. However, my data suggest that many of them are not slowing down.
• A total of 5,000 solved puzzles sound like a good target for me. 

No targets beyond that. I’m still getting used to my new milestones.

Puzzles Rush

So fast! You solved 30+ in Puzzle Rush!

This quarter I did a lot of puzzle rushes. 

Survival

While i did 50 puzzles rushed this quarter, I was unable to break my existing record.  Which is fine, a personal best of 43 is a pretty good score. Next quarter I strive to work on reducing my lower scores. I want to have less runs end in the lower 20s range.

5-min

My personal record went from 27 to 28 easily and later even to 32. Breaking 30+ earned me an award.  Very happy.

3-min

Without too much effort, I was able to improve my best score from 22 to 24.

Study & Development

My approach to studying and analyzing my own games shifted from a thorough analysis of hundreds of games (Duckable) to a more targeted approach to identify the areas that most impact my performance. At first I started to look for my biggest mistakes each month (March, April), later I decided to focus on my 50 most recent games (Reviewing my last fifty 50 games).

• My opening play is more than good enough. Most of the time, I end up with a slightly better position than my opponent.
• The middle game is the most impactful phase of the game, most games are decided here. On average, I’m doing okay. Still, most of my losses also happen here.
• Endgames don’t matter most of the time, but when they do they are decisive. At least a handful of my games are lost here.

Wrap-up

Next quarter I will dedicate more time to playing Rapid and I will continue my efforts on improving tactics.

Thank you all for reading. See you next time!