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The Chess.com Study Plan --Put to the Test

The Chess.com Study Plan --Put to the Test

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Excheqquer
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Week # 2 Day # 5 Rating 1218 +52 

I, Excheqquer, as a chronic nonimprover decided to put the Chess.com Study Plan to the test. This is the record of that test.

Well, it maybe too early to say the plan is a success, but it sure does look that way. I mean I am up 52 points  in under two weeks. Not bad. 

So how do you find this Chess.com study plan?  Learn/articles/study plan and there it is. Now you will have to be a premium member to unlock the lessons. And if you have the time, energy, and desire to really study you will need the diamond membership. Over these last two weeks I have been putting 4-6 hours a day in just study.

For the record, I am not an employee of chess.com. I don't get a free membership. I'm not even an official or top blogger. I'm just someone who loves chess and wants to improve. 

I am currently on the Chess.com Study Plan for Beginners (i.e <1400). I have worked through the basics, the openings, and tactics. I am now on #4 Strategy. 

So Today's Plan:

  • Read this: Try Your Hand at Planning by WIM Iryna Zenyuk-- read this, I'd give it a C, moderately helpful, could be much better. 
  • Read this: How to Evaluate a Position by IM Jeremy Silman-- as always Silman's articles were excellent. (Apparently he does not write for Chess.com anymore.) I'm a big fan of his work. I have read his Reassess your Chess 3rd edition. ( which I loaned to my son-in-law) And I have his Endgame book. I am probably going to have to buy a copy of his 4th edition. 

Before I get to the videos let's do our daily puzzles. 

Puzzles 1855- 1861 26 puzzles 16 right , 10 wrong -- its getting harder at this level. Here's a thought, however, while the puzzles are rated, it is certainly possible that the tactics you have to figure out in a game are much higher than the rating of either opponent. 

Also per the recommendation I read in one of the articles when you are doing the puzzles, name the tactic, i.e. sacrifice, remove the defender, pin, overload, etc. So what I do is after every problem I go back and crowd source putting labels on the tactics. That way I have to name each maneuver. 

Now these videos:

In thinking about the different videos and how they are presented it appears that the Eastern European mind processes in a slightly different pattern than the western mind.  

My game. 

I started 1.d4 d5 2. c4 c5 . The Austrian variant.

As I point in the annotations. I have a losing record against the Austrian. It is a very sharp line. Hopefully with my work over the last couple weeks I can do better. On the other hand SapphireNacho is 1336, over a hundred points better than me. He too has had a dramatic rise in ratings of over 100 points in the last month. At 1336 that puts him in the 90%tile for rapid players on chess.com. Also in looking at his record I see that he joined Chess.com in January. Another Beth Harmon fan?

I have previously tried 3. cxd4   3. dxc4  and have not fared better than a 40% win record. Today I tried 3. Nf3 following my new principle of developing whenever I could.  He played 3... dxc4, but I think a sharper line is  3... cxd4. that gives a lot more opportunity to play it wrong. 

For example 4. Nxd4 leads to ... e5 and white has a position that has at best a 12% winning record with best play. By far the best move for white here is 4. cxd5 with strong record at the master level. 

There is a glitch in the analysis. Black actually resigned when I played Nd7. I made some moves in the analysis after the game to suggest how it would go, and the computer somehow did not understand the game was over. Odd.

Interestingly black had an 83% accuracy to my 78%, and he also had a better best move ratio. 

Nine Game winning streak. Rating  1229 +63 since starting the plan.