March Training Recap
Current USCF Rating: 1690
Rating Change This Month: -15
Rating Change This Year: +45
ChessTempo Standard Tactics Rating: 2087.6
Rating Change This Month: -26.3
Rating Change This Year: +88.6
ChessTempo Blitz Tactics Rating: 1865.3
Rating Change This Month: +15.4
Rating Change This Year: +81.3
| Category | Description | Time/Amount |
| Standard Tactics | I did a lot of tactics, but I did not do a good job of calculating out variations to their full potential. Instead, I did tactics late at night and not very thoughtfully. Hence, the rating loss. From now on, I will only be doing standard tactics on weekends. | 20 hours |
| Blitz Tactics | I recently started doing blitz tactics and I will continue to do so. I think they help with instant pattern recognition skills that will help me a lot in tournament games. I will also continue to do standard tactics, but only on weekends where I am less tired and can focus on a single problem long enough to find the right solution. | 5 hours |
| Sicilian Najdorf | I decided to stick to the Dragon for now, but I will switch to the Najdorf once I feel ready to start learning it. | 0 hours |
| Queen's Indian/ Nimzo-Indian | I spent significant time this month learning different variations of these openings. Next month, I will aim for a deeper understanding of both openings. | 3 hours |
| Evans Gambit and Fried Liver | These are my two new pet openings against e5. Hopefully I can turn them into dangerous weapons for tournaments. I also have my standard Giuoco Piano against e5. I do not feel ready to tackle the immense amount of theory associated with the Ruy Lopez quite yet, but I will probably switch to the Ruy Lopez eventually. | 2 hours |
| Endgame Theory |
I neglected endgame study this month. That will change next month! |
0 hours |
| Slow Chess Games | I only played 2 games this month in a slow time control. | 2 games |
| Game Analyses | I will post analysis of each game of the next tournament I play in. | 0 |
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Tournaments I Played In
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Conclusion
I did lots of tactics this month, but I didn't do them the right way. Next month, I will continue to do tactics, but instead only do blitz tactics during the week. I will do standard tactics on the weekends. I am also going to spend more time on positional study and endgames next month. I will be using two of Silman's books: How to Reassess Your Chess and Silman's Complete Endgame Course. Hopefully, I will become tactically sharper and have a fuller understanding of chess as the result of my new training plan. Thanks for reading! 
=Success
