Heading Past 60
I am currently 59 years old and rapidly approaching 60. I was recently thinking about retirement. I'm the kind of guy that can't just sit in a house day after day. Two or three days and I have a strong case of cabin fever. I need to get out and do things. As I was considering what activities I wanted to be part of my life after retirement, I thought about chess.
I use to play back in high school (was captain of the chess team and played 2nd board). I then didn't play much until back in 83. I had a friend who was very strong (he is a National Master now) and he told me about a place he liked to play. They also had rated tournaments. I went for a while and played enough to get a regular rating (not provisional). I am currently rated as 1437. I think my last rated game was back in the very early 90s.
I also played some correspondence games back from about 83-86. I was stronger at that with a final rating of 1628, although I got schooled hard in the last section of golden knights I played in (+1, -5).
I'm strongest the longer the time limit. At blitz I am currently absolutely horrible.
So here I am today, and I'm wondering if it is possible to regain the strength I had as a player back in the day, or better yet, improve upon it and go further. My initial goal is class B. If I listen to the naysayers about age, even that may be really really tough.
Now I realize I'm not going to improve without a plan, so I have one.
1) Play some at a local chess club. There is no way to properly gauge OTB strength by playing online. They are related games, but enough different that you have to play OTB to get used to playing OTB. And by playing against players at the club who are rated, it will give me a feel when or if it is appropriate to try and actually go to rated tournaments.
2) I have been doing tactics problems for about two months now on chesstempo. I try to do 10 problems every day. I think I joined back in early April. I have now tried 897 problems. My rating has been climbing from 1349 to 1570.5, which is where it sits today.
3) I have been studying Build Up Your Chess #1, The Fundamentals by Artur Yusupov. There is quite a bit of disagreement online about whether this is appropriate material for someone my strength. I decided to try it as I wanted something very structured. One alternative I considered was the Chess Steps curriculum, but ultimately I decided to try this first.
4) I have been revising my opening repertoire to be stuff where I can actually understand the ideas and plans.
5) I have been watching a great of video from grandmasters such as Simon Williams. I find it very helpful to see them play through games and explain their thought processes.
6) I have been playing a lot of longer chess games against my computer. After I finish, I have been analyzing my games.
So today I finished chapter 5 of Yusupov.
Results to this point:
Chapter 1 (Mating Motifs) - 15 of 16 = excellent
Chapter 2 (Mating Motifs 2) - 16 of 21 = good
Chapter 3 (Basic Opening Principles) - 18 of 31 = pass
Chapter 4 (Simple Pawn Endings) - 14 of 22 = pass (15 would have been good)
Chapter 5 (Double Check) - 16 of 16 = excellent
Chapter 5 was an interesting study in contrasts. I found working through the diagrams on this chapter quite difficult. On the other hand I found the exercises to be the simplest for me so far. I had been concerned after finishing the diagrams, but I zipped right through them.
I don't know how far my studies will take me. I do know from past experience that sinking 1000 hours of study into something over a year or two is doable for me if I'm motivated. Right now I'm motivated.
