Nova Daily - 12 January 2025: Recap Week 2
Hi!
The week is almost out, so it's time for my weekly recap. I've managed to keep my schedule, with six rapid games and six blog posts. I've decided to take the Sunday "off" (i.e.: not playing a game). I like this idea because it reduces the stress of wanting to finish quickly.
With the same idea in mind I've decided to take some time off after finishing the game and writing down my thoughts. This will help me in two ways:
1. Being out of the heat of the battle makes for a more objective perspective;
2. I can still get my work in when my life gets busy.
Slow money
As of late, I've started reading and listening to a lot of material about what it takes to truly become a master at your craft. Of all the things I've come across, these three passages stand out:
- Improvement takes time and effort.
- There are no shortcuts.
- Most people can't handle boredom.
What these quotes from Iain Abernethy, Robert Greene, and Curtis Jackson III teach, is that the road to mastery is long, hard, and intense. I believe in the power of early quick success, because it can serve as a motivator to get you going. But the early spark of motivation is not sustainable in the long run. It requires consistent hard work to master your craft, and that's what I set out to do with my blog entries. I trust the process.
The phrase "Slow money" comes from Chapter 8 of The 50th Law by Robert Greene and Curtis Jackson (50 Cent). It beautifully sums up the entire process and expected rewards in two words.
This week I:
- Played 6 rapid games (6/0/0) and crossed 1700;
- Played 9 blitz games (8/0/1) and crossed 2100;
- Managed to maintain above 3500 puzzle rating;
- Entered a lot of the 4.f3 Nimzo-Indian to my repertoire.
Last week I concluded two things: I should stop playing hazy nonsense, and I should work on my opening repertoire and calculation. This week I worked a lot on my opening repertoire, but I also found that there is a lot of room for improvement.
The opening
1. Building the repertoire
Encountering something and then studying it in more detail has been my go-to to studying new opening variations. When playing new games it's always useful to recap and add at least one new move to my opening repertoire. So this is the only "shortcut" that I'll allow myself: playing blitz games to practice my openings. The free Sunday seems to fit perfectly for this, as do the days on which my games turn out to be quick finishes with not much to gain from them.
2. Contemplate novelties
When faced with a new opening move, I should pause, slow down, and come up with your own idea. Then see how congruent the idea is with the basic principles of the opening. In the following position, for example, I made a move that I shouldn't have:
The theory suggests that black provoke a weakness on white's kingside first with 6...Bg4.
I played 6...e5 too quickly and got a slightly worse position.
3. Include model games in the process
Model games can help with studying the opening better. I found a game by Matlakov, but such model games exist for every opening. I haven't done so, but I should add this as an important extra step in my aftermath analysis. Depending on the amount of time that I have, I can also analyse these games extensively as an extra bonus.
The middlegame
1. Sloppy calculation
I could make this point every week, and I feel I should do so until I don't have to anymore. As it's a recurring theme throughout my games, it is something that I should constantly work on.
Take this position:
In this position I played 17...Bh3, picking up the Exchange. Had I spent any thoughts on other moves, I would have looked into 17...Rxe2, and I would naturally have come to the conclusion that it's much stronger.
Most opportunities are missed because people don't look for them. I don't know the exact quote or who ushered it (please let me know in the comment section), but this is very much true for the missed wins in my games. However, always look for checks, captures, and attacks.
2. Clarifying the situation
In many cases it's better to maintain the tension in the position. The side who gives it up usually does so with a concession. It should only be done when there is a clear point to it.
Take the following position:
White had a clear reason for giving up the tension here.
3. White's key move in the English
This belongs in the Opening section as well as in the Middlegame section, because it will be a middlegame decision that I'm expected to face very often when playing the English.
Very fundamentally, after 1.c4 white is threatening to play 2.d4 and take over the centre. It doesn't quite suit my repertoire to play this straight away because at this stage I'm not willing to expand to 1.d4 systems too much. However, the idea to move the pawn to d4 remains a core idea in the English opening, for precisely the same reasons that ...d5 is black's key move in the Sicilian. It would be silly to neglect the move, and yet that is precisely what I've been doing rather often:
Conclusion:
1. I should keep working on understanding and improving my opening repertoire. This would also include finding out what the usual responses are in the systems that I play.
2. I should take more time to work things out. This is especially (though not uniquely) true for my calculation.
To-do list for next week:
1. Find and include at least one model game with the same opening system that I have been playing.
2. Improve my opening repertoire with at least 400 moves.
3. Do daily work on calculation and visualisation. There is more than enough material out there to work with.
Games:
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-5-january-2025
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-7-january-2025
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-8-january-2025
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-9-january-2025
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-10-january-2025
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-11-january-2025
