Study log. 29 Aug 2016

LegatusSPQR

Updated: Aug 29, 2016, 11:48 AM | 0

Tactics

Today I did 20 problems on chess.com tactics trainer. I got 15 problems right and I failed 5 problems. Also out of 15 problems I got right there were at least 3 problems in which I didn't see all the lines before moving the pieces. Overall it got my tactics rating from 2046 to 2081. My goal is to get to 2300-2400 tactics rating by the end of year.

There was one a quite hard and a very interesting position. I am proud that I got it right even though it took me 7:38 to crack it.

These defensive type combinations are really challenging, I was chasing shadowy checkmates for good 5 minutes before realized that there are no serious threats to the black king.

On chesstempo I solved 3 problems out of 3 attempts. One position was very hard. It took me 57 minutes. Not continuously though, it is just what chesstempo timer showed, I was distracted from time to time, but anyway it took far longer than usual.

Sad truth is that in real game I probably wouldn't see this motive. I spent I think 20-30 minutes calculating wrong line 1. h8Q Rxh8 2. Re5+ Kd4 and I tried a lot of options of where the Rook can go with the idea to pin the knight afterwards by 4. Bd4+. Lesson learned: if you see that there is nothing in the line you're calculating, move on and look for other lines. Don't calculate it over and over again.
Unfortunately chances that OTB I'd see this motive with 1. Re5+ Kd4 2. Re1! are minimal. The other two chesstempo problems were quite trivial and I think it isn't even worth mentioning them here. Solving these 3 problems got my chesstempo rating from 1844 to 1876.

Games

As was planned in my study plan I play 2 games daily with 15 minutes time control. I normally play on lichess, maybe will switch to chess.com in the future, but for now I like lichess better.

In both games my opponents chose lines I wasn't familiar with and I had to improvise in the opening. It might have costed me a game in the second game when in advanced french I allowed my opponent to rid my king of the right to castle, but he didn't use his temporary advantage and I got an attack he failed to defend from. Here there these two games with computer annotations. I am going to analyze them tomorrow on my own.

Study log. 29 Aug 2016

Krakow Chess