Brain not working
This past week my brain seemed to stop working when it came to solving tactical problems in the trainer. I am guessing it was just exhaustion due to lack of sleep from staying up to follow the games in Nanjing, but it was a bit disconcerting to nosedive from 2300+ way down below 2000. Worse was dropping 1/2 a percent in my success rate, which is quite a bit when you have solved the number of problems I have. Nothing was clicking for the longest time, and it tends to build as you get frustrated with making mistakes. What that should have been telling me was take a break for a few days, and catch up on sleep after all it is just a training tool and no more.
The latest round of the Ruy Lopez tournament is going well. I have 2 wins, and a couple other games look promising.
Too busy to play over the board these days. We have been getting ready for the arrival of our daughter on the 1st of December. I spent this weekend painting her bedroom, but I still managed to get in some chess training.
One thing I have been doing is playing through games blindfold, using just a board and the book 500 Master Games of Chess. For some reason having the crutch of a board to look at makes things a lot more clear in my mind. It has been fun though, and is working better than I thought it would. I need to work on not using the board though. That is the next step.