Some Improvement
After 2 months and about 2000 tactics puzzle I'm starting to notice that my game starts to improve.
Training helps ! But only if done the right way.
Is it realistic to expect a 2000+ within 5 years ? I less than 2 months my rating has gone up from 950 to about 1400 (lighting).
Pattern recognition vs calculation.
Really calculation can't be improved. And in a way calculation isn't that important either. It takes way too long to calculate every possible move. When I started with my training 2 months ago I did a lot of calculations on tacticals. The result was very good because my puzzle rating went up to a max of 2100. But at the same time my game didn't become any better. The reason was that I gave myself a infinite amount of time (well 30minutes max) to solve a tactic. After a few weeks I learned that improving on tactics doesn't really need deep calculations. The key is pattern recognition. After about a 1000 puzzles I started to see patterns more quickly. But I also forgot old patterns (which is a good thing). So I started to do the same puzzles all over again. That worked like a charm. Also I started to use associative words to remember the patterns. I the following 2 weeks my rating went up from 930 to 1150. It wasnt that I found myself playing better but I saw the mistakes of my opponents more often. So my conclusion was that I had to learn to play tactics fast instead of finding the best move. Which helped even more. It's more or less a rule of thumb that if I find a tactic pattern in less than 10 sec I can also apply this in a normal (blitz) game. For now I cant find most solutions in less than 2 min. But after each iteration (reviewing tactics after a month) I become faster on not only the know tactics but also new tactics.
My brain starts to generalize on chess positions.
It's hard work that takes a terrible amount of time. It's also impossible to review the tactics more often because I start to remember the results. Remembering results is a bad thing because to improve on tactics I have to remember the calculations that led to the best move and not the moves.
20 New Tactics a day ...
Doing 20 Tactics a day turns out to be the best.
Mixed with 50 already know tactics. At that rate I'll do a 6000 or so tactics a year. Goal is to improve at least a 100 points each year until I reach 2000. I know tactics alone wont do the trick so at a given time I have to study openings and endings too. I have already improve almost 500 points (chess.com rating without computer points) but I dont expect improvements at this pace.
Associations and Abstractions.
The real power lies in making abstractions and grouping objects together so that the short term memory doesnt have to process as much data. Writing down abstractions helps to improve that process but also makes the process much slower. It will take some time before abstractions/Associations become part of the thinking process. And as it turned out this also leads to many many blunders...
Computer Software...
Goal : Building a software that seeks for al possible mate and near mate positions And deducing patterns from that (DONE).
The software already Beta but I dont use it until I'm sure what to learn. I'm still very inexperienced when it comes to chess and learning the wrong patterns might destroy my games. But A real eyeopener was that the software found different classes of mate with almost the same sequences QN QR RR RN enz...
Speed and results.
Patterns are fast. If I'm in a positions that allows to use my knowledge I can really destroy my opponent :) But this doesn't happen that much because chances are very small. at the moment my estimate 10 games in a thousand. So statistically I have to do at least 2000 /10 = 200 *100 about 20000 tactics (4times) This means that with 6000 Tactics a year it will take about 12 years before I can fully relly on patterns...
Will it take 12 years for me to become GM ??? I don't know but being realistic I think 2000+ within 5 years might be possible.
Rating dont bother ?!
Rating on chess.com doesn't mean a thing (people are either over or underrated ). Some people use easy computer points to increase their rating. So in a way that is explanation why some higher rated players play so weak... I thought about doing that too. But I'll just decieve myself. There is a lot of fluff between 1400-1700. And people that dont use the computer for points end up at the lower end of the rating spectrum. I also have proof that there is at least one GM that likes to play patzers?! So rating isnt that relaible when it comes to playing strength.... Conclusion : ratings are nonsense.
IM GM's like it ....
what if a lot of people fluff up their ratings and start playing gm's... Isn't that a easy way for gm's to also fluff up their ratings... hmmm... I don't know but for ratings to be accurate chess.com has to remove the computerplayer that's a fact.
