Challenging Chess Transition from High School To College

Hi Everyone!

My name is Yian Liou, International Master with a FIDE rating of 2414 and USCF rating of 2500. Currently a sophomore at UC Berkeley. Here I will write about my 12-year journey from chess newcomer to IM and my recent (and sporadic) chess activities and thoughts.

On August's Titled Tuesday, I managed to make myself look silly courtesy of this game:

My mistake in the endgame was pretty clear (f4??), and the article reporting on August's Titled Tuesday did a good job of analyzing.

I have been fairly inactive since I started college, squeezing a few bullet games on ICC here and there. Nevertheless, it isn't a good excuse for my instinctive mistake.

The obvious lesson from this game and my last online tournament is that

1. Playing Bullet on ICC, while time efficient, is clearly a poor way to stay in good chess form.(Pretty obvious ! )

Before College, my routine to avoid rustiness consisted of keeping up with top-level games, blitz games, opening study, and the occasional tactic puzzle. This routine worked out pretty well for me.

When I started college, the routine turned to an occasional glance at top-level games and bullet games on ICC. There is good evidence showing that I am rusty as my bullet and blitz ratings on ICC took a dive in the past year,indicating my chess instinct is not as good as it was before college.

Maintaining good chess form requires more effort on my part than I thought, though I currently don't envision myself playing competitively on a frequent basis in the future.

This concludes my short introduction to my blog. Up next is my thoughts on the Accelerated Dragon first introduced to me by a certain fpawn...