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Well over time -in other groups with lots of people- we formulated some specific terms for specific schools of thought. Salt Mining was the school of thought representing doing easy tactics within 10 seconds in a spaced repetition way in order to truly master those patterns. It feels like working in the salt mines, since in the beginning you repeat the same problems over and over. True many chess trainers already hinted at this system, but never coined a name, so others did and I joined. Turtle Play is a term I coined to represent the school of thought where you reduce risk against weaker players by stearing the game away from tactics -and a sudden unforseen blunder which might cost you the game- and stear the game towards a calm lenghty positional battle. The idea is that often after a positonal weak move, the stronger player can still recuperate. But say you are playing a 300 lower rated opponent where you lose in a piece in a tactical skirmish, then you cannot recuperate Like a turtle, who is slow and can get in his armor to recuperate. True, Simon Webb already described this system, but he did not coin a name, and since he is dead, I did! Since these 2 themes were heavily debated right before I was kicked out of other groups for being to passionate and to socially incorrect (?! like that matters, we want to improve right?) the name "Salty Turtle" sounded fun and unique to me.

https://www.chess.com/news/view/sevian-gets-the-trophy-wins-spice-cup-open-with-robson-7593 Finally, I can say what I feel.

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Played a lowly 72 ecf here (1249). As white I got a good position . I realised the critical position got behind on the clock by 20mins before dismissing Bxh7. Then at end offered draw to win match but i did think i was worse. Kag draws come back to haunt me.

http://chesstempo.com/chess-forum/site_feedback/maybe_speed_dials-t7750.0.html http://chesstempo.com/chess-forum/site_feedback/mobile_application_for_android-t6981.45.html

YEAH, I beat a 2347 FM! He is the number 1 rated at my local club. I am now leading the internal competitition!

In this topic I post links to my articles.

I just have had a look at it. After the moves: 1.Nf3 b6 the defense is called: "Zukertort Opening/ Queenside Fianchetto Variation" And that's it. Jaap played against me 1.Nf3 b6 2.g3 Bb7 - and lo' and behold! - this opening has no name! The game continued with the most common move in the DB: 3.Bg2 e5 - this is certainly a very interesting move. Actually, to me it looks like black has imediatly equalized. Before I go deep into analyzing this, there are two things first: a) Since it has no name - Jaap can name it. It has been played before, but probably only Jaap has analyzed it in great detail? (If not - I will do the work but then it would be my name). b) Please Jaap - how do you play it with black? The CT-DB gives 4.d3 with 53 games, 4.c4 with 25, and 4.O-O with 21 games. I suggest after 4.d3 this: The "aim" I am trying to achieve here is to have a Maroczy-bind structure with reversed colours. I guess that 3...e5 is a strong move for black. I tried it in a few blitz games, but never followed the plan with ...Bg7, which is guarding the e5 pawn (so the d-pawn is free to move to d5). Edit: I looked a bit into it, and guess that 11...Ke7 is bad. White gets dangerous attack here after 12.Qe4 Nc7 13.f4 the move 9...d5 is thus wrong. Remains 9...Nc6 (this can not be bad) or maybe 9...O-O. However, this gives white time to prevent a maroczy-bind. Though I dont think this helps white much. After 9...Nc6 10.Ne3 O-O - it looks as if black has nothing to fear.

For some contrast (see "perfect play"), this thread here is for the worst games. Not any "bad" games, but hopefully they are so stupid or at least funny somehow - it makes us wonder, and sometimes we are glad we can only lose the full point (=just a loss) and dont get punished for really bad play.

It hardly happens, but occasionally I have a game where I played perfectly well. I can tell afterwards by running the lichess.org analysis (stockfish engine) and having: 0 inaccuracies 0 mistake 0 blunders 12 or less average centipawn loss per move If it happens, than usually in games that I won after 9 moves or so (= my opponent blundered in the opening). But a full game - it hardly happens to have perfect play. Today it happened once again in a blitz game ( 0min + 11sec increment). The opening is well known to me, which helps playing perfectly well, however, having here an average centipawn loss per move of just 8 ("eight"!) is something that looks like an engine (...but of course it isnt an engine, but I know the catalan well).

If you are a good Blitz player (= you can keep up with players that are otherwise in long OTB games better than you) - chances are that your tactic-skill is similar like the tactic-skill of those "better" long OTB players. Why? Blitz is mainly about tactics. Probably shallow tactics, but I am not even sure this is true. (Likely: if you are good in shallow 2-3 mover tactics - chances are high you are similarly good in longer 5-6 move tactics, too. I mean compared to others. For all of us --> the deeper the more difficult it gets). But long OTB games can be much less about tactics. Chess isnt 99% tactics. It is about 70% simple tactics, 10% difficult tactics, and the rest is rules with some half. You can get away full games without possessing strong tactics. This is totally different to what the common believe is. However, I am proof myself: my blitz abilities are poor, but I am 300-400 fide elo points better if the time control is long enough. And I now how I do it: I avoid tactics. Having said that, we can not avoid simple tactics. 2-3 moves are needed to check here and there, but really, it is simple most of the time. And we can avoid too difficult tactics if we play carefully. Thomasz is a chess player who is totally different to me: His boardvision skills are better than mine, and we did some blitz matches and I lost like 20 to 5 against him. Nevertheless, he is just a 1800 fide elo player, while I am more 2200 fide elo. His chesstempo-Blitz tactics are a little bit worse than mine. Didnt I say Blitz is mostly about tactics? Why am I then so poor in Blitz if my chesstempo-Blitz tactics are even a bit better than Thomasz´s chesstempo-Blitz-rating? Well, the truth is, that chesstempo-Blitz tactics are not so shallow as most tactics in Blitz are. At CT Blitz of 1800++ you get quite some difficult ones, which you rather find in a puzzle only because you know it is a puzzle, plus these puzzles often have solving times above 1 min - hardly something we can call "Blitz", can we? Otherwise, in a real Blitz game, you less likely find these difficult tactics (unless they are highly pattern driven, but those are seldom in the 1800++ - ranges). So what do we need to play better OTB? Really, I strongly believe it is a good opening repertoire where you know how to play the openings a bit in the middle game, too. These must be openings which arent too sharp, cause we dont want tactics. We want an advantage through "better knowledge" about the position. In my next post I give an example.

Im a believer that lower grades can help higher grade players . Even Carlson in his 12 tips to follow says he learns from all different grades. Most players coaches at top level are lower than the players there coaching.Also a lower player may be alot higher graded in endgames but never reaches them as his other play is lower graded

Haha, just to annoy all those people who write in their profile they will report prog players. Well I don't. This group is about debating chess improvement methods, it's not about justice. Haven't we all did some stupid things in the past? I like engine cheaters, at least they are experimenting trying to outsmart the system. Unfortunately, I am to bad a crook to find a way to cheat OTB, since then I would make a lot of money. I would like to get to FM at my own power only using the engine afterward analysing mistakes.

My game this week against Smit, who played a b3+e3 system against me, made me think. That system can be played both as white and black against all openings. So you could choose to get highly skilled in that setup since you could opt for that system in 100% of your games with both colours. Here is the Smith game again. After analysing this game and getting the idea of playing it with both colours at an extreme high skill level, I did some source searching. I was very happy to find 4 video's of GM Igor Smirnov, who earlier taught me some nice lessons. So I watched those. Larsen-Nimzowitsch Attack (b3+e3) b3 part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21ZQnlIJJKM b3 part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONRfnAhtnpI Owen's System b6 part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ACdKjp4QQ b6 part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpEJdebvXQY I also downloaded, and still need to study: Play 1..b6! book By GM Bauer, I know the guy from his tricky Scandinavian games I studied. A Foxy video from IM Andrew Martin Chessbase Trainer files from GM Nigel Davies. An abstract from Ladkawala's book on the Larsen-Nimzo attack. Well, finding a book from Bauer and video's from Smirnov made me wonder. Those guys are good in setting up tricky systems. The more I reviewed some lines from the database in Stockfish, the more I liked the system. Sure white does NOT get an evaluation edge, and as black you get 0.3 disadvantage, but that's not the aim. The aim is to get in familiar positions and get the advantage in the middle game as Ladkawala says in his book. Since the evening of the day I studied these systems I had a rapid tourney at my club, I played all my 4 games with b3 and b6 as a test. Scoring 4 out of 4. Right after the games I quickly notated the games in my phone. I am positive and will keep playing this system. I already tried the "getting highly skilled in 1 opening system idea" with the Modern Tiger and Hanham system with both colours, but that didn't work out. I have to say getting b6 against me always made me laugh, but as it turns out, black has many resources. You give a way the center to attack the center.

Online chess (max: 24 hours per move) Munich (Kag_moon) vs Japp: 2 games to test ...1.b6 (Owens defense) - Jaap is playing black in both cases. Here the 2 games: https://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=148652346 https://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=148652356 (special rules apply: no opening book used)

I really like that chess.com offers automated analysis. I just push a button, and bam, there it is..... all blunders in red and inaccuracies in blue. So even quick games (or even 1 move in a day games, I always play fast) you can learn from. It saves so much time, I don't have to manually put all moves in a Chess Gui and watch every move with infinite analysis mode on. And chess.com even offers the FEN so you can make a flash card from your mistakes. Truly impressed by this technology.

When I (= know as Munich) started training for chess, I was already 39 years old. Before that I had not played for 12 years. My old rating back when I was 26 years old was 1812 DWZ (german rating), and that was my all-time-high back then. Stupid as it is, this "high" rating was one of the reasons why I stopped playing, because I didnt want to lose a 1800++ rating. Meanwhile, I am playing in England, and have a 192 ecf, and the tendency is still going upwards. It is difficult to compare those 2 ratings exactly. But it is a gain of about 400 fide elo, or from roughly 1800 to 2200 fide elo, dependend on what rating conversion formulars you use. I trained a lot of easy tactics at chesstempo. The way I trained is now called "the saltmines". More about that to follow in a seperate thread here. I improved in tactics, however, this improvement is maybe worth "just" 150 fide elo. The rest I improved with endgame studies, looking at statistics of various openings and trying to understand why some openings are statistically more promissing than others, and I adjusted my openings repertoire according to statistics. Those who played me can often confirm: I get out of the opening in a good way, with an easy life, whereas my opponent had it tough. I play the "Turtle" style against weaker opponents, which are meanwhile --> most players I come accross! At lichess.org I am better than 99.8% (there are 42K and more active players at lichess). I am tactically still not that strong, and many A-class players are able to beat me in blitz. (Blitz is mostly about tactics). I will write more about openings, endgames, general tricks (including middlegame) in seperate threads.

Here you can test stuff.