Andrea, Nice to have you as a member of our group!
Andrea's Training Journal
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Farbror – many thanks for your post and for the welcome!
A short update: I have started, last Saturday, with individual lessons with Valeri Lilov, one of the teachers listed on this site. My first lesson has been extremely interesting and motivating, and I can say that it makes a hell of a difference having a (strong) human analyzing your games, versus an automated computer analysis!
In parallel, I have started a few games “turn based” (so I can spend all the time I need to analyze positions, and deepen the level of my analysis) and I want to play more “live games”, to simulate the OTB experience.
I will keep you posted!
Bye for now,
Andrea
Oct 25, 2008
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#4
Looks like your on the right track so far. All the best for your success.
Coach Lilov is stellar!
>Coach Lilov is stellar!
I think he really is! if I can find the time to do regular studying of his lessons, I guess there is no way I can avoid improving! ;-(
AndreaCoda wrote:
>Coach Lilov is stellar!
I think he really is! if I can find the time to do regular studying of his lessons, I guess there is no way I can avoid improving! ;-(
(My boldface)
Yeah, Life can be tough!
So, following up from the excellent idea that our friend Farbror had, I am updating my blog with my promise to my fellow buddies:
I hereby promise to:
- Do at least 15 minutes of tactic problems each day on www.chesstempo.com
- Do at least 15 minutes of study with Chess Mentor each day
- Do at least 4 lessons from the Internet Chess Academy a month (www.totalchess.com)
- Read at least 2 Novice Nook articles a week (http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Novice_Nook_Links.htm)
- Do all the 60 exercises from the Tactics Gym, the 10 strategic tests, the 10 tactics tests each month from Improve Your Chess (http://www.improveyourchess.com/)
- Post one of my slow annotated games on the group forum a month
- Report my progress on my forum blog at least once a month
Talk to you soon, for the November update!
Andrea
After having tried the sample hours, I have upgraded my Chess Mentor account to yearly membership. The thing seems really well done, and the idea is that the yearly plan will give me additional motivation (the more I study, the lower the cost per hour 
)
I have also updated my objectives accordingly!
Stay tuned for progress report!
First of all, let me apologize for not having been active at all lately! Here is an update of the training situation:
CHESS LESSONS:
Here is where I have been more active! I planned to have one lesson every week, and I have managed to stick to the plan. I must say that those few euros spent weekly are really worth it!
OPENING:
Following the advise from my chess coach, I have slightly modified my repertoire. With White I still play the Torre Attack (so I always open 1.d4), but I have been modifying the key lines I use – so far, I am having very good results. With Black, I have dropped the Scandinavian defense and I play the Sicilian against 1.e4, and the Nimzoindian against 1.d4. I am still getting the hung of these new systems, but I would say that so far, so good: I really like the scheme and I think I can become more proficient in the coming weeks/months.
TACTICS:
This is where I am still investing most of my time, because I think that, at my level, most games turn around tactics. I do about 30 minutes/day of tactics, either using ChessMentor or ChessTempo.
STRATEGY:
I do this basically going through annotated games of strong players: at the moment, after having finished Chernev’s “Logical Chess move by move”, I am going through John Nunn’s “ Understanding Chess move by move”.
ENDINGS:
I am not doing anything here, because of a simple reasoning: if I analyze 10 random games I played, in 90% of the cases I either lose or win the game because of a clear advantage (i.e. advantage of one or more pieces), so at my level, I think I would have diminishing returns by studying end games.
GAMES:
I play about 10 parallel games at any point in time on Chess.com, in “ correspondence style” , and I play a few games a week either on Playchess, in “ OTB style” , or at my chess club when I go back to Italy to visit family and friends.
COMPETITIVE GAMES:
Time has come to start thinking about doing some official tournament! I am planning, work permitting, to attend the “Ast Festival” in Italy, which will be from April 16th to April 19th – 6 rounds, 2 hrs/game reflection time. I am not expecting great results, of course, given this will be my first official tournament, but I am positive it will be a great learning experience.
So that’s it for now! I will post an update after the tournament, but if you want to wish me good luck in advance, I won’t mind… 
Interesting post!
Good Luck!
Good luck with you first tournament Andrea! Win or lose, you will be much better for the experience! I'm a little surprised that you chose the Nimzo Indian for your reply to 1) d4, because most of the people who are just starting out with a response to d4 usually choose Queen's Gambit Declined or the Semi-slav. I think the Nimzo is a much better opening for black, and it should suit you fine.
Farbror - thanks a lot! ;-)
Sharkpoet: thanks for you post! I didn't really "choose" the opening - it has been "strongly suggested" to me by my coach, on the basis of his observations of my playing style and past games. And given his word is gospel to me, here I am playing it...
Hope to hear from you about your tournament soon! I would especially like to see a game where you played the Nimzo, just to see how another player may use it. back at ya!
Thanks for your post Shark! I just started with the Nimzo, and I have very little experience with it, so I am not sure it will be very interesting to see how I use it - may be it can be used as "how NOT to play the Nimzo"...
Anyway, I was planning to share the games with you after the tournament, so maybe we can review them together!
Cheers all,
Andrea
I look forward to seeing them, at ya again. Don't be so hard on yourself, I am not an expert on the Nimzo myself. However, you may have some insight to it that I probably haven't seen myself.
Well, what I am planning to do is the following: review them you guys first, then review with my coach, and upload his comments after, so hopefully we'll all learn something from them...
Today, for the first time, I broke 1900 in online chess (1907 with the not-too-exciting game I just won).
Not a stellar result, but I am still very proud of it, it's kind of a cornerstone for me!
Cheers all!
Andrea
That's great to hear, Andrea! Keep up the good work.
Hi all, I am very glad to be part of your study group!
My general objective is to improve my game in long time control tournaments (with the dream of getting to National Master level, but I would be already happy with much less than this).
Background: I started playing chess many years ago, I then stopped for many years, and I very recently restarted. I am 37 years old, and I do not have an exceptional amount of time to dedicate to chess: realistically, I would say no more than 3 to 4 hours per week as average. My current level is between 1300 and 1400 ELO, and my main defect is that I blunder too much and too often.
My current study plan is the following:
OPENING:
At my current level and given the limited time I have available, I don’t believe that I should invest huge amount of times on openings. I am using the Torre Attack when playing White, and the Scandinavian Defense when playing Back against 1.e4. I believe they both lead to solid positions, very good for me. I have one book per opening, and I regularly study the games there and the main lines and variations.
TACTICS:
This is where I am currently investing most of my time, because I think that, at my level, most games turn around tactics. I do about 30/45 minutes a day of Chessimo (www.chessimo.com, something very similar to ChessTempo, but with more of a didactic twist), then another 15/30 minutes with ChessTempo, which I use to “track my progress”. I also review (using Fritz) all my online games, to find tactics my opponent or I have missed.
STRATEGY:
Here, again, I am not spending too much time with theory. I know the basics and general concepts, and the only study I do is going through annotated games of strong players and read the comments, trying to understand the why of each move from a strategic perspective. I have several books for this, all very nice and well written.
ENDINGS:
Here I have a pretty pragmatic approach. I use the endings module of Chessimo, which is based on “learn by doing and repetition”, I read about the key concepts, and I practice by taking some random positions from ChessTempo (the ones non ending up in mate), and playing them until the mate (one thing I have to learn is how to win a won game – if this makes any sense to you).
GAMES:
Finally, I try to play as much as I can, because of course you can study and practice as much as you want, but playing remains the key thing – and it’s also where the most fun is!
I try to play long games (like 30/30 or 45/15), so I can focus on each move and improve my ability to calculate lines.
Whenever possible, I try and play regular OTB, because I realize that there is a huge difference between playing on screen and over the board.
That’s basically it. I am looking forward to getting engaged in new activities with you all!
Andrea