ArielTzentner's Novice Study Plan

Week 2 - Day 5

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 4/6
• Rating: 933

Blitz

Game 1 - loss on time

Positives

• I tried to take it easy this time
• I played some solid moves, and only one major blunder

Improvements

• Try to go into offense mode more often

Game 2 - loss by checkmate

Positives

• Nothing in particular, the game was pretty fast and ended after 14 moves

Improvements

• Blundered into mate in 1...
• Look for pawn attacks on bigger pieces

Week 2 - Day 6

Daily - 👍

• I won one game that ended on time after 18 moves

Positives

• I was quite sharp with my moves, solid opening and only one slight inaccuracy - nearly all of my moves were best/excellent/good moves

Improvements

• Don’t forget to develop pieces, with attacks if possible - as a way to combat opposing attacks

Puzzles

• Total: 2/5
• Rating: 927

Logical Chess Move By Move
Game 3 - Takeaways

• Don’t mindlessly attack pieces with pawns in the opening, but rather keep the tension building in the center
• In queen’s pawn opening, build up tension in your camp with pieces ready to spring to action
• During an attack, try to compel the opponent to break his pawn structure guarding the king

Week 2 - Day 7

Daily - 👍

• Found a very good move that will lead to a king-queen fork

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 3/5
• Rating: 927

Openings - ❌

• Couldn’t find the time

Endgames - ❌

• Couldn’t find the time

Week 3 - Day 1

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 4/5
• Rating: 946

Rapid - 👍

• Link: https://www.chess.com/game/live/9483980973
• Recap: Resigned after I couldn’t convert a good attack, low on time

Positives

• Felt very confident in my moves
• Report shows I had really good moves, even though I messed up late

Improvements

• I couldn’t convert my attack into a win, I was bent on checkmating that I couldn’t find a good bishop-queen fork

Openings - 👍

• Had time to complete from yesterday
• Bought the book “My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black” by Vincent Moret, starting to like it very much!

Week 3 - Day 2

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 2/5
• Rating: 924

Logical Chess Move By Move

Game 4 - Takeaways

• Fight for control of vital squares
• Control any open files
• Make moves that make your position better, and weaken the opponent
• Hold off disturbing the pawn structure guarding the king as much as possible
• Do not play chess mechanically

Week 3 - Day 3

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 3/5
• Rating: 939

Blitz

Game 1 - loss via timeout

Positives

• I had a good lead throughout most of the game
• Made solid development moves, tried to put my pieces on good square, keeping the tension

Improvements

• Learn a good opening by white...
• Look for opponent hanging pieces instead of focusing on his attack on me
• Don’t keep a piece at all costs

Openings

I’m deviating a bit from the study plan, but for a good reason (for me). I feel like a need a good opening repertoire for both White and Black, so I bought the books “My first chess opening repertoire for Black/White” and started to dive in!

The book for black focuses primarily on playing the Scandinavian Defense, which I kind of like.

Today I dove deep into the Icelandic Gambit within the Scandinavian, and later I will try to practice it.

If you can, try to finish the whole plan for the day and then do the openings as sort of "extra credit"

Will do!

The blitz games are very tough for me in terms of time management, as I said in an earlier post. I think I will replace the blitz games with rapid games (per your recommendation) and see what happens. 

The thing is I feel very unsure of which moves to make in the opening (with either white or black), but I guess you’re right - I should focus on playing games and dealing with that, studying without practicing in actual games won’t get me anywhere

Sounds good! Yes, treat the study plan as your base, and after that do extra in areas you are interested in.

Week 3 - Day 4

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 2/5
• Rating: 913

Logical Chess Move By Move

Game 5 - Takeaways

• Castle if you want or you must, not because you can
• Usually castling in the early stages is not good - try to attack instead

Week 3 - Day 5

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 3/5 (missed one because of wrong click...)
• Rating: 909

Rapid - ❌

• Went on vacation...

Week 3 - Day 6

Daily - ❌

• Vacation

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 2/5
• Rating: 896

Logical Chess Move By Move

Game 6 - Takeaways

(Performed during Day 7)

• Again, premature castling along with over-aggressive idea cost White the game
• Remember the penetration theme - weakening the pawn structure and settling in the holes

Week 3 - Day 7

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 3/5
• Rating: 907

Openings - 👍

• Continued reading “My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black”, focus on the Icelandic Gambit

Week 4 - Day 1

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 3/5
• Rating: 905

Rapid - 👍

• Recap: Win by checkmate!
• Very proud of myself on that game 😁
• Link: https://www.chess.com/live/game/10093843917

Positives

• Kept the initiative throughout most of the game, and capitalized on my opponent’s mistakes
• 82% accuracy! One of my best games to date - no major blunders, only 5 inaccuracies and 1 mistake

Improvements

• Study the openings well, so I have an advantage from the get-go

Week 4 - Day 2

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 4/5
• Rating: 930

Logical Chess Move By Move

Game 7 - Takeaways

• Play the opening that I’m comfortable with
• Remember that pinned pieces are not defending anything!
• One attitude: don’t attack early, instead gain incremental advantages, and the win will come thereafter

• One attitude: don’t attack early, instead gain incremental advantages, and the win will come thereafter

^ This is great! Attack from a position of strength.

Week 4 - Day 4

Daily- 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 3/5
• Rating: 983

Rapid

(Yesterday’s debt)

• Link: https://www.chess.com/live/game/10319804757
• Recap: Won by checkmate!

Positives

• Spotted my opponent’s blunder and checkmated him!
• I played aggressively with confidence even though I didn’t know the book opening

Improvements

• In hindsight, I saw a potential attack right after I made my move - “After finding a good move, look for a better one”
• I missed his hanging knight - always look for hanging pieces!

Logical Chess Move By Move

Game 8 - Takeaways

• c5 is good for black against queens pawn openings
• Also the black’s queen’s knight is better at d7 than c6
• The light squared bishop is important
• Try to force the pawns guarding the king to move, and exploit the weaknesses slowly - try to remove the free squares’ guards

Week 4 - Day 5

Daily - 👍

• Lost my queen in some of the games, need to figure out a way to defend properly
• Resigned in one game after my analysis concluded I’ve lost - turns out it was a sure mate

Positives

• Overall nice game on my part, had only slight inaccuracies until the end - only one mistake that the analysis engine pointed out to me, also 50% accuracy

Improvements

• I went to attack with pieces not positioned optimally - should wait for the right time to attack, also coordinate the pieces!

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 4.5/5 (had 1/3 moves in the missed puzzle)
• Rating: 1018!
• Crossed the 1000 barrier for the first time 😁

Rapid - ❌

• Couldn’t get to it because of personal schedule

Week 4 - Day 6

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 2/5
• Rating: 998

Logical Chess Move By Move

Game 9 - Takeaways

• A position is weak only if the opponent can benefit from its imperfections
• Again, the method for winning is gaining incremental advantages instead of wild attacks and sacrifices

Week 4 - Day 7

Daily - 👍

Puzzles - 👍

• Total: 3/5
• Rating: 995

Openings - 👍

• Finished reading Chapter 2 - The Icelandic Gambit in “My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black”
• Also got to practice it against my uncle OTB today! I ended up losing, and it’s a shame I didn’t record the moves, but I most probably blundered some in this game

Endgames - 👍

• Queen and rook
• Two rooks
• Queen
• Rook
• Queen and bishop
• Queen and knight