Looking forward to your progress!
Bairn-Owl's Yusupov intermediate study plan
Sort:
Jun 28, 2021
0
#3
Posting an update once in a blue moon is so typical of me, but I am working on my chess, I promise. 😅
I was quite busy in April but I still did some studying and playing on a regular basis.
In May and June, I shifted my focus to playing more classical time control games, most notably by playing in USCF rated tournaments (mostly online, a few OTB at my local club). I played around 40 classical games in this period. Because of this, I actually haven't been playing on chess.com or lichess all that much, but I'll still start by listing my rating changes on these platforms since April.
Rating Changes
Chess.com:
- Blitz: 1499 -> 1541 +42
- Daily: 1639 -> 1673 +34
- Puzzles: 2231 -> 2504 +273
Lichess:
- Blitz: 1669 -> 1701 +32
- Rapid: 1747 -> 1858 +111
- Classical: 2090
- Puzzles: 2108
I would say I put the most effort into my chess.com puzzles training and I'm pleased with the progress I made. However, I'm not really seeing this translate into my play in classical games, and I'm still making elementary blunders quite often. I think this is a problem with my thinking process, which I'll address in the next section.
Next, here are my USCF rating changes. I decided to track it from the beginning of the year because I want to look at the progress I made in these past 6 months. I played in my very first USCF rated tournament in December 2020, so it is also equivalent to tracking my progress from the beginning of my tournament history.
USCF:
- Online regular: 1354 (provisional) -> 1525 (peak 1564) +171
- Online rapid: 1070 (provisional) -> 1720 +650
- Online blitz: 1244 (provisional) -> 1557 +313
- OTB regular: unrated -> 1446 (provisional)
I think I'm overrated in both online rapid and online blitz after a couple of good tournament results. My OTB regular rating is probably in some hot water until I can get my act together, because the transition from online to OTB has been a bit tricky in some ways.
Areas to work on
So, what to work on from here? I've identified a few areas after analyzing my games. One thing to note is that I enjoy studying a lot, so I naturally tend to skew more studying-heavy. In practice, I find most of my improvements come after I play a lot of games, so I am also trying to push myself to play more.
Strategy/Positional Understanding:
My positional understanding is quite poor, maybe even when compared to other players around my level. I generally compensate for this by playing in an aggressive, tactical way, but I think I do need to improve my understanding now.
I'm about halfway through the book Winning Chess Strategies by Yasser Seirawan, and I intend to read The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman and Chess Strategy for Club Players by Herman Grooten next.
Openings:
So far, I've been playing a lot of sharp, maybe slightly suspicious openings (yes, that means a lot of gambits), but I'm planning on transitioning to some more solid lines, in part to practice positional play.
I made my way through the ChessGoals Caro-Kann repertoire course, and I'm planning on learning the Nimzo-Indian/Queen's Indian/Ragozin or Slav as Black. I'm also thinking about picking up some new lines as White after 1.e4. I really enjoy studying openings, even though it's probably the thing that gives me the least return for my effort at my current level. So I'm just trying not to go overboard here.
Endgames:
I'm not sure whether endgames are a weakness for me or not, because I feel like most people at my level play endgames quite poorly. Regardless, I do want to improve in this area so that I don't feel afraid to enter an endgame.
Right now, I'm working my way through the Timeless Technique: Strategic Endgames course on Chessable. I read a few chapters of 100 Endgames You Must Know by Jesus de la Villa, but I don't find the material particularly useful right now (and honestly, it's quite dry as well). Instead, I find that I have more trouble coming up with the right plan in an endgame, hence my shift to the other course.
Time Management:
I tend to spend a lot of time in general, regardless of the time control. It becomes a problem when I get into time trouble. Conversely, there are also moments when I play too quickly and blunder. I feel like I need to play more efficiently during non-critical moments and spend more time in critical moments. Easier said than done: it's not super clear how to go about improving my time management. I'm chalking it up to playing more games and gaining more experience, as well as improving my thinking process, which is the topic of the next section.
Thinking Process:
I've been losing some classical games to one-move blunders and missed wins. I've identified a few reasons for the blunders:
- Not enough candidate moves. Sometimes I come up with a move or two and start calculating, without noticing other possible moves.
- Automatic reaction. If my opponent attacks me, I flinch instinctively. Especially if the move caught me by surprise. My board vision gets much worse and I tend to immediately go for a passive defense without considering a possible counterattack.
- No blunder check. Sometimes I make errors in my calculation and don't consider all of my opponent's possible replies.
I think the best way to improve my thinking process is to do it in a more systematic way. My only concern is that this could take more time and I already get into time trouble sometimes, but I think it is more important to build up good habits.
Conclusion
I've been lucky enough to be able to sink a lot of time and energy into chess in 2020 and the first half of 2021. I think I'm going to get much busier very soon, but I'm going to try to keep working on chess on a regular basis. I haven't been so happy with my quality of play recently, but I think the most important thing is to try to enjoy this fascinating game and all the amazing people I've met along the way. And from this perspective, everything is going great. 
Hello! I've been playing chess for about a year now, and have been doing something chess-related every day since I started. I think I prefer to study chess over playing it, but I've also been rather haphazard about this and usually just work on whatever I feel like on a given day. Hopefully having more structure will help.
I'm not a big fan of tracking my rating, but here are my current numbers:
⏰ Rapid: 1772
☀️ Daily: 1639