coriollis' beginner study plan

W2D6 (Blitz):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live games:
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2LqryTaRLq9rE (win)
    • Attacked the enemy queen relentlessly for coming out too early.
    • Allowed a bishop to be trapped by putting two pawns behind it.
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2A4KY1yVpq9rE (loss)
    • Lost a piece after pinning my own king to it
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2bYT7Mb3Uq9rE (win)
    • Tough game. Played a fried liver and had trouble figuring out what was happening during the middle game.
    • Blundered in the endgame, allowing an enemy passed pawn to get to the 7th rank, but managed to take advantage of a mistake and promoted my own pawn.
    • Missed a hanging rook
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2dcHErHQiq9rE (win)
    • Comfortable game.
    • Missed a couple of mate chances, but otherwise a clean game.

Glad to be done with the first blitz week, but I now feel much more comfortable with fast time controls compared to the start of the week.

It is always an adjustment playing faster games. Glad it's feeling more comfortable!

W2D7 (Blitz):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Openings:
  • 50 mins. of Seirawan's Winning Chess Openings.

Week overview:

Stats:

•  Rapid: 1034 (=)
•  Blitz: 781 (+72)
•  Daily: 1165 (=)
•  Puzzles: 1868 (+76)
  • Puzzle Rush (3min) record: 17

Huge improvement of my mindset when playing fast games (also a nice rating boost). Slow puzzles are now a lot harder, and it's easy for me to become a little frustrated when I answer a couple wrong, so I have to change my mindset when solving problems (being dilligent in considering options and continuations, even if the process is slow), and I've noticed sometimes I go on autopilot when playing puzzle rush (and my score suffers for it), so I have to be very conscious of the fact that playing is not (only) for fun, but requires concentration to really be useful.

School starts again tomorrow, so I'll probably have to limit myself to do only what the program says for each day (and no more chess related stuff, but without missing anything from the program and without skipping days, obviously!) as these last few weeks I've been either playing non-stop or watching chess videos non-stop. From what I've heard, maybe forcing myself to not do chess-related stuff all day will help some things in my brain really settle in (at least that's what I've heard from pop science sites).

Anyway, happy to finish week 2. I've rarely been as disciplined in any other activity; rediscovering chess has lately been one of the great joys of my life, and I do feel myself getting a little better each week. Let's keep going!

I'm glad you're enjoying the process. Have fun with school starting back up!

W3D2 (Rapid):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live game:
  
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2NBPijACvq9rE (loss)
    • Missed I could attack and defend at the same time
    • Missed an in-between move because of not looking for enemy checks.

W3D3 (Rapid):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live game:
  
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2e2qXYfqgq9rE (win)
    • Kept calm in dangerous-looking situations and found critical moves.
    • Dealt with enemy passed pawns well enough (altough maybe I constatly let them get too close unnecesarily)
    • Allowed my queen to get stuck behind a pawn wall. I was still winning by a lot but it was annoying jhaving to dig her out to enter the game.

Very happy with that last game, no mistakes, no blunders, and found the critical moves .

You're right! I had the upper limit set to +400 but I forgot I also had it on -infinity!

W3D4 (Rapid):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live games:
  • https://www.chess.com/live/game/6169409084 (win)
    • ... this one doesn't count
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2eEcryPQSq9rE (loss)
    • Got a bad position from the opening. Must learn how to counter the Vienna gambit.
    • Missed moves that defended my pieces (or counter-attacked my opponent's) while developing my missing pieces.
    • Lost an endgame advantage for giving away pawns for empty threats.
    • Missed a chace to force a 3-move repetition.
    • Allowed the enemy king to cross his side of the board and take my pawns.

Very tough loss, but had a lot of teaching moments. I'm making a lot of personal notes from this one.

W3D5 (Rapid):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live games:
  • https://www.chess.com/a/ymJb767Qq9rE (loss)
    • Misplayed the scotch game and got a terrible pawn structure.
    • Did not take advantage of open files properly.
    • Blundered a trapped knight (immediatly after making a brilliant move to save it, I made a dumb move and got it trapped again).

Tough game, tough opponent. I'm not going to forget how to play against the scotch now.

W3D6 (Rapid):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Lessons:
  • Forcing moves
  • Reading the board

👌

Two post series highlighting coriollis:

Part One on Study Plans: https://chessgoals.com/nicolas-study-plan/

Part Two on Takeaways: https://chessgoals.com/nicolas-takeaways/

W3D7 (Rapid):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live game:
  • https://www.chess.com/a/3C6rkcK4Sq9rE (draw)
    • Made my king vulnerable for (unwarranted) fear of losing a pawn. Must not open the center until king is castled.
    • Did not develop my queenside for some reason, making my pieces vulnerable
    • Allowed the opponent to push his pawn, turning a winning position into a draw
      • Engine says I coul've won, but I didin't know how. Apparently, my queen can escort my extra bishop while preventing checks from th opponent's queen.

So sure I could've won that game. No shame in losing to a better opponent, but I have to make sure I don't make these mistakes again.

Week overview:

Stats:

•  Rapid: 1037 (+3)
•  Blitz: 781 (=)
•  Daily: 1123 (+58)
•  Puzzles: 1805 (-63)
  • Puzzle Rush (3min) record: 18 (+1)

Faced tougher opponents this week. Started an Anki flashcard deck to save new ideas I'm exposed to, either from games or from puzzle-solving (but not logging how many times I've commited each tipe of mistake, at least for now). Maybe in some time I could instead create a flashcard per game, to review the key moments of each one with spaced repetition, but for now I'll stick to this.

Lost puzzle rating. I'm thinking of forcing myself to think for 3-5 minutes on each one before moving, to make a habit of double-checking.

Thanks a lot for the mention. I hope other users find it useful

Yeah, I think they definitely will! There will be an email going out to advertise part two tomorrow.

Great article on takeaways. Just wanted to chime in and say I found it useful and motivating!

W4D1 (Blitz):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live games ❌ (life got in the way, but we'll get on it today)

I'm so happy to hear that, thank you!

W4D2 (Blitz):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live games:
  • https://www.chess.com/a/JjyzEhxiq9rE (win)
    • Bad time management led me to not evaluate moves properly, but managed to hang on.
  • https://www.chess.com/a/oAcwgatEq9rE (loss)
    • Lost track of the pieces during the middlegame
    • Allowed the enemy king to become active in the endgame
    • Did not take the opponent's pawns during the endgame.

Had to stop for the day.

W4D3 (Blitz):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live games:
  • https://www.chess.com/game/live/6225002776 (loss)
    • Felt like I couldn't focus during the game. Blundered a rook and it was game over.
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2jNE2qt8eq9rE (win)
    • Got in trouble for not properly defending an attacked piece
    • Opponent blundered and turned the game dramatically at the end
    • Missed some mates because of not looking for them.
  • https://www.chess.com/a/5VViPateq9rE (win)
    
    • Opponent blundered mate in 1
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2ai1ZJuPcq9rE (win)
    • Almost lost because of a bishop pinning my castling pawns.
    • Opponent misseed chance and played the rest of the game comfortably.

I've felt a little chess dizzy for the last couple of days. The last couple of wins got me feeling a little better, and I'm ready to keep going.

W4D4 (Blitz):

• Daily 
• Puzzles 
• Live games:
  • https://www.chess.com/a/3CT1KxMBCq9rE (win)
    • Terrible game. I got so excited for getting a lead from the opening that absolutely stopped thinking and played on pure instinct, and it shows. I need to not let my nerves get the best of me while playing.
  • https://www.chess.com/a/Znv2U5Gzq9rE (win)
    • This time I did take the hanging queen.
    • After opponent moved f3, it was better to pin the knight rather to attack the rook, since there's no realistic possibility of the queen getting closer to deliver mate.
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2tKqUdtZUq9rE (loss)
    • Got too focused on executing a plan on one side of the board and forgot to observe the rest of the game carefully.
  • https://www.chess.com/a/2i3CHEnxeq9rE (win)
    • Punished opponent for being too agressive in the opening.
    • After 5. Ng5 I got fried liver flashbacks and immediatly played d5, which is not bad, but I didn't even consider castling.

I will now become very strict when it comes to check for checks, captures and attacks for every position and every move I consider. I'll put a note next to my screen or something. Until checking for those becomes second nature, I feel like I'm not going to make a lot of progress.