Farbror's Training Journal

Some quick thoughts:

11...Ng4! 12.Rad1 Nxe3?

Why immediately capture? Your knight is not threatened and White's bishop had no good squares to flee to. Often, maintaining tension is better.

13.Qxe3 Bg5? 14.Nxg5 Qxg5 15.f4?

Your opponent missed a chance to damage your pawn structure. After 15.Qxg5, I think combined with the open d-file, they have the better chances.

16.Qxf4 Qxf4 17.Rxf4 Ne5 18.Bxf7?? 19.Nxf7

Blunder. Your opponent apparently missed your knight on e5. There's something to be said for tactical sharpness, which you had a leg up on. :)

Thank you for you input!

Yes, 12...Nxe3 felt rather simplistic. I suppose both of the alternatives give in my sketchy notes are stronger. Qc7 is a trade mark of The Lion and a5 might very well create som added tension along tha a-file.

13... Bg5?! is clearly worse than I thought last night after the game. There are several better moves for me (black) and a few ways for white to penalize my oversight.

True, he did blunder but there are of course still a lot of "play" in the position and more blunders to come from the two of us. Still, a win is a win.

I use databases and books quite a lot. My average opponents rating is roughly 1500 and I suppose I spend (or have spent) more time on my Turn based games than the next guy.

My Tactics Trainer rating is 1700ish and my Chess Mentor rating is 1800ish. Both slightly oversestimating my true OTB rating. I have played a few 1500-1700 players live but playing live/OTB is quite a different thing. It is nerver wrecking and that makes my blunder prone.

Whip and Carrott in practice:

When I need a distraction, I treat myself with a few Tactics Problems. The trick to approach the problems seriously is to allow myself to solve problems until my first blunder. When I really need a distraction, I might keep going until my second blunder.

It is time to start working on the Chess related New Years Resolutions. IM Marin claims in his article that 15 minutes of dedicated chess studies might be enough to improve your raing by 1 pt/week. That is a comforting thought.

My resolution will probably be something along the lines:

• at least 50 slow games next year
• at least 15 minutes of die hard training each day

Goal: increased OTB rating by at least 50 points

Well, that is of course rather vague but I ment something like "Highly focused and (if possible) under competitionlike conditions.

Something like a 15 minute all-out effort. Pushing the Ol' Brain out of the backbone comfort zone.

Yikes!! Not a word written in almost a month! I will soon update my Training regime and post a New Year's Chess Resolution

Farbror’s 2009 Training Regime

I will try to keep it simple in the year to come. My workload is getting worse and the small dear ones are getting older and more active. My chess hours are fewer and shorter.

Openings: I am not comfortable with any of my repertoires. I might change to “d4” in a Colle-esque fashion but that is still to be decided. Read Mendis “How to play Good Opening Moves”

Middlegame: No planned activities. Read Stean “Simple Chess”

Endgame: We have an informal Reading/Study Group at the office working our wa y through Silman’s endgame book (Obviously reading “Silman’s Compålete Endgame Course“)

Daily Activities: 15-30 minutes of efficient PC based training using Chess Mentor, Chess Tactics Server and/or ChessMagnetSchool

Weekly activities: One slow game + home brewed analysis

Goals: To read 1+ additional Chess Books and to improve my ICC rating by at least 50 points

Other: Reduce my turn-based chess game load and to avoid playing Grob

Added Details:

Daily Morning Activities: 15-30 minutes of Chess Tactics Server (or similar)

Weekly Schedule:

Monday: Analyzing Master Games

Tuesday: Analyzing Master Games

Wednesday: Tactics

Thursday: Analyzing my own games

Friday: Analyzing my own games

Saturday: Opening Training

Sunday: Strategy

(15-30 minutes sessions)

No endgame training? Well, I hope to get my fair share of endgames in our Study Group. FM Schiller suggested a daily endgame problem as a good approach. Can anyone recommend a suitable collection of endgame problems? 

The weekly schedule is along the suggestions from Mr Silman.

Training Update:

Goals: to increase my ICC rating by 50 points & to play 50+ slow games

Results: ICC -8pts, 2 slow games played and to some extent analyzed

Methods: 15-30 minutes of CTS each morning, a few Chess Mentor lessons at and weekly games in the Team4545 League at ICC

farbror> Results: ICC -8pts, 2 slow games played and to some extent analyzed

::sigh:: Chess and weight loss are hard. Stick in there!

Anti-Grob is OK but chess is so-so!

To-Read List:

Mednis: "How to Play Good Opening Moves"
77/136 due date March 31

Silman: "Silman's Complete Endgame Course"
60/88(530) due date April 30

Chernev: "Logical Chess Move by Move"
65/256 due date March 14

Stean: "Simple Chess"
0/160 due date March 31

Purdy: "Search for Chess Perfection"
65/389 due date 2009

Tisdall: "Improve Your Chess now"
5/224 due date 2009

Del Rosario: "First Book on Morphy"
0/216 due date April 30

Beim: "Paul Morphy: A Modern Perspective"
0/164 due date June 30

Vukovic: "Art of the Attack"
0/352 due date July 30

Nimzowitsch: "My System"
0/320 due date 2009

I have unsuccesfully tried to get some kind of Reading Group started. Drop me a note if you would be interested in some co-op!

I would. I have read most of Chernev's Logical Chess but could use another run through.

Chernev's book is great. Everybody should read it a few times.

My first idea was to use a strategy book (Stean : "Simple Chess"?) for the Reading Group. Split up the book in small reading segments to make it comfiortable to read them and to have time to play a lot of slow games. The "kicker" is to find examples from your own games of the stuff in the Reading Group Home Work Assignment.

More to Do: Replay all WC games starting with the first ones

I would like to disagree a little regarding the move 13.-Bg5. In the resulting ending the doubled pawn is not a wakness, but rather helps black with securing some space on the Kingside. The result of the exchange is also that black has the theoretically "better" bishop left, because of the central pawn-structure. It is true that white is in command ofthe only open file, but on the other hand there is not much he can do with it. the only entry-field is d6, and a white rook doesn't achieve much from there. Black on the other hand has a7-a5 to open up the a-file. after some preparatory moves as Kg8-f8-e7, a5, Nb6/c5 depending on whites reaction to a7-a5 I believe black might very well be better. I think whites pieces has very limited scope for improvement.

Just some thoughts

Ludde

Note to myself: Add one chess.com video per day to the daily routines

Is it good?

I think the newly produced chess.com videos is very good. Another huge argument for subscribing ;)

Point taken