IgnoratioElenchi33’s Intermediate Adult Improver Plan

Great mindset to give your opponent credit where it's due. Keep up the good work!

Agreed. Especially in the games that are close where I play well, I think those are some of the best learning experiences on where I went wrong and try to figure out why, and then figure out what the better move set would have been.

Week 7 Day 1:

5|5 Games, 3 min Puzzle Rush, White Opening study

5|5 Games: 

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/game/live/19190181751

I played as black in this game and went with the Hungarian Defense in the Italian game. I only made one mistake and won by checkmate. According to the computer, I was never in trouble and was winning from out of the opening.

Game 2: https://www.chess.com/game/live/19190732923

I played as white and went with an open Sicilian against the Sicilian defense. I like this set up as the structure closely resembles the scotch game, which I tend to do very well at. I played pretty well with an 87.7% accuracy, though the analysis bar was up and down at the end of the game. The engine gave me two blunders, but I didn't see them as blunders; more potential mistakes if anything. One of the "blunders" was moving one rook instead of the other to the same square, I don't see how it's a blunder.

3 minute puzzle rush

I then did seven rounds of 3 minute puzzle rush. I was really struggling with the puzzles as my best was 20 but I also had some between 8-13, which for me is terrible. I need to be more consistent with the puzzles, even in puzzle rush (especially the lower rated puzzles).

White Opening Study

Last thing on the docket was study of a white opening. I reviewed everything I had previously learned in the Short & Sweet: The Italian Game and then learned a new move order, which took about 20 minutes. By then I was tired and done for the day.

Week 7 Day 2:

3|2 Games, Woodpecker, Black Opening study

3|2 Games: 

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19279582181

Argh. I missed a winning tactic that would have ended the game. My opponent blundered his rook, but I didn't catch that the pawn "protection" was actually pinned to the king. And then those tricky knights; got my king and rook forked. That was pretty much the end of it. Tactics, tactics, tactics.

Game 2: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19280176919

Loss number 2. Again, missed a hanging bishop that would have been decisive. And then, the nail in coffin, I missed a back rank mate (which I saw earlier) and took his hanging knight with my knight (which was protecting the back rank mate square) instead of my rook, which would have put me up a piece. Tactics, tactics, tactics.

Game 3: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19280725541

Finally won one. Played a much lower rated player and took him to the endgame. My accuracy was 85% so I can't complain. I tried inventing something new out of a classical scotch opening and ended up losing a pawn, but was able to hold on until the end.

Woodpecker Training

I then did 20 minutes of Woodpecker training in the Intermediate exercises. These are a bit more difficult than the previous section, and am finding it harder to find the solution, but am trying to go fast as possible since the idea is to build pattern recognition. I was able to get through 17 puzzles, but a missed the first move on just about all of them. Once I finally made the incorrect move the requisite number of times and was shown the right one, I got the rest of the puzzle.

Black Opening Study

For today's opening study, I went with the Short & Sweet: Queen's Gambit Declined course by GM Alex Colovic. I picked this course specifically because I do not have a great opening response to 1.d4. I reviewed the five variations I had learned before and then learned a sixth.

Week 7 Day 3:
5|5 Games, Puzzle Battle, Strategy
I had kind of a busy day today, so I didn't get much training in, but I still put in some work.

5|5 Games
Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19375562779
Lost this game to a much higher rated player who basically took the lead after the opening and never let go. Still, my accuracy rating was higher (78.3%), but I did make two blunders during the game. The first and second blunder were right after each other. Essentially, both blunders led to a trade of queens, which I shouldn't have let happen.

Puzzle Battle
I only played a couple rounds of puzzle battle, but won both rounds and even got 20 correct puzzles within the timeframe.

Strategy
I then reviewed a single lesson on a free course from GM Yasser Seirawan called Winning Chess Strategies: Free Lesson. He goes through a series of his own games and asks the reader to think about the position (mostly complicated positions) and see if they can find the moves he found within the game. Some of them are really tough to figure out.

Week 7 Day 4:
3|2 Games, Woodpecker, Endgame

3|2 Games
I played lots and lots of 3|2 games today. At first they didn't go very well (though I did win a few) but the later portion I had a really large winning ratio. I played 26 games in total throughout the day with a 15-10-1 record. This bumped my Blitz rating up to it's highest ever at 1334! Since I played so many, I won't post all of them, but I'll give my highest and lowest accuracy rating games.

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19376208423
This was my lowest accuracy rating of the day at 28.4%. Yikes. I played as Black agains the Queen's pawn opening and castled long when I really should have castled short. My thinking was that I would pawn storm my opponent after castling long, but he ended up beating me to the punch and I got my king stuck in the corner.

Game 2: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19421163565
In my highest accuracy game, I scored a whopping 98% accuracy. The game didn't last long as my opponent played with a 4.5% accuracy. I played as Black against the King's Gambit Accepted. This is one opening for which I'm grateful I did the Kaleidoscope of Openings course, as it's come in handy in a lot of my games. My opponent ended up blundering into a skewer of his king and queen and ended up resigning after seven moves.

Woodpecker

I did 20 minutes of Woodpecker training in the Intermediate I exercises. I can't recall how many puzzles I got through, but I do know I struggled with seeing the ideas behind quite a few of them. Even though these are challenging, this is what I need in order to get better and start calculating more than simple 2 move combos.

Endgame

It was already past midnight when I finished Woodpecker training and called it a night so I didn't get to any Endgame study.

Week 7 Day 5:
5|5 Games, 5 min Puzzle Rush, White Opening

5|5 Games

NOTE: I have finally crossed to the 1350 rating range in Blitz! That means that in 19 weeks, I've increased my Blitz rating 153 points. Now if I could just see that kind of improvement in Rapid

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19541470395
My first game of the night had crazy bad accuracy on both sides, but I ended up winning with a 14% accuracy . My opponent, however, had 13.4 LOL. I played Black and used the Hungarian defense against the Italian. He ended up disconnecting from being in a bad position at the end of the game so I won. The funny thing is the engine indicated that he was winning when he disconnected, though I think the path to victory would have been hard to find.

Game 2: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19542632099
To make up for that awful play, I then went on to win my second game with a 91% accuracy. Much better. I played as white and went with the Four Knights Scotch game. My opponent ended up blundering a piece in the endgame and it was smooth sailing after that. I traded down our rooks as he was left with a single pawn on the right color of square for my bishop so he wasn't able to promote.

5 min Puzzle Rush

I went through four rounds of the 5-minute puzzle rush option. I didn't do to great tonight, getting 16, 18, 14, and 16 puzzles correct. After each session I went back to review the puzzles I had missed and was kicking myself on almost all of them as I got just about all of them immediately.

White Opening

Last up for tonight was opening study for the White pieces. I went with the Ruy Lopez course I completed and reviewed nine of the variations that can come up in play.

Week 7 Day 6:

3|2 Games:

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19594926815

This one went really well. We ended up playing the Giuoco Piano Four Knights game (I played as White) and my opponent just didn't play well. There were quite a few "mistakes" on my end, but I still thought the moves made were acceptable. I then took advantage of a blunder from my opponent to get checkmate.

Game 2: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19595502239 

I again played White and played against the Caro-Kann defense. I tend to go with the exchange variation as the move order just makes a lot of sense to me. I ended up setting up a bishop and queen checkmate and my opponent missed it.  

Woodpecker:

I did 20 minutes of Woodpecker's Intermediate I puzzles. Some of these took awhile as the move number in each puzzle was large, but think I did ok.

Black Opening

Last thing tonight was reviewing two new move orders in Agadmator's Anti-London System. 

Week 7 Day 7

5|5 Games

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19713034763

Didn't go my way, but had a better accuracy than my opponent. I played as White and scored a 65.2%. We played Alekhine's Defense: Scandanavian Variation. My initial mistake in this game was that I didn't take control of the center. I also missed various tactics in this game but even with that, I still had a fighting chance going into a heavy endgame. My opponent made a significant blunder that should have led to my win, but I didn't take advantage and instead blundered myself leading to a mate in 1. 

Game 2: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19713694411

My accuracy was pretty decent at 87.1% while my opponent was at 97.6% (somewhat suspicious). We went into a Semi-Slav Defense with me playing as Black. I blundered a piece by missing a fork on my knight and bishop, but I played fairly well afterwards and was quick enough to push my opponent to losing on time.

Puzzle Battle

I played Puzzle Battle (3 minutes) for 20 minutes. I played 6 rounds but didn't keep a record of how many I won.

Strategy

I ended the training for today with training on "Mastering Chess Middlegames" by GM Alexander Panchenko. I went over two positions that took me around 12 minutes total. Some of these positions are pretty difficult for someone at my level, but I do enjoy the challenge. It's also interesting to open the analyzing tool on Chessable to review the different variations that they review in the course.

Week 7 Final Results

Not too shabby! My Blitz rating is up as high as it's ever been and my Daily rating is starting to climb again as well. I noticed that a lot of my Daily games had ended but I hadn't started any new ones, so I quickly got six more games going. I like to do 3-day matches but have 15 games going at once. I typically have time to review a game or two during the day and can easily meet the time requirement.

Week 8 Day 1

Rated Puzzles

Yikes. I did not do well with Rated puzzles today. Not sure why I was having such a hard time with them today, but a part of the problem (after checking back on the scores) was not taking enough time to review the candidate moves. Need to do better on this.

15|10 Game

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19804901323

A pretty good game today. I did give my opponent a chance when I blundered a bishop, but even with that, my position was fairly solid and my opponent did not play great moves. That ended up giving me the edge by the end and squeaked out a win by checkmate. I added a new category to the spreadsheet I've been using to keep track of my game progress called "board vision." The only reason I blundered my bishop is that I didn't review the entire board and missed a change that opened up my bishop to attack without moving it.

Endgame Study

For today's endgame study, I reviewed Ending 3, which is all about the key squares in a K+P v K endgame. I reviewed all five variations in which it discusses different positions that might arise and how to use the key squares to your advantage (as both black and white). 

Week 8 Day 2
Didn't happen. I basically didn't do anything on my plan since I had some other activities.

Week 8 Day 3

20|0 Game: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/19972902197

• Result: Draw
• Accuracy: 82.8%

This game was a little bit back and forth but ended in a draw. I did well getting out of the opening phase with a really good advantage and then we had a massive trade off of pieces. I blundered a move and traded rooks but lost my bishop from the trade, but was able to equalize that later in the game.  I lost the advantage at move 56 but was able to hold on in a slightly disadvantaged endgame and we removed all pieces.

The Art of Analysis

This is a Chessable course that reviews some of the most famous correspondence games in history and really pushes you to find the best moves on the board. The author provides you with an 8-step method on analyzing the position and then asks you to use that process for each exercise. With that being the case, I only get in one to two variations within a 20-minute time frame, but it's really pushed me to calculate positions based on a number of criteria and I've been coming up with either the correct move or an alternate on most of the exercises.

Black Opening

Last but not least was 20 minutes of study on opening theory for Black. I used the Short and Sweet Queen's Gambit Declined course on Chessable, going over the last six move orders and learning a seventh.

Just stopping by to say nice progress!