Hey Cary,
Great post! Definitely looks like you are on the right path for chess improvement and you have a good mindset about rating gains. That's really cool that The Queen's Gambit brought you back to playing again. Thanks for the kind words about ChessGoals as well.
Matt
So at some point last year I learned about the Yusopov series and since I determined a long time ago that my progress would have to come without a coach since I didn't have the extra money for one. I purchased the series with the intention of going through every book following the instructions Yusopov stated to a tee.
Then Covid happened and I left chess for about 6 months due to re-prioritizing my life. Then I caught wind of the Netflix series "Queens Pawn" and I binge watched that. It reminded me how much I love chess.
So I have decided before I get back on my path with the Yusopov series, I am going to read a couple books by Heisman since I think learning to annotate well is essential and along with Silman, I think Heisman is a great author.
When I was all out training before covid, my mistake was to try and get through as much material as possible while playing my once per week slow games, making sure to fully annotate/analyze that game, discuss the game with my opponent before our next game, and be sure to get my daily tactics in.
It was too much for my schedule which is already extremely full with full time work, going to school at night for BSEE, and still leaving time for my family which includes my children's sports.
After watching the netflix series, I realized how much I missed chess but with everything else going on, I can't put such a chess load on my plate. So my revised study plan is as follows and I'm not going to worry how long it takes me to do this:.
Daily tactics, so important.
Slowly read through whatever book I'm working on and my order is as follows:
1. Heisman the improving annotator, for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
2. Heisman The worlds most instructive amateur game book. I'm reading this because I think it falls in the same category of Silman's Amateur Mind which was a great book.
3. Heisman The Improving chess thinker. The reason for the book third is with the idea of finding my thinking deficiencies from looking at a few positions and comparing my thoughts with players from every rating up to IM.
4. Then I'm going back to the Yusopov series which I left off on the second book.
I may stop with after the orange series and finish Silman's Reassess your chess which I need to finish at some point.
Every now and then play a slow game with my friend who is of similar strength to me, annotate the game when I can, and not to play again until after we've tore this game apart (no engine assistance at all) and compared our analysis. After that I'll feed it into my engine to compare our analysis but that is the very last step. The frequency of our slow games depends on when we finish our analysis.
I will eventually get back to playing USCF tournaments once we can play in person and will ask my friend to analyze them with me.
My current USCF is 1530
I took a hard hit in the last tournament I played in (which was the class B section). My failure was not due to being outplayed in this section but due to my tendency of slacking off when I was ahead which occurred in most of my games. I lost almost every game I had when I left the opening ahead which I think was 5 of 7 games, but I don't remember exactly and I haven't looked at the games recently. I ended up with a score of 1/7, ouch! I was proud of myself for continuing on even though I was playing so poorly.
I'm still trying to not worry about my rating while I'm focusing on improvement. I might play a blitz game or two every now and again just for quick fun and to see how I'm doing with my openings and simple tactical vision.
By the way, I really like what this group is all about and I think @SmarterChess is on the right path for the most effective chess improvement based on studies that have been performed along with some other factors. I think his study plan is especially helpful for the dedicated adult learner who also has a life outside chess. Your hard work is appreciated!