Matt's Study Plan

Day 0

Chess.com Blitz - 2301
Chess.com Rapid - 2040
Chess.com Bullet - 2360
USCF - 2228

The first goal is to reach 2400 blitz!

Looking forward to your updates!

Don't make it look too easy : think about how hard it is for us !

I am trying to reconcile two competing desires: being growth focused vs being result focused. It is hard, though, to make SMART goals that are *not* centered on rating increases -- since rating is *the* measure of chess ability. SMART by the way is an acronym for making goals ... they should be (S) Specific, (M) Measurable, (A) Attainable, (R) Relevant, and (T) Time-based.

Having a rating increase to a certain point fits the category of a SMART goal if you set a time-line to it.

Do growth focused chess improvement SMART goals exist?

All the best with your goals Matt! Now the interesting question would be: Do the plans (=Chess Goals Plans) work for the plan maker himself? :-) Cheers, Jose

On a side note too... I think it is often overlooked how difficult it becomes to increase your rating at such a high level as from 2300-2400 blitz. Take my blitz rating right now (1768). It seems modest, but it is at the 96.4% performance level of players on the site. Objectively, that is decent.

I can't imagine what 2300 is percentage-wise. Within the 99% area?

The closer you get to the 100% mark it is exponentially harder to get even a modest increase. To go from 2300 to 2400 is quite a goal, IMHO. I hope you get there, Matt!

Thanks for the support!

W1D1

Start study plan post (x)

Check daily game - I Will be waiting until the ChessGoals daily tournament starts for these games.

Play two 15+10 games (x)
Switching these to 10+0 to save a bit of time, and I'd like to put more clock pressure on myself. Went 2-0 in two Caro-Kann games! Got to use the repertoire :-)

Analyze one game (x)

I put the analysis of game 1 on YouTube - https://youtu.be/FkCzy2Q6TOM

I made this meme and this is why it’s funny: [The light squared bishop] is typically the worst minor piece for black in the French, but in the Exchange and Rubinstein it usually gets developed no prob. In the advance variation it gets trapped behind the pawns for a while. For people who don't play the Rubinstein they have a bad LSB in a lot of lines.

the best post ever lol!!!

W1D2

Play four 3+0 games
3 wins and 1 draw. Pretty happy with my play overall and increased my blitz rating to 2456. As ptSmooth pointed out in the Discord, this could easily go back to 2300 since my RD is so high :-)

Analyze games (level 2)

I analyzed the 4 games on YouTube - https://youtu.be/Dl-CX_TKX4E

20 minutes of tactics

My goal for tactics will be to do a puzzle rush survival mode each time, setting a timer for 20 minutes. My score today was 48 and I'll try to improve on it next time!

I'm going to switch to a weekly format for my study plan post updates. 

Will try to post a daily video on the youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/chessgoals).

@ptSmooth I better see you in the YouTube comments!

Week 1 Summary (Slow & Strategy Week)

Attempting to vlog(?) my study plan with at least one video every day: https://youtube.com/chessgoals/

Rapid Games

All played at 10+0. 5 wins and 1 draw. Rating 2040 --> 2264. These games overall went pretty well, but I had some trouble finding critical tactics when I had slight advantages. This theme occurred in more than one game. The rating increase is due to high RD and getting adjusted to the new pool of 10+0 players.

Blitz Games

3 wins and 1 draw at 3+0 time control. Rating 2301 --> 2456 (high RD). This rating will definitely fall back down to the 2300's, and I'd like to keep my goal at a long-term rating of 2400 blitz. The draw was a bit sloppy at the end, and I think my tactical awareness needs a lot of work.

Game Analysis

I analyzed every game, using level 3 for rapid games and level 2 for blitz games. Most of these are posted on the ChessGoals YouTube channel.

Tactics

This is a big change I'm making to the study plan. When Yusupov was recommended, I ended up doing Puzzle Rush Survival attempts setting a timer for 20 minutes maximum. I did 4 attempts and my best attempt was 48. I'll try to beat that record as I go forward.

This week: Fast & Openings
I'm going to play a bunch of 3+0 and 1+0 games, and towards the end of the week focus heavily on the Caro-Kann games and reviewing my repertoire.

Week 2 Summary (Fast & Openings Week)

Some study plan updates here: https://youtube.com/chessgoals/

My favorite video was about chess takeaways: https://youtu.be/YChgaPoJpjQ/

Blitz Games

All played at 3+0. 13 wins, 14 losses, and 3 draws. Rating 2456 --> 2366. My rating seems to be stable in the 2300s and my goal is to get to a consistent 2400 blitz and hold it for a whole week.

Game Analysis

Four big areas to work on in the next two weeks:

1. Plans in the King's Indian and Benoni structures as white. Working on building a 1.d4 repertoire course.
2. Think twice before accepting and offering trades. Tending to oversimplify.
3. Caro-Kann theory. Will practice lines in Chessable.
4. Tactics. Will be doing more puzzle rush survival attempts this week.

I'm altering the plan a bit! 

My new plan is to loosely follow the study plan but to make everything I work on instructional for the YouTube channel or the blog.

Here's the video I did for today. It's a 5+5 game with my thoughts as I play. My goal isn't to increase my rating, but to make the videos as instructional as I can.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owWG3vFUlVM

Is this a good format for instructional content?

Hi Matt, Congrats on that video! I think there are many positives in trying those videos more often. For me your comments are more interesting than those of, let's say, a GM, as that is way out of my league (and out of most of the people in Chess Goals). Do not get me wrong, you are still MUCH better than me and in a different league than this humble patzer. But, I can follow your train of thoughts more easily as I am closer to your way of understanding chess than that of a GM. [Again, much respect to your level, I do not mean to be disrespectful]. I found your video very easy to see and follow your ideas, and this was only your first try -I am sure that you will do better and better as you become more comfortable doing that.

As someone suggested in the Youtube channel, perhaps even 10 minutes game (or 10 with 5 seconds increment) would be great. So, that you do not need to rush the game and instead can share your reasoning in a less stressful way. But, hey, I would watch any video like that regardless of the format. I would also suggest that you play with slightly higher rated players, so that there is more "resistance" to your play. [No disrespect either to your opponent!].

Anyways, what I meant to say is that I think this format is excellent. GingerGM (GM Simon Williams) does similar videos with 15-10 time control and I find those very useful as well. But yours would be of more interest to me as they may be closer to what I could think -from my limited chess knowledge. And I suspect that others here may find the same. If not, then ignore my comments! Cheers, Jose

Thank you, Jose! I think that the appeal to these videos could be that I'm not talking at a GM-level. I'm closer to the range of ChessGoals members and can hopefully do a good job explaining what can help players get to the 2300ish level.

Absolutely Matt, that is what I find most appealing from your videos, that it is easier to understand the reasoning and planning you are doing. Keep the good work and thanks for that!

Thanks! I just put up a 10+0 game and I might stick with that time control for a bit. https://youtu.be/5prpCYN4ywE

Play Like a Chess Master (vs. 1513) - Beating the London
https://youtu.be/9MMuVdH4OwA

This was a nice game with an early c5 and queen trade. Talking through the strategies for both sides.

New game analyzed. This one comes straight out of the ChessGoals Caro-Kann Course!
https://youtu.be/lkMOR-b9TTE