PapaShepherd's Beginner 2 Study Plan

Howdy folks! I'll be following a modified version of the Beginner 2 Study Plan. By modified, I mean playing only Rapid games, no Blitz. Everything else will follow the plan as outlined. I will also try to get in one longer game per week. I haven't played much in the last month so hopefully not too bumpy of a start.

Starting Ratings:

Chess.com Rapid :: 1122

Chess.com Daily :: 1294

Chess.com Puzzles :: 2001

I will officially start on Monday, January 2 and will check-in weekly.

Side Note: I previously ran the Beginner 1 plan (Sep-Nov 2022) and saw great improvement!

                                     Start       End                 TOTAL CHANGE

Chess.com Rapid ::     973  -> 1148                       +175

Chess.com Daily ::      1105 -> 1255                       +150

Chess.com Puzzles :: 1530  -> 2001                     +471

EDIT TO ADD FINAL STATS

Final Ratings

                               Start        Week 4           Week 8          Week 12           TOTAL        Peak

Chess.com Rapid :: 1122 -> 1211 (+89) -> 1305 (+94) -> 1242 (-63)         +120        1307 (-65) 

Chess.com Daily :: 1294 -> 1306 (+12)  -> 1297 (-9)    -> 1296 (-1)             -10         1310 (-14) 

Chess.com Puzzles :: 2001 -> 1817 (-184) -> 2202 (+385) -> 2145 (-57)    +144        2393 (-248)

Beginner Plans 1 & 2 Combined Progress

                                     Start       End      Peak              TOTAL CHANGE        PEAK TOTAL CHANGE

Chess.com Rapid ::     973  -> 1242        1307                    +269                             +334

Chess.com Daily ::      1105 -> 1296       1310                    +191                             +205

Chess.com Puzzles :: 1530  -> 2145        2393                    +615                            +863

Good luck!

Games ::  Played ten Rapid games, mostly 15|10 and 20 minutes., and analyzed each. Only won three. As with puzzles, very rusty after not playing for five weeks. Started off with five straight losses and hopefully getting back into it.

I would love to see your analysis posted here in the forums! 

At this point I'm mainly looking at Game Review and noting the key moments and major mistakes I made. Not that exciting for typing up but maybe I'll do an occasional game.

Week #2 Tasks and Updates 

Daily Games :: Currently four games going ranging from 1-7 days/move. Averaging 5-10/day.

Puzzles/Tactics :: Trained tactics/puzzles daily. Recovering from my rustiness and gained (back) 100+ points this week.

Games ::  Played six Rapid games, mostly 15|10 and 20 minute, and reviewed each. Much improved over my first week. 5 wins, 1 draw this week Making sure to take my time, watching the clock between moves to stay on a consistent pace throughout the game.

Lessons/Endgames :: The program calls for Openings this week but I had a lesson instead. We went over my games from a week ago and came out with the main focus of slowing down in my games. 

Total Time ~7 hours

Understood! 

Who are you taking lessons form out of curiosity? I have been taking lessons as well and I really like my coach a lot. His name is Amir . 

I'm working with @IM_ChessBrain and actually I found him as another person in this Club posted about him. I think we've had 4-5 lessons total going back to early October last year. He's great to work with and has really helped me start to see mistakes I was making over and over again.

I've never posted an analysis so I hope this works. Starting with a short one.

Having trouble embedding the game in the post...take three...

I love those tripled pawns for white haha

Nice game for sure, wish all mine would go like that. 

Thanks for posting! 

Yes it was not a good look for him. And I wish mine would all go like that as well.

Today's game and my meager analysis. Evidently this was my biggest win ever in Rapid. Good start to Week 3 of the plan.

Rxc3 was a sick move man! And nice job converting the ending! The knight plus bishop are almost always stronger than rook, but it takes skill to prove it! 

I saw a comment in another thread that you aren't lucky to win, you simply played better than your opponent that game. While I felt "lucky" to win this one given how badly I started, but on the whole, I played the better game as his back-to-back blunders opened the door so wide I could afford my own queen blunder later and still win comfortably.

Wow! That was some pure aggression from your opponent! I didn't check with a computer or anything, but h6, after your opponent played g4, creates a "hook" that makes it easier for your opponent to open your kingside and I would probably try to be careful about playing them. 

Instead, I would try to make something like c5 work. When they attack on the flank you attack in the center. 

Also, I have 100% been lucky in my chess games before  

You're exactly right - the engine flagged h6. It preferred that I continue with development and play Bb7. That was the move I planned to play and then my thought process went to his next move of threatening my Knight with g5. I'm often finding that one of the moves I consider is the best or a very good move but I talk myself out of it. This seems to be the double-edged sword of thinking more at my level - I can scare myself out of a good move. My thought process is often something like 'this looks threatening...I'm not sure what the bad thing is that can happen but I should probably do something."

I know that exact feeling... I very often talk myself out of the best move. haha. Chess is hard. 

That was a nice game vs 1800. They can certainly be tough. I am rated 2100 now in rapid and I've had my fair share of losses to 1800s.

I spotted a cool tactic for you I think:

Just for fun, I thought i'd post a loss I had vs an 1800 rated player recently: (you can see my rating during the game that I had been in a bit of a slump there. )

Knights are tricky! The tactic you spotted in my game I saw in the review from the engine pointing it out but didn't even consider that in the game. In your game, those tandem Knights were brutal.