Side_show_Bob’s Yusupov intermediate study plan

Hi There I am a bit behind with introducing myself but here goes

I live in the UK and learnt chess at primary school, played at high school then stopped -picked up again briefly somed years later and played UK league chess then stopped for the last 20 years. The love of the game has never left me and I always look for chess puzzles in the papers.

I am hoping I can pick up some study habits and practical playing skills & importantly review habits over the 12 weeks so I can learn and improve.

I played an online tournament here in the UK 4NCL congress which I thought was excellent I finished near the bottom as expected and mainly collapsed in a heap in time trouble after surviving ok for a longish number of moves.

I am also giving a week 1 update here as well :

My work schedule is difficult at the moment so am going to aim to hang in there and try to improve on activity level in each area that is falling behind whilst keeping other areas ok.

Good luck!

Week 5 update -it is not smooth progress 

It is a while since my last update and this is more of an overall review post as the middle of the year approaches rather than a task update . This is to see how I want to approach the second half of the year to focus on some longer term  objectives.

I have just played in my second 4NCL congress,  around 3 months since my first one (and that was my first competitive chess games for nearly 2 decades) and so I also thought it worth pausing for some reflection. 

I will start with some of my observations on my play

Observations 

In my most recent tournament games I made mis-steps in attack or let slip initiatives.
I was tired and overlooked the most simple of tactic in one game and pressed hard in others & overlooked some vulnerabilities in my position.

While not great my opening play was ok and was not a reason I lost, apart from one game where it lead to a long term strategic cramping of my position, as in review I didn't adhere to opening principles and challenge white in the centre or open the position to free my pieces.

While this is fault finding I think my play had improved -certainly I felt more confident  and my time trouble was not so as acute as in the first tournament . My score was marginally better. But  due to some rating oddities my rating performance was far below my first tournament performance but I don't think  this is helpful to consider for my improvement plan.

Takeaways

From thinking over this review my key learnings or takeaways are:

I need to improve my calculation in terms of:
a) efficiency - as I am still foggy and don’t see things so clear and go over lines sucking up time
b) improving vision -link to the above seeing deeper and more easily
c) identifying candidate moves -I am not sure I consider enough moves or have ideas of enough moves then choosing ones to check or play intuitively
d) seeing opponents best defence moves or best attacking moves
e) evaluation -I need to improve my evaluation of positions and not over play due to my feelings rather than what is on the board-no point is calculating if assessment is flawed

• I need to cut down mistakes (obvious huh?)-I still make obvious mistakes and need to have a better move checking process by
  a) improving my risk radar- to deal with and see my opponents threats and FUTURE threats

     b) improve my attention and thinking to prevent future risks

• I need to improve my positional play to be a more automatic part of my game than having it be so much conscious thought but needs to be based on  the right evaluation

Actions

So that's my diagnosis and now my prescription for what ails my play:

1.I need to improve my intuition
Address this  by a) playing more blitz and b) by doing puzzles more quickly

2. I need to improve evaluation of positions
Do this via

a) Practicing  via selected puzzles over longer time say 10 minutes and write down my ideas and compare with solutions
b) I need to practice with puzzles that are not clear cut tactics but are find the best move or plan type, they may be more strategic and positional in nature

3. I need to improve my analysis skills
a) Start by looking over master games and then comparing with annotations to look where mistakes or good moves came from.
4.I need to improve my playing of middlegame positions e.g. attacking defending
Do this by a)  practicing middlegame positions -defence & attacks in simulation mode- ie play v chess engine

5. Also I should Improve positional knowledge and understanding to help 4
a) I should plan to feed myself positional concepts, middlegame patterns regularly overtime and practice them against computer (as above point) & review.
b) Resources to use will be selected books Silman Reassess Your Chess , 45 Positional techniques book etc Art of Attack for attacking ideas

Planning 

All of this takes time , linking time management to the filling the jar with rocks,pebbles , sand and water analogy - (see below for video link on this)

The Rocks -

a) Playing in Lone Wolf , Chess Goals events longer time controls -blitz competitions 

b) Analysis of games 

c) Yusupov book(s)

The pebble(s) 

Targeted developments on specific aspect of play e.g Risk radar by reading a chapter of key book (Dan Heisman) or watching videos -one aspect a week- do it in rotation across resources no more than 2 hour a week - planned in advance.

The Sand 

Smaller bitesize elements but important for continuity 

Tactics-woodpecker , Puzzle Rush etc

Bot playing & analysis

Solve find best move/plan puzzles from chosen book 

Water (extras)

If time allows look to add other activity on opportunistic basis or in response to issue from other activity e.g misplaying opening or ending

Openings Mapout and then practice some general openings-keep track of my coverage 
(Use for  game prep as well) - record lines known & use % popularity & how they crop up in games to focus effort
Computer playing & Plus analysis
Endings Read sections of Silman Endings & for Endspiel daily book -do few daily positions

Keep this all measurable in a plan and set up some Lichess studies to record notes to allow review 

The plan itself is currently a work in progress .

Forgive the introspection but these are my genuine views on how things have gone for me and how I think I should go about my plan of improving in the second half of the year.

I share my update in case it is helpful to anyone and also in case anyone has useful observations on it or has relevant comments from their own experience.

PS I think most people are familiar with the Rocks Pebbles Sand analogy but in case not see video below. Of course this is for Time Management for the big life things we do -but that's chess right ?

Rock, Pebbles, and Sand Story: An Important Lesson on Time Management - YouTube

Thanks for sharing, Bob. This is thorough and looks like a solid plan. Love the idea of using the Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand method. Looking forward to your updates!

I will watch the video later, I did not get the link 🤣. But this is a great approach. I think knowing yourself + knowing what to do is a great way to improve. Congrats.

My update following my new plan . I am targeting activity monthly to the end of the year -this is the end of my first week of my rocks , pebbles and sand routine!

Didnt go perfectly but it was probably overly ambitious for work pressure I am under  but I played some games. Key measures for me are below -I need to do some Yusupov catch up this week.