Week 2 -
Current chess.com ratings:
blitz - 270 ↓159
rapid - 579 (no rapid games this week)
puzzles - 635 ↑95 (I'm on the free plan)
daily - 1114 ↑118
puzzles from lichess - 1306 ↑67
Takeaways - Some days you just have bad days playing. The blitz games this week, I had two mouse slips and a few blunders, that just ruined my games. This Chessgoals plan is the first time I have ever played blitz or games less than 10 minutes, so it is a new experience. I also found out, that if I shrank the chess board a bit on my screen, I found that I could see the totality of the board easier, and did not notice any blind spots. I'll see how the next week goes. Good things, after reading Logical Chess Move By Move, I have noticed the pieces on the board better, versus just being in pure attack mode and moving them with more thought behind them. Watching the 45 minutes of openings has made my think differently about how I am going to approach my openings this coming week.
I first learned how the chess pieces moved about 40 years ago, and honestly have not played but maybe 50 games since then. Starting earlier this year, I was reading an article about AI, then something about chess popped up, and into the rabbit hole I went. I'm really trying to figure out the best way for me to learn, and after hearing Matt on the Chess Journeys podcast, figured I would give this a try.
My goal is to get at least to the 1500 level on Lichess, or 1000 on chess.com, or just be a strong hobbyist player. I'm currently not going to play on Lichess, except for puzzles until after the 12 weeks are over. Or maybe I'll just stay over on chess.com...
Week 1 -
Current chess.com ratings:
blitz - 429
rapid - 579
puzzles - 530
daily - 996
Current Lichess ratings:
Rapid - 1030
Classical - 1370
Correspondence - 1518 (provisional)
Puzzles - 1239 (which I play daily)
Takeaways - when I blunder, I blunder big. I tend to give my queen away at the worst possible time. I need to slow down and stop attacking so much and also remember that I am playing against someone else and they are trying to figure out what I am doing. I also need to work on strategy and planning. Piece development seems OK, but once they are ready, I really do not have any plans. Hoping that working through Logical Chess Move By Move will help me a bit there.