Weareskint's Beginner Study Plan

Blitz - 962

Rapid - 927

Puzzles - 1295

Daily games started, will do the rapid game and analysis over the lunch hour. 

Post the rapid game here! I'd love to look over it as well

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5806176999

Not a particularly long or interesting game. Analysis takeaway is to focus on development a bit more in the opening rather than slight positional advantage combined with an attack, even though it happened to lead into my opponent's blunder and a victory in this particular instance. Castling before the pawn to e5 was a more prudent plan. 

Solid game! Your opponent played a very interesting opening. I play the Scandi all the time but I've never seen Qc7 on move 3. I wouldn't have given up my light squared bishop for the knight, but other than that- very solid game! Many more to come

Hello,

I´m  new at chess, and would like to figure out, how I can get my ratings in Blitz and Rapid. How many games do I have to play?

I just started today - so I´m at day 0 with my study plan - and don't know my ratings.

best regards from Germany  

Hi @Konav- you'll probably have to play 10 or more games to get an accurate rating, but you do get a provisional rating right away of 1200.

Played poorly yesterday. https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5814372836

I've found this in the past as well, when I start working on chess I begin to overthink simple positions and miss obvious plays, particularly long checks or attacks. I was also really rushing through the puzzles yesterday, as I had a big work project due and was impatient. 

Off to a better start this morning. Took my time on the 1 day timer games, about 5 mins a game or so, and solved 4.5 of my puzzles (rushed the third move of a combination puzzle). Amazon tells me that Silman's ending book should be here soonish, and I have a board and space set up for that. 

Stuck to just my daily games over the holiday. Silman's course has arrived, and I've worked through the beginner overwhelming mates and stalemates. I did the tests, and while I got a solution for each problem, my solutions were overcomplicated for two of the problems. I need to remember that sometimes it's ok to just make a quiet waiting move which can force the opponent to move their king where I want. I'm still making blunders in my daily games, but that's to be expected at this level. Switching focus from the strategic macro "making my opponent double his pawns is going to be positive down the road" to the tactical micro "I left my knight hanging, again" is challenging. I know that in the past when I started to study, the same thing would happen, and the perceived slide backwards in rating would discourage me from further study. Having a plan to stick to helps counter that instinct. I've noticed my patience and pattern recognition improve with the puzzles, which is good positive reinforcement. 

Played ok today. Capitalized on an early opponent blunder, and finished with a pretty little mate. Maybe I should have played it safe and chomped the bishop rather than continue the attack, but it ended well.

That's a beautiful checkmate!

Nice checkmate! Congratulations!

Looking good. Keep being intentional with the plan, and you will improve. Looks like you are doing well in your daily games as well!

Well, I was silly, and forgot to check the plan. So I unintentionally did 2 weeks of 15:10 games, instead of playing blitz week two. So I'm starting blitz today. Puzzles were...ok this morning. I have been getting frustrated and pushing the move that looks correct, rather than trying to solve for the whole combination. I think the time clock on the puzzles in conjunction with the goal time is pressuring me, artificially. 

I did the openings study. When I played back in high school, there was a Sierra game called PowerChess that taught you the Giuocco Piano. As a result, I always played that opening as white. But, now that I'm coming back to the game, I'm trying to learn some of the Vienna system as white. I also just played the modern opening as black, as the opening was easy to remember without having to consider permutations. I'm now trying to learn some of the Caro-Kann. Both switches are intended to get a more open middlegame with more opportunity for tactics. 

Blitz games have been going to time in my favor, but it's not clear that I'm in winning positions when the clock runs out. I'm also a little curious as to the thought behind the plan having the player swap between blitz and rapid. 

This isn't my most recent game, but it's the game that tilted me hardest last week. I was playing well against a stronger player, and completely blundered into a checkmate. Losing the W I "deserved" had me walk away for a few minutes before I could do analysis.

@weareskint we are actually doing a full course on the Caro-Kann.

Video 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9qQGycEKAw

Video 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbVsv6lhbXo

We have more info on our website as well https://chessgoals.com/the-solid-caro-kann-repertoire/

Belated update post this week. Work was a bear yesterday. I managed to get my daily games and puzzles in, but I didn't do my 15:10 game. 

Played most of my blitz games last week. It's a completely different game, way more blunders on both sides of the boards, and a lot of wins/concessions on time. I'm feeling a bit more confident with the 80% of games that are within my opening preparation. I'm getting used to the positions that develop with the vienna and caro-kann, which made saving time for the middlegame easier. That said, everything happened so fast, I don't recall many of the games I played or the thought process that was going on at the time. 

Puzzles were good today. I'm becoming a bit more methodical with going down the "checks, captures, attacks" list, and using the arrows on the board to help with visualizing combinations. Solve rate today was good, rating is hovering around 1282 after a brief sojourn into the 1300s for a couple days. 

@chessebuss thanks for the links on the Caro-Kann videos. I already had picked up a course from Alex Ostrovskiy, otherwise that is very appealing. I haven't explored much beyond the quickstarter, as you'd need to be a much better player than me to get utility out of that preparation, but it is nice having the first 4 or 5 moves known for 80% of your games, with middlegame ideas baked into the pie. 

For this weeks game I just grabbed my most recently played blitz game from last week.