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It's been over 48 hours since this thing started, just another 23 games to go!  Happy 4th of July!  Also, I was wondering if I could pick your brain about how you got to your current level of play?  I've been playing sporadically for many years and only in the last few years have I played on a regular basis.  I was wondering what key thing(s) would you contribute your success to?  You say you have trouble visualizing.  How were you able to get to expert level having this issue?  I feel like I'm on the cusp of a similar breakthrough and might be able to finally achieve a life long goal of mine to get to expert level or better.  

I look forward to your response!

I am mid-Class A, not expert :) Though 2 of my last 3 tournaments have been at Expert stregth performance, one nearly Master. But I figure my true strength is still class A. I have too many holes in my game right now to justify being an Expert. 

At age 39 years, 11 months I was still class C despite reading lots of books and even having an IM coach in college. I took many years off after college as career, family and life just were more important.

In the past year and a half (6 months ended up working 70+ hours a week, and this interrupted my study) I decided to focus more on chess and develop my own plan.

I study a TON of tactics. In the past year I averaged 3-4 a day on chesstempo. In the past two months, I've averaged 9-10. I spend an avergae of 3-4 minutes per tactic, so that is 30-40 minutes a day. Chesstempo has a mobile app now, so I can get my tactics in during situations I normally would be wasting time.

Every day I wake up early and spend 20 minutes or so studying my opening repetoir using Chess Position Trainer. I'll review lines to make sure I still have them down.

Every game I play, blitz or not, I download and study on SCID. I review my openings to see where I make mistakes. If I make mistakes I re-review the line. I look for common errors and misunderstanding of positions. For example, If in my head I think I am better, but computer says I am weaker, then I try to understand why. And I do play a lot of blitz even though I am not good at it to force me to get better at my quick judgement and opening play.

I'll review master games from chesstempo as well and use SCID to fast forward through ten or twenty in one setting. IM Silman says when he was a kid he'd go through hundreds... not sure how he was able to do this on a normal board... the PC makes it so much easier.

If I see a position where I missed a tactic, I load it onto chess position trainer so it will test me periodically.

I am also studying with a friend via Skype, going through Silman's endgame book.

Slowly I am improving... about 100 points higher on tactics trainer and a few hundred in USCF.

Also, this might sound silly, but I swear it helps. Exercise. I've done light weight training and jogging almost every day to help keep me fit and adopted a strict bedtime routine. Eating better and staying away from junkfood (mostly) and having light snacks and water throughout a tournament also helps.

And the most important part of my training. Not wasting energy on crap that doesn't help me. chess.com videoes have never helped me (not criticizing, just saying they don't work for me) and opening books.

Is blitz the only style you play besides in tournaments?  I've actually never played in a USCF ranked tournament.  I've been playing for over 30 years now.  I would go on a chess studying bender for two months, get burned out and put it down for the rest of the year.  During those days, I was not able to play chess online and I didn't have any friends who played.  If I happened to bump into some one who played, I always found they only played at the most elemtary levels.  I started studying books on various subjects in chess when I was 19 (started palying at 12).  My first book was Logical Chess, How to See Three Moves Ahead, by irving Chernev!  That guy really fueled my passion for chess!  Anyway, as I was saying, I think I'm on the cusp of improving my game to new heights.  I think perhaps if I can formulate a study routine as you have that will help me greatly.  I suffer from oversights and miscalculations in my own games.  In fact, just the other day I had an OTB game with a friend and coworker in which I gave up my queen in the early middle game by simply placing it en prise to a knight!  That's the worst one I've done in a long time!  I'm attempting to formulate a step by step process to use on nearly every move to try to cut back on oversights and to make sure I'm going over all the candidate moves, etc.  Positionally, my awareness is much better than a few years ago.  The middle game comes to me easier than it has in years.  As far as the endgame, I've always had a small talent for that, finding it far easier to understand those positions and how to play in them than other parts of the game.   I've never really comitted to studying the master games on a regular basis and the idea of just going through them very quickly in order to try to get the pattern recognition going gets me motivated.  I used to have a copy of Chessimo that I used to study tactics.  The only part I ever really used was studying the mates.  Chessimo would take a number of 6+ move mates and give them to you in stages.  Mate in 1, then in 2, then 3, all the same mates, but you have to solve them 1 move deeper on the next lesson.  This worked well for me.  Looks like I have a LOT of work cut out for me.  Thank you for your reply, it has given me some insights into how I can improve!

Yes. It is a very effective way to get a lot of studying in. I'd play more longer chess, but after going through a few games got to realize that I ended up wasting time playing against stupid openings and too many games I was playing a computer.

I am a big beliver in habits. Figure out what works for you in your schedule and do it every day.

I've noticed several of my turn based games my opponnent was using the openings explorer to choose their opening moves and I don't doubt that they sometimes use a computer.

This says replace cancelAutoplay with the code "in the appropriate spots."  How many "cancelAutoplays" get replaced?  What are the appropriate spots?

Hmm tried editing the code, but it didn't work for me, just got an error.  Eric is there any chance you would be willing to just email me a copy of your SCID.gui file?

Sure, message me your email addy.

Hey I just read your post and I have been following the current FIDE CANDIDATES 2024 online on this youtube channel where they autoplay all the games as soon as they are done. I found it easier since I just sit back and watch the games at my own pace rewinding and pausing where I want. The speed is also nice since it gives you time to think what the next move might be. Try it out if you are following the candidates

https://www.youtube.com/@Chesshighlights01