Reassessing my Chess

"I resorbed them."

--Lexx

Hello chess fans!

Today I wish to take a moment to develop a coherent plan for the next year of training. It is my hope that others can join me on this journey. I have played and studied chess for many years, totaling well over 10,000 games. It is clear to me that while I do notice improvement, it has been quite slow and painful.

This is because I never stuck with a solid training plan. I would jump back and forth between books/videos, playing too many blitz/bullet games, and never enough tactics. Also, keep in mind I would neglect chess entirely for many months at a time for one reason or another. Either because of other responsibilities and simple frustration with lack of improvement.

But I am back at it again this past month!

Several areas of my life are rapidly improving, as I am currently in exodus of a grueling five year medical journey, the story of which is beyond the scope of this post. But I am back better than ever!

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The thing I've been noticing helping improve my gameplay the most is simply solving tactics on a daily basis, playing 10 minute games, and doing a game review after each of them. I try to space these out.

For example, I might solve some tactics for 10~30 minutes and then take a break. I will play a game and try my best to sit back and reflect on the game after the review, emptying my mind as much as I can before the next game. This can be anywhere from 10-15 seconds to a few minutes.

I try to keep my chess focused to sessions rather than play 1 game, do something else, play another game, etc. I'm sure that method works as well, possibly with its advantages(spaced repetition vs focused session) but I find that as long as my sessions doesn't go longer than an hour, I can maintain a lot of focus.

Of course, I am working my way up to returning to classical time controls. I find that 10 minute rapid games are extremely useful for pinpointing my tactical and strategic areas, as well as my limitations in the opening and endgame. The game review feature may not be perfect as it is an engine review, but it does show the key positions and which moves are critical.

Besides, seeing the engine moves shows me the ultimate goal of chess play, as the engines are significantly stronger than the best humans. I may not be able to fully comprehend the positions, but I can at the very least try to understand which sort of positions it is aiming for and why.

This can help me as I try to understand it in my own terms, and while I may not be able to play as accurately as the engine, it shows me what the final stage of chess mastery looks like. I have noticed that I win a lot more games, although when I try out different ideas in the opening I tend to make more mistakes. It's a good tradeoff because I get to understand a variety of positions as a result. If all I did was play the same openings all the time I am limiting myself to only a certain set of strategic and tactical motifs.

Still, I am a long way from needing to change things up. I am mostly using the same openings I am used to. There are myriad tactical ideas to punish my opponents with and I must understand the important of developing fundamental tactical skills through consistent puzzle training and application in my games. Overall I am noticing a significant improvement in my chess.

Some of it is psychological as well, as I am finished with all of my surgeries and starting to enter a more stable and long term portion of my life. I must not feel discouraged! Chess is a difficult game and can never be fully mastered. It is about the improvement, and the results indicate that.

While at the moment I am in a period of rapid training, it will only bring me so far. So as a milestone goal:

!! TACTICS MUST BE MAINTAINED FOR LIFETIME !!

[1] Reach 1200 rapid rating

a. Switch to 30 minute games

[2] Reach 1300 rating

a. Switch to 15|10 in order to take a step back to focus on getting more games in.

[3] Reach 1400 rating

a. Start seeking out classical games; 1~4 a week

b. Return to 10 minute games to practice the possibility of time trouble moreso than increment controls

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I think this is a great set of goals for these milestones. It allows me to focus on maintaining a consistent training routine rather than trying everything at once. I don't think books/videos will help me as much as I think they would until maybe 1600+ rating. Let me reach that goal first before I start to explore videos.

This would be a good time to learn a new opening for white and to change up ONE of my usual responses as black, but maintain all of my other responses. I don't think opening theory will be important until at least 2000+ rating. The common theme of advice from master+ level players is that the majority of wins will be tactical in nature, so my training should be focused on that.

This is why I am mostly playing rapid time controls and only slowly integrating classical games. I do think it is crucial to maintain classical games on a consistent basis once I reach that milestone, but I am noticing based on my current improvement that the best thing I can do is continue to play rapid games. That way I can review more games each day.

Once I reach a higher level I will start to benefit from longer games. I have played a good number of classical games already and I do think they would help me a lot, but there are tactical defecits that I must address, and the simple answer to that is repetition of puzzles and doing my best to spot them in my games. It's about frequency at this point in my mastery, not depth of calculation.

The important thing to keep in mind is that I am approaching my chess training based on my current defecits rather than using some general approach. This is crucial to validate. It is apparent that I have severe tactical defecits, and until I fix them, all of the classical games in the world won't really help me. Luckily I am noticing significant and rapid improvement with my current appraoch, so I will continue this until I see slightly diminished returns.

Then it is time to start playing longer games as I will be able to benefit from them much more. This is going well.

I am proud of myself for taking the time to journal my chess progress. It allows me to assess my needs and to develop a training plan. This is the right path to chess mastery.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my post! Please let me know if this has helped you at all, and I am always humble enough to accept constructive criticism. Also, I would be open to hosting a 10|31 swiss tournament on Halloween if people are interested.

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