Reassessing my Chess

There are also some chess varsities on college.

Just to clarify, this thread is posted like 5 months ago and surprisingly somebody posted in it. Alot has changed in that 5 months, (you can read post#5 for more info) and I can still say that I still do good in endgames.

No, I'm not member of a club. And I haven't heard of any nearby my place. But the university I'm attending have a Chess Institute, a building with the sole purpose of chess. I've been there and played some games, the players are really good. I'd check if they accept membership, but AFAIK, everyone can just go walk-in and play chess.(Does that make it a club?LOL)

Wow, chess must be big in the Phillipines.

Well I'm going to be a bit surprised if there are no clubs using the Institute as a base.  On-line chess is good, I'm certainly enjoying this excellent site, but an active local club will have club competitions, enter teams in local events and might also arrange lectures and demonstrations. Things like that are even more fun face to face than they are through the web.  As you found when you played for your college team.

The clubs I played in when I was young were all male affairs.  But chess has moved on a bit since then so who knows, you might even meet up with some lady players.  Practice with a pretty partner might or might not improve your chess quicker but I'm guessing it would be a good idea either way.

You can find chess clubs in the Philippines by googling it on the internet. Chess.com has a database of chess clubs also.

Look here: http://www.chess.com/local

http://www.chess.com/chess-tournaments/

http://www.chess.com/clubs

Just search the Philippine's country and clubs.

Its quite good. The system you are using at the moment is self satisfactory. Though there are some questions you got to answer right away if you need more personal suggestions on your training regime. 

      Q#1 : How old are you and your long term goals. Is becoming an expert ie elo 2000 enough for you? Or master. Is that what you think about?

     Q#2 : What is your current rating? OTB or ONLINE.

     Q#3 : How many hours can you devote a day? 

Regarding your choice of books, I am quite impress beyond reasonable. Dvoretsky endgame manuel, that's good. It's for advance player though.

Jeremy silman's and Laslo polgar tactics, that's good too. And your software, it's fine. Regarding houdini 1.5a please upgrade to houdini 2.0. 

This training method reminds me of studying all the phases of the game, opening, middle and endgame. As you are quite confident in endgame, why not devote more time on middle game strategy & tactics & themes arising from your opening.

For more, awaits your reply.

Hi. I already did search those, and the nearest (and I'm not even sure if it's still active as there are no response to my inquiry) is 2-3hrs of travel away. I can't afford such trips as I have classess whole week long.

If that's the case, then find chess clubs here on online. You can meet more chess enthusiast here and can join the club for free.

@Da-Novelty

Hi, please refer to post #5 as this the original post is already 5 months old :D

Q1: I'm 16. The funny thing about my custom study plan is that I haven't set any long-term goal. I aimed for 1500 both on chesstempo.com and chess.com, I achieved these faster than expected. Next is 1600 and so on.  I just want to improve my game, to the point that I just want to improve some more. And yeah, 2000 rating looks sexy :)

Q2:unrated OTB. 15xx here @chess.com

Q3: Min. 4hrs. Max 6-8

Someone put that poster up in your college (looking for players to play in the inter college event).  See if you can find them.  Two people who love the game plus a chess set and a clock adds up to a club.  Arrange to meet Wednesday evenings for a month or so, put up some posters in the Chess Institute building and you will find out if there are some others who like the idea of getting together for some chess and some socialising.

You might also be able to contact the other students who made up your team.

If you can find a master strength player who lives nearby ask him or her if they would be willing to give a talk on the middle game at the Institute.  Put posters up about that.

And if you get half a dozen other folk involved with you, approach the College authorities for a small grant to help the club send teams to competitions and to pay for some coaching.  They will be happy to see their nice Institute Building put to use so you'll be pushing against an open door to get a bit of cash to help your efforts.

You are quite young and with that burning desire could lead you anywhere. Nothing is impossible for youth. 

So you have chessbase11 and houdini 2.0 and you use it for analysis. What else can you do with that lol. At your level minimize the use of softwares. It is your engine ie your brain that should be strengthened. Do analysis without moving the pieces and see how deep you can go. This training alone if followed diligently would push you to atleast 2000 chessdotcom.

Since you are unrated otb, you need tournament experience and a fide rating to start with. Why not jump down on some local tournaments & enjoy the atmosphere. Online & otb is quite different. Real competition is otb. Having fide rating means you are serious about chess. You joined the chess fraternity. Doing so would change your perspective about competition.

Playing more serious game and analysing it after is the way to go. Too much study would bore you I quess. At your strength try to play different positions, tactical as well as positional.

Regarding your opening repertoire, stick to what you are playing and go deeper. For example, in a ruy lopez, you know upto 10 moves deep by both sides. Increase to 15 moves deep the next time. Use books, database or coach or houdini for these purposes.

In a nutshell, I suggest you find a second.

Thanks for the insights! Keep it coming! \m/

Things are going in good shape

The "Chess Club" idea do have some possibilites, I talked to our coach and he seems to like it. I'll see what happen. And a tournament seems to be starting near my place, I'll check on that too.

Yikes...Someone with a 1500 rating on here that thinks they are good at endgames.  No offense, but I am guessing you are probably pretty ignorant of the intricacies of the endgames.  I used to be good at them-but no longer and that is probably why my rating on here is no longer above 2000.  

I noticed you do a  lot of pure hanging pieces still as well.  Basically you need to be working on all aspects of the game.  But, first and foremost is look for hanging pieces(although I think I may have been looking at your blitz games) and don't hang yours.  

Hi, thanks for your time posting here.

Maybe my words are getting out of context? What I mean is that I'm confident on my endgame skills to the point that it is not my top priority to study it. I doubt I still hang my pieces on my G30 games, but I'll double check.

Replay your losses, I'm confident you'll spot much of where you're going wrong and at some point stop repeating the same mistakes. 

I also think endgame study is the easiest and most straightforward way to 'study' chess productively for beginners.  Become better at endgames and you'll also start to have a sense as to how to play the middle game (towards influencing the position so you end up with a winnable endgame).

sftac

If you are serious about getting better, and can afford one, get a good coach. All 2600s I have ever met and read about had one early in life. Don't worry about upgrading to the latest software, any decent free program is more than enough to blunder check your game. They have that for free here at chess.com. A good starter book is Lasker's manual of chess (the best selling book of all time) or Capablanca's chess fundamentals. These books can be found for free at the library or for a few dollars on the internet (Amazon). Read what the world champions have to say before even considering what some IM or chess parent has to say. There are plenty of chess problem sites on the internet without having to buy a book most people barely read. Free is good use your money on proven things. A good middle game guide is Soltis' Pawn structure chess and all Russians have Shereshevsky's endgame strategy. Basic chess endings is the bible but not needed until near 2000.

if you want to improve ur game.. practise playing with higher rated players.,, whether on line or the old fashioned way.. practise makes one perfect.. but nobodys perfect.. so why practise.. ha ha...