Yusupov and the Older Lower Rated Player

There are many titled players here whose playing skills are sub par relative to their title, probably mostly because of reasons like yours, or age or God knows what. so you shouldn't be too concerned about it. 

Actually, titled players are given a second free account. It may only be certain high profile titled players tho. Not sure. 

This is something I don't like about Yusupov's series.. There are so many exercises which are not checked for errors or are left without alternative moves which are just as equal if not better. Here is one of many examples. The move I chose here ( black to move ) was ...Kf5, and once again this is Stockfish's first choice no matter how long I let it analyse the position ( at depth 37 -2.17, second best move -0.96 ) that is a large margin. This is a three star problem and I am about to lose three points even though I objectively found the best move in position.

And btw, this is an exercise from chapter 8 about centre. Well, I get at least one consolation point. The irony is that I had the same idea of moving the rook to c7 eventually, as did Rubinstein in that game. Oh well.

I scored 17 points out of 21 which is ok.  It's time to move on.

I have just finished chapter 11, deflection, with 15 out of 15.   It is so refreshing to get some easy chapters once in a while so that students don't feel demotivated after a while. The next chapter is about the Greek gift sacrifice which I am already familliar with, but I am still looking forward to going through it.

Good going. A perfect chapter is quite an accomplishment.

This thread has encouragedme to restart. In book 3 of the orange.  Chapter 14 is a frustrating positional one.  On pace to pass, but will be close.  I did chapter 13 over a year ago. 

Excellent. Feel free to post your progress as you go!

@madratter7 - thanks. 

@KassySC - yeah those chapters dealing with positional chess tend to be more difficult, but that's just the way it is.   It would be nice of you to post your progress as well. 

I have been working on the final exam for Book 1. So far I have done 17 of the 24 problems. I have scored 24 of 32 points. The good news is that means I have passed. The bad news is if I miss 4 more points, I can't get a good.

I have been working through blue positions in Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual on the side (So far I have worked through 31 of the 200+ blue positions in the book). I must say that doing so has helped me on a number of these problems. For example, I did poorly on the Yusupov chapter dealing with Q vs P. (I did pass but by the skin of my teeth). However, this time around I immediately recognized F-16 was probably a win for white and the trick was avoiding stalemate. I also knew I needed to get the King close enough to deliver checkmate and that I would need to allow the pawn to Queen in some lines. Knowing that was a huge advantage to solving the problem and it made it much much easier.

Another pawn endgame, F-8 was straight out of Dvoretsky.

I have heard people opine that Dvoretsky is too advanced for someone my rating. However, sticking to the blue lines, I have NOT found that to be the case.

Congratulations on passing the final exam. The blue lines are supposed to be the basic endgame theory, I suppose. There are quite a number of purely technical endgames every aspiring chess player should learn. There's no way around it. I scored 16 of 24 points at the end of chapter 12, the greek gift sacrifice. Now it's time for chapter 13.

It has been a while since I posted a game. I played this one tonight against Komodo Skill Level 11 (about equivalent on this site to Computer12). As usual, the time control was 120 seconds/move accumulated. I should have slowed down because in reality, I played it more like a rapid game.

My play was far from perfect, but I was pretty happy with how the game went as a whole.

All this study is great, but you have to play to apply it.

I agree that the blue sections of DEM are excellent training and borderline essential knowledge for all serious chess players(and absolutely essential for anyone hoping to become masters).

I also love Puzzle Rush. It really does help with simple tactics, as found in the pure tactics chapters of Yusupov.

I haven't subscribed to this site, because there just wasn't anything I felt was compelling here. But I have seriously considered doing so for puzzle rush. I tend to be slow and deliberate, and it is a good way of pushing me to try and be both fast and accurate.

I finished up the test with a score of 29 out of 47 (anything 24 points or more was passing). That will have to be good enough for now. Some of these problems are hard enough in the context of their original chapter where you know it is about weak points or open files, etc. Take them away from that context and they are much harder yet.

Enough of the excuses.

Onward!

Congratulations! Keep up the good work. Yeah, it gets more difficult when you don't know in advance what a certain problem deals with. It could be anything, but that is what a final test is supposed to be like. 29 points is a decent score.

Thanks @igiveupnow

Here is a summary how I did on the first book:

Summarizing my chapter scores to this point:

1) Mating Motifs: 15 of 16 = Excellent

2) Mating Motifs 2: 16 of 21 = Good

3) Basic Opening Principles: 18 of 31 = Pass

4) Simple Pawn Endings: 14 of 22 = Pass

5) Double Check: 16 of 16 = Excellent

6) The Value of Pieces: 13 of 19 = Good

7) The Discovered Attack: 12 of 15 = Good

8) Centralizing the Pieces: 13 of 27 = Pass

9) Mate in Two Moves: 9 of 12 = Good

10) The Opposition: 16 of 26 = Pass

11) The Pin: 19 of 21 = Excellent

12) The Double Attack: 17 of 17 = Excellent

13) Material Advantage: 14 of 21 = Pass

14) Open Files and Outposts: 12 of 20 = Pass

15) Combinations: 18 of 22 = Good

16) Queen Against Pawn: 15 of 29 = Pass

17) Stalemate Motifs: 14 of 15 = Excellent

18) Forced Variations: 16 of 23 = Good

19) Combinations Involving Promotion: 18 of 20 = Excellent

20) Weak Points: 10 of 23 = Fail

21) Pawn Combinations: 16 of 19 = Excellent

22) The Wrong Bishop: 21 of 25 = Good

23) Smothered Mates: 16 of 19 = Good

24) Gambits: 15 of 21 = Good

Final Exam: 29 of 47 = Pass

As of today, my Chesstempo tactics rating is sitting at 1592.7. The highest it has been is 1655.

My chess.com tactics rating is 1630. Highest ever is 1638 (set today).

Best puzzle rush is 19.

I have started on Boost Your Chess, The Fundamentals. I worked through the diagrams in Chapter 1 on Windmills this morning.

What are you supposed to play here and why?

Well done. The only chapter I had difficulties with in the first book, was the one about weak points. I did pass it though, but barely. Other chapters were really a piece of cake, I scored either good or excellent on all of them. I got 40 points on final exam. I noticed you did well on most of the subjects which should encourage you to conitnue. Regarding tactics rating , I am really sceptical about it having any purpose in itself, except that maybe it could be used as a way of following your overall progress when it comes to your tactical skills. I don't know if that even makes any sense.  That being said, I really like solving puzzles. Here is the one I solved a few minutes ago. It is rated 2765, but I don't think it's that hard. The key word here is zugzwang.

Black to move.