Yusupov and the Older Lower Rated Player

My basic daily routine takes me somewhat over an hour. That is NOT counting whatever time I spend on Yusupov on the weekends. I do have other hobbies such as playing guitar, Astronomy, etc.

I play guitar as well.- Sometimes I feel guilty if I neglect one activity for the other.That's where discipline comes in I guess....Btw,love astronomy,but there's too much light pollution around these days.My old friend moved to New England to enjoy the hobby.he bought an 18 inch mirrored scope.

One day,when he "only" had a 14 inch mirrored scope(ha) we were in front of his home watching the sky and 2 police officers stopped to ask "what the heck are you guys up to"? Once we showed them the night sky,we couldn't get rid of them.They loved it!....Good luck and sorry to disrupt the thread.

@magictwanger - Not a disruption at all. With the astronomy I have done both astrophotography and visual. I find them both quite enjoyable in different ways.

I finished up Chapter 5 on the 7th rank. I got 14 of 22 points which was just one shy of good. I'm kind of dissapointed in that I started strong on this chapter but missed exercise 10 entirely, which turned out to be my downfall. Still, I passed.

I'm really pretty pathetic at blitz, but I did play a nice game this morning where my tactical training paid off. It is a nice little miniature.

All my hard work finally paid off. GM Simon Williams was doing a subscriber simultaneous and I played out of my mind. I found a sweet tactic against him, and ended up plus pawns in a N v N endgame which I ground out for the victory. Here is the game. Time control was 20+20.

My thanks to Simon for doing these matches.

My hands were shaking so hard after the match I could barely type. I was actually calmer while the game was still playing.

That's pretty amazing! I follow Ginger GM on you-tube.He's a good player and a very funny guy.

Well done! You played that game very nicely. 20...Bxf5 was a beautiful stroke. My guess is that he missed that when he played 19. d4, thinking that he would also double Rs on the e file and eventually manage to force e4-e5. You didn't miss it, though. Very well played.

Thanks @magictwanger and @OldPatzerMike. I'm still pinching myself.

Pinching yourself can hurt. Try patting yourself on the back instead. You're young enough to do that without pulling any muscles. lol.

Seriously, that was an impressive game. You've clearly become a stronger player as a result of your hard work. Really happy for you, my friend.

Mad props to you, sir. That was an inspiring game to play through. 

@OldPatzerMike, Back patted, horn tooted, wife is probably sick of hearing about it.

@TrentHill, Thank you.

Chapter 6, Book 2 on fortresses is now complete. I scored somewhere between 16 to 18 of 24 depending on how you count. In either case that is a score of good.

There is some real goofiness in the scoring in this chapter.

Ex. 6-6 I lost a point for not writing down a bad variation. I think this is the first time he has required that. Very strange.

Ex. 6-7 you also have to see a bad variation (I had) but in addition the move he gives as correct is not the only good move and the others are good for the reason he gives.

Ex. 6-10, there are again other moves just as good as what he gives and in fact in ways more thematic in reaching the fortress position in the book.

However, scoring oddities aside, this is an interesting chapter. I particularly liked problem 6-9 with 3 knights vs a knight.

Next up is a chapter on pawn wedges.

I have been working on Chapter 7 of book 2, Pawn Wedges on and off for the last 3 weeks. I hit a problem, Ex. 7-4 that was *** that I just could not solve. I spent hours looking at it. I eventually put it down and decided to do the rest of the chapter and come back to it.

Well I scored 15 points on the rest of the chapter. That is a score of good even without the 3 point Ex. 7-4. I came back to it tonight.

I had concluded that the thematic move for the chapter simply does not work. It has a subtle flaw. A simpler move was the way to proceed. After looking at it again tonight, I still could not find a way to make the thematic move work. I eventually wrote down the thematic sequence and why it was flawed. I then wrote down the simpler move. I checked the answer and sure enough, Yusupov had slipped in a ringer. Grrr. I spent so much time trying to make the thematic move work it isn't even funny.

Anyway, because I got the 3 points, I ended up with 18 of 22 points. That was 1 point shy of excellent. So overall, I feel pretty good about the chapter. I didn't miss any problem in the chapter entirely.

Next up is chapter 8 on opening traps.

Just curious: was 7-4 one of Yusupov’s own games? I’ve found that he often includes his own examples and those are worlds harder than the rest in any given chapter.

It is nice to see folks who actually enjoy chess study. Imo,whether it actually gets you more wins is less important than getting a better understanding  and appreciation of the game,overall....Hope this makes sense.-

In this case it was A. Shvedchikov vs Y.Estrin. In the actual game, Schvedchikov made the thematic (and wrong) move, and Estrin found the refutation.

I saw the thematic move probably within seconds and the refutation very shortly thereafter. It was one of the first lines I calculated and was the first line (with refutation) I wrote down.

I'm glad that comes across. I do really enjoy studying chess. I'll never be a world class player. But I'm at least good enough that I can sometimes understand, find, and enjoy world class moves.

I'm on Yusupov book 2 Chapter 8, which is on opening traps. Now I don't have a particularly trappy style. I prefer to just play solid moves to the extent I can find them.

But I was playing a blitz game today and I realized that there was a trap in an otherwise solid move. And sure enough, my opponent played right into it.

Here is the game.

The trap was 8. Bd3 tempting him to move forward to try and fork my two Bishop and Knight. What is amusing about this trap is that it boomerangs and his Bishop and Knight get forked instead.

Blitz normally isn't my thing, I'm normally much much stronger at longer time limits. It is nice to occasionally see something like this fast enough to actually use it in a blitz game. This wasn't a trap I knew ahead of time.

I was looking at the Yusupov book number 3 at a local book store today.....Intense stuff.I have to assume that anyone getting through it will be a devastatingly accurate player.

Good job on solving a correspondence challenge!

I've been working on Book 2 Chapter 8 and I'm going to do something I haven't done before. I'm going to abandon the chapter after just 3 problems.

Most of the Yusupov material makes sense to me although it can be quite difficult. But here, I just have no idea what he is looking for me to write down. Should I refute the trap, see the trap, win material...

I have seen the trap in each case. But I just have no idea what he wants me to write down to earn the points. If all of Yusupov was this way, I would say, "stay well clear."

I think if I actually went through and finished this chapter, it would be the end of me having enough motivation to continue on.