25 years old & learning chess - my practice blog

After a struggle of heroic proportions (almost 3 hours of tactics) I managed to climb back above 2100 tactics rating. That's the rest of tactics for this month, and might take a break from TT, and continue training them more on the Chessable books.

More fun that doing what you need to really improve a lot at playing the game...so you go ahead and enjoy yourself. 

I'm doing both, solving tactics and playing games, and I feel like it's working pretty well at the moment. I'm learning, but also in a way that I find enjoyable. Getting to switch around a bit. What's the point of learning the game, if it's not fun?

Monthly progress report

August was mostly spent on two things: Playing rapid time control games and working through Chessable books. During August I finished studying cover to cover two chess books (Mastering Chess Middlegames by GM Alexander Panchenko and 1001 Chess Excercises for Beginners by Franco Masetti and Roberto Messa) and played 46 rapid games (increasing my rapid rating with 86 points). The biggest difference to previous months was that I tried to play longer games than usually. In total 9 of the rapid games I played had more than 30 minutes for each side on the clock, and I played my first games with hour on the clock. Even though the quantity of the games I played was not very large, I feel like the quality of the games was much more beneficial to my learning.

I did also make slight improvements on my blitz, bullet, tactics and lessons rating, but unfortunately also got my first monthly rating setback losing 16 points on my daily rating. It was to be expected at some point and I'm surprised I managed to push up my ratings 8 months in a row, without even minor setbacks. The higher your rating gets, the more difficult it gets to continually push it higher. However, I want to correct this, and I just started about 15 daily games I'd like to finish this September. Hopefully I can bring my daily rating back above 1650, and maybe even closer to 1700.

I will also continue playing rapid time control games, completing tactics and lessons, and work on my third chess book on Chessable (Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics - 8/100% completed). Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics is a huge book with over 1500 variations to study, so it might take me more than a month to get through it. My goal for the year was to get my Avg. Play (look graph below) above 1500 and Avg. Total (also graph below) above 1800. I'm getting very close to reaching these goals and can hopefully reach them within couple months. Next goals rating wise: 1700 daily, 1600 rapid and 1500 blitz.

And here is the complete report on Excel:



Training tracker:
562 / 10.000 hours (5.62% / 100%)

Kewl! Looking good

When it comes to improving your ability to actually PLAY a game of chess, might I suggest something along the lines of Chess.com's Kairav Joshi's (totally free) offering on September 22:

Topic: Improving Thought Process with Forcing Moves
Tuition: $0
Level: 1000-1600 Elo
Schedule: Saturday, September 22nd, 2018 from 12:30-1:30 PM Pacific Time (PDT)

This one-hour class will focus on applying the right forcing thought process in a variety of practical situations. This will serve as useful training for beginner and intermediate players who need to sharpen up their calculation and improve their overall thought process. Enroll today for free!

I can't actually vouch for it of course, but when I see these numbers (particularly the "toys" where your numbers are so high vs the relatively weak numbers for actual play) I have to think it would be of benefit.  Remember, 'calculation' in a game in theory is helped by ones ability to solve puzzles (where of course there is a solution that can be calculated!) but being able to calculate into uncertainty and make good judgments about what you are doing is what wins chess games and that is clearly something you clearly need work at when it comes to your actual ability to play the game.

Taskinen

I ran across this today. What would you play as White?

Interesting - let's see!

First move that pops to mind is playing Nd4, centralizing the knight, while adding two attackers against the weak f5 pawn. That however doesn't seem to be all that good move, as soon as we look at blacks options. We're giving up the defense of important e5 pawn, which black can capture Nxe5 with a tempo on our queen. We could continue with Qxf5, trade queens, and then pin the knight on e-file with Re1. It just doesn't seem to be working very well or at least give white any advantage (just creates a mess on the board), so let's scratch that...

One option is to play directly Rfe1, to line up our rook against the king, adding extra protection on our important backward central pawn. This also entertains on the idea of possibly even playing e6 at some point to rip blacks king in the open. Reason why I would go with f-rook instead of a-rook, is because of the potential b4, forcing out knight to move and a2 pawn would fall. What other options do we have?

I kind of like the idea of knight maneuver from c3 to e2 to d4. D4 seems like a great square for a knight, but using our c-knight instead of f-knight, we never give black the option to capture on e5. Black is unable to play c5 to challenge the knight, because b5 would then fall.

One idea that I got after a bit of thinking is playing Qd4, getting the queen away from a possible Nf4, giving us the option to infiltrate with our queen through dark squares on b6. It also opens up another option of a new knight maneuver Ne1-Nd3-Nc5. Knight on C5 would look like one strong knight. It does make me question whether maneuver like this would be way too slow though? Now that I think of it, maybe even playing Qe3 does the same thing as Qd4, but doesn't even allow black to play Nf4.

If this was a real game, I would most likely play a simple Rfe1. It adds protection to our backward pawn, lines our rook against the king, making f6 impossible for black to play and also allows our knight on f3 to maneuver to d4. If I were playing a game where I have plenty of time to think, I would look more closely about the queen moves (Qd4 and Qe3).

Agreed,that's why I've been playing more Street Fighter right now,I'm feeling that right now.  I'm definitely gonna come back to my Chess though,not gonna lie,as I said,it's slacking a bit lol. :'( 

Go to Youtube, the backyard chess professor, good introduction to chess.  Stop playing fast games, playing no faster than 15 min.  Analyze each game, seeing why you lose and why your opponent loses.

I assume you're talking to me,yeah I know all of this already,I just took a break,been playing alot of Street Fighter lol I mean my bad? 

Yes, my friend, I am.  Remember you get out of chess what you put into it.  Play as many longer games as you can, no shorter than 15 min. Good luck. Play more than you study.

Thanks,most of that I know,I don't believe in play more then you study but I've already had the debate with someone else,I believe in studying more then play but that's just me. 

You have to do it your own way. But that is everything in life. Good luck.

Thanks same to you,I think most of us have gaps in our understanding of Chess,I always felt those gaps can't be filled in by reinforcing old and maybe incorrect ideas.  I mean I could be wrong though. ur thoughts? 

Try Tekken 7.

I didn't really consider e6 as a first move, because it's obviously premature, and as far as I can see just drops two pawns for no reason, and puts black to a much more favourable position. Nd4 on the other hand is aimed at moving knights closer to the action. Of course it's not a good move as I explained previously. That was my first idea and I quickly crossed that off as a bad one.

What I was thinking was something like Rfe1, Nf4, Qe3 and now we have our queen on a dark square with a tempo, with a battery on the same file as opponents king. Black can then play Nfe6 after which Nd4 in order to swap the knights looks much better than at initial position - the central pawns are starting to look real dangerous, and we have our rook on a correct file, where it is actually contributing.

By the way, one move that I didn't consider at all for the first time (which I probably should have) is to play a4 right away, in order to weaken the blacks queenside structure and to pry routes towards the enemy king that way. After all, like you said enemy king is stuck in the middle, and black is forced to create concessions. Either he captures the a-pawn, which will definitely be to whites favor to get open lines, or push his b-pawn and weaken both of his b-pawns at the same time.

The most important thing is that Blacks King is stuck in the center. That should be your first, second and third thought as you come up with candidate moves. 

Nd4 immediately is just bad...drops the e5 pawn!

1. Rfe1, Nf4, 2.Qe3 then opining that after 2...Ne6, 3. Nd4 "to swap the knights"....is just wrong headed. Black has less space, he really wants to trade!  Black taking on e6 is good...even fe6 puts a wall in front of Blacks King. White is still a bit better...but White was MUCH better in the initial position.

So While White wants to get at Blacks King while the getting is still good, he needs to think about things that could hamper him.

Notice that in many lines Black has either ...Nf4 (hitting the Queen), going to e6 with tempo and blocking a white e6 thrust would be what Black is looking to do. Another thing black has at his disposal is ...b4, making the nice c3 knight go to a less desirable square (backwards).

With that in mind...but still wanting to get at Blacks King....Qd4 becomes the most responsible move. Not with the idea of 'infiltrating' on the dark squares, but simply keeping Black from his only sources of annoying White.

GM Bryan Smith includes this in his DVD chapter called: The Two Sides of Calculation. In Master Method #1. The game is Smith - Varga.  The emphasis is: Accuracy and Finding the Best Moves.


The reason I brought up this in the first place, as you know, is that for all your puzzle solving and going thru manuals on Chessable...I don't think you seem to be progressing much at actual GAME PLAY.  It is the circumspection that you actually confront in successful game play that you (and others...) should try to master.

I too have come to the conclusion recently that tactical puzzles are second to actually playing. Tactical puzzles test your knowledge of patterns, chess tests your knowledge of much more.

I addressed the subject in my blog!