My last weekend tournament had not turned out so well with 0 wins; 2 losses; 2 draws and withdrawing before the 5th and final round. This time would be different. I had learned from the summer tournament and knew what I needed to do to pre...
The Charlotte Chess Center and Scholastic Academy hosts the Tuesday Night Action tournaments. Every week players get to play one rated USCF tournament game; after 5 weeks the results are sent to USCF to be rated. The time control for these games...
I am excited to announce the return of the 100 days of chess challenge starting on October 15, 2018. The most common tip for chess improvement is to improve your chess tactics. My challenge is designed to improve chess tactics, calculation, visual...
I have been fortunate to play in all three of the Carolina's Classic tournaments. It's a tournament that was started in 2016 and has turned into quite an impressive event in only three years. Of course, I rarely get to play in weekend tournaments ...
This week I will begin scheduling adoption matches. To be fair and transparent I will list the applicants in the order I got their applications. That is also the order I will schedule matches with the exception of any subscribers to my Twitch chan...
Have you always wanted a pet bird? Well, now you can have a chance to adopt your own bird, ChessNerdBird that is. All you have to do is fill out the adoption application. How to adopt: Challenge ChessNerdBird to a 10 game match of 3|...
Hello fellow chess players, In case you haven't heard on Thursday May 24 at 4pm EST/1pm PST IM Danny Rensch will be a special guest on my show. Although we never what will happen when Danny decides to get in front of a camera I have time sl...
This was the game I played tonight at the Charlotte Chess Center. It was round 2 of their Tuesday Night Action tournament and this was my first game of the new tournament. Time control was G/75 with a 15 second increment after each move.&n...
On 2/9/2018 at 7pm EST / 4pm PST I will face an opponent that I have yet to beat. Out of the 5 games we have played I have 0 wins, 4 losses, and 1 draw. All the action can be seen at my twitch channel or&n...
Come join us tonight as we play our first ever club tournament https://www.chess.com/live#t=923751?ref_id4250663 You can join the club by clicking here This tournament will be streamed at twitch.tv/chessnerdbird
I cannot contain my excitement about this announcement! The Chess Couch and I are joining forces to bring you a chess show like never before. On December 14, 2017 at 6pm EST I will be partnered with Jeremy from The Chess Couch and together...
Day 19. 12 puzzles. 10 solved correctly. Still climbing the Tactics Training ladder.
I had to redo Day 20 and so I aplogize for the delay in my recording and uploading. During the original recording I fell asleep multiple times while solving and got most of the positions incorrect. Between streaming, work, coding boot camp, school...
Day 18 and I got my tactics rating over 2100.
I did do Day 16 yesterday but I forgot to post the blog post for it. I have included the video for it in this blog along with the Day 17 video. Broke 2100 but dropped right back below on the final puzzle.
Day 15 Happy Thanksgiving! After two weeks of my #100DaysofChess here are the stats: Starting Rating (Tactics Trainer): 1574Current Rating (Tactics Trainer): 2026Puzzles Attempted: 155Accuracy: 88.4% (137 correct; 18 failed) I want to incr...
Day 14 has arrived and 30 more minutes have been spent solving tactics!
Day 13 of my #100DaysofChess has arrived and I was up to challenge solving all 8 of my puzzles today. Again the focus of this challenge is to solve for accuracy. It doesn't matter how many tactics I do in 30 minutes as long as the attempt for accu...
I had to skip Sunday but per the rules that day will get added to the end of this challenge. Today I conclude Day 12 of my #100DaysofChess challenge. Practical tips in this video include making sure you look for all of your opponent's best pos...
1903 is the rating I can't seem to get past now. After a long couple days I am exhausted but I managed to get the energy to do my 30 minutes of chess. Here is today's video:
Day 10 of #100DaysofChess brought the series back to YouTube after only one voyage out to Twitch. While I loved live streaming, it wasn't conducive to the end goal of this challenge. Also, this brought a new theme for my videos. Let me know what y...
Day 8. Today I was able to get through only 4 puzzles in my 30 minute session. I spent almost half of my 30 minutes on the first one and continued to take my time on the rest. I solved 3 of the 4 correctly. In the last puzzle my very first candi...
Wow. I started #100DaysofChess a week ago today. I just finished day 7 and I feel like I am making great strides in getting my tactical vision and calculation back on track. I talk about it in the video but I am creating this mainly for myself a...
Day 6 is complete. Today I forgot to unmute my mic and recorded the entire video without sound. No need to watch. I simply posted to stay true to my #100DaysofChess rules.
Already on day 5 I am feeling the affects of my busy schedule. For those that don't know I am juggling full-time job, college classes, coding boot camp, family, and these chess videos. Most of the time it means I don't go to sleep until 3am or eve...
My name is David Blackwelder. I started playing tournament chess at the age of 22. I have worked my way from the 1200s to a peak rating of 1844 (December 2021). Those are my United States Chess Federation (USCF) ratings. My short-term goal is to reach a rating of 2000 which will earn me the Expert title. My long-term goal is to get the National Master (NM) title at a rating of 2200. As an adult they say it is near impossible, well I don't believe that. Therefore I am creating blogs and videos to help other adult players improve their chess. Thanks for following me!
