An Experiment in Rapid Chess Improvement

Record of my experience in undertaking Michael de la Maza's "Rapid Chess Improvement" program.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

My Life Story

Well, I'm still working on the life story part, but the chapter regarding my exploits in the MDLM plan are posted on my chess page. I really want to add a few more things to it, but I also wanted to get version 1.0 posted. I'd be curious to hear everyone's feedback. If you think I should add something to it, let me know.

Other Chess Activities
Overall, I've been a bit slack lately. I'm making flashcards out of the Bain tactics book to help improve my pattern recognition there. I solve 75% of the problems almost immediately, but I need to get that to 100%.

I've been trying to play a bit more online, mostly blitz to work on opening principles.

I need to play some on FICS so I can get a rating and jump onto Team MDLM, but I've just been busy with other stuff. (Sorry!)

In the game review department I'll probably finish going through games in Snyder's "Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" and then move on to "Morphy's Games of Chess". In the tactics department, I will probably start going through "Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors" in a MDLM fashion.

9 Comments:

At 10:38 PM, Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Sweet! Now I have reading for work tomorrow :-) I just read some of it and it looks like a great narrative.

 
At 12:48 AM, Blogger Christian said...

Wow, good work. Suggested reading for every MDLM beginner.

 
At 1:49 AM, Blogger Temposchlucker said...

Great article. Clear and inspiring.
I often reread such basic articles to stay motivated. For example the preface in Papa Polgar's Brick I read time over and over again. It's a sort of confirmation of things I already know. You are very benevolent to other methods of improvement which is politically weldone. But to be honest, I know a few hundreds of adult chessplayers, most of them devoting nearly all their spare time to chess improvement and chessplaying, but besides Margriet and I very few above age 21 are improving at all.
I hope you can find time and inspiration to comment on our blogs or even to post now and then. You felt yourself what an hiatus it is now Don isn't posting anymore. Don't do that to us. And ofcourse we are interested in any results or even non-results.

 
At 5:52 AM, Blogger Chris said...

Very nice! Brought back a lot of memories.

 
At 12:19 PM, Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Excellent narrative. It motivated me to stick with this crazy game, reinforcing the tough lesson that chess improvement takes time. Your scores don't cease to amaze me!

Oh, and I might take you up on your generous offer to look at a couple of my games. I'm going to find a couple where I am confused first and then perhaps send them your way :)

 
At 2:17 AM, Blogger King of the Spill said...

I liked the MDLM page alot. It has a nice balance, and even anticipates potential questions the reader might have. The only thing I would think you might want to add is his "Step 3" is actually where you are at now, i.e. integrating everything OTB. (Followed by cash prizes and television deals.)

 
At 2:07 PM, Blogger fussylizard said...

Spill- Good point. I've been so busy with various things that I've not really been playing or doing much yet. But OJ is back in town in a couple of weeks, so I can get my weekly grudge match going again if nothing else...

 
At 7:36 AM, Blogger Margriet said...

A great article!! I read it by double interest because I finished my circles too.
Do you have a chess club near by?
It is nice to see how youre tactical skills are compared by a lot of people.

 
At 8:22 AM, Blogger Pale Morning Dun - Errant Knight de la Maza said...

Great read Fussy. Sorry I've been late in replying, but things have been a bit chaotic as I roam the earth a homeless chess afficianado.

 

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