An Experiment in Rapid Chess Improvement

My Rating Debut

2006-06-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

Well, the tournament results were turned in, and while the next rating list has not been published, my yet-to-be published rating will be 1542. I have no idea how my 1478 performance rating from the tournament gets converted into a 1542 provisional rating, but I'm not complaining. I was really hoping to have an initial rating in the 1500s, so I'm pretty psyched.

The club has another 4SS tournament this month, so I'm planning on playing in that. There's two sections, 1800+ and U1800, so obviously I'll be playing in the latter. I've not been playing much this month, so hopefully I won't be too rusty. :-)

I've been doing some work on my opening repertoire (highly classified, of course) but I'm getting close to at least having a vague idea of what to play against most major lines. That's a heck of a lot better than I was doing this time last year, so I am making some progress..

My First Tournament - Results

2006-05-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

I finished my first tournament last weekend, the Austin Chess Club April Standard Swiss. Overall I played OK, but there was a lot of room for improvement. My final score was 2.5/4 (2 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss). My performance rating was 1478 according to the USCF website, so I assume that will be my provisional rating. Overall I had fun, but really wish I had done better in that first game which was just terrible. Hopefully I can just chalk that up to "first tournament anxiety". We shall see! I think I learned a lot, so it was a good experience. Feel free to check out the games. I'm not happy with all my notes on them yet, but I figured if I waited to finish them before posting the games I would never get around to it.

I'm not sure I will play in the May event since I'm fairly busy, but next month there is another 4 round tournament where I can play in the U1800 section. That should be fun!

I had a tough loss against my weekly sparring partner OJ last week. I resigned with a mate in on the board because due to a poor thought process I was not checking the checks. This was after having a very nice position in the middlegame. I'm glad I lost since it has really motivated me to work on my thought process. I still have a long ways to go, but in my last two games (the tournament and a game against Chris Kilgore) my thought process was better. Not 100%, but better than usual. I guess a good drubbing really helps every now and then!

Anyway, I'm currently working on tactics, reviewing master games, and trying to broaden my repertoire a little bit since I was out of book very quickly in my tournament games.

Hope everyone is well!

My First Tournament!

2006-04-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since my last posting, but I’ve actually been fairly active chess-wise. I got back from my month-long business trip to Detroit two weeks ago and jumped right into my first tournament! I’m playing in the Austin Chess Club’s April Standard Swiss. The format is one game each Sunday night for four weeks. Overall it seems like a good format for a gentle introduction into tournament play rather than jumping into a big 8 round, 3-day-weekend tournament.

Since I’m unrated I entered into the 1300-1799 group. My first game was against a USCF 1398 opponent. I played terribly. I had the advantage for most of the game, but made many, many substandard moves and finally ended up trading down into a lost endgame. Ugh.

My second game was against an opponent rated 1370. He dropped a piece in the opening, so I started trading down. Later I missed a little combination that would have ended things much more quickly, but instead I let it drag out to 60+ moves before my opponent resigned. I felt like I gave him way too much counterplay, but I still won in the end. I really need to get back to doing more tactics problems. I really feel like my calculation and board vision has declined a lot since I wrapped up the MDLM plan, so I need to do some more tactics to get “back in shape”. I’m still doing some, but not nearly enough.

Anyway, my preliminary pairing for round three is as black against a 1478 player. Should be fun. I hope to win my remaining two games to pull off an initial rating in the 1500s. If I could start out at USCF 1500, I would be super happy. At any rate, getting out and playing more should help me improve, which is the real goal. I’m trying not to get too wrapped up in the ratings thing.

I’m still doing lessons with Dan Heisman roughly every two weeks. I’m still getting a lot out of it. The summary of my current homework is:

Tactics problems.Currently I’m working on the book “Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors” (Hays and Hall).
Play through master games.Currently I’m working on Chernev’s “Most Instructive Games of Chess”.On playing through master games the idea is quantity.Basically you should make the move on the board, read the notes to that move, make the next move, etc.I used to try to guess moves, but that takes a lot longer.Now I can go through a game in 10-15 minutes.
Read other “wordy” chess books/articles.Currently I’m reading Kmoch’s “Pawn Power in Chess”, but I’ve been a bit slack in this area.
Play games.Now that I’m back home and my schedule is slowing up I’m playing three slow games per week.Dan also suggested that if I had time I should play some 2 5 blitz (2 minutes per game w/ 5 second delay or increment) to get broad exposure to more openings and learn to play quickly when I have to (standard USCF games usually have a 5-second delay per move).

Overall I am still very happy with my lessons, and I feel like I learn a lot each time. We mostly go through my games, which I like. Now if I could only remember everything Dan tells me during the games. :-) But as far as tangible results, my time management has improved a lot I started lessons, so I’m well on my way to meeting one of objectives of lessons (improving my time management). Speaking of time management, one interesting thing is that in my two tournament games I’ve been much better about it. So maybe the “tournament pressure” has helped in this regard.

Anyway, wish me luck for Sunday!

It's a Conspiracy...

2006-03-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

I think there is some sort of conspiracy against me playing OTB tournament chess. Let's consider the evidence:

Three tournaments ago: Some work thing came up to where I had to work the weekend, thereby missing the tournament.
Two tournaments ago: A nice 4 round SS and...I ended up being on call for work and got sick (I suspect some sort of poisoning from my office).
Most recent: I was hoping to play in the March 4 round SS at the new chess club in Austin, but round 1 was this past weekend and guess what? I had to work both Saturday and Sunday. Okay, it's one game each Sunday evening, so I take a bye for the first round, and play the next three Sunday evenings. Nice try. I'm going to Detroit on business for 4 weeks.

I also found out today that a weekly conference call was getting rearranged to...you guessed it...Thursday nights, right during my regular weekly game with OJ (not that it will matter for the next 4 weeks...).

Arggggghhh!

Ah, now I feel better after getting that off my chest. So, anyone know of any chess clubs in Detroit, Michigan? :-)

More Lessons

2006-02-26T20:32:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd do a quick post since it has been a while. I think I've done four more lessons w/ Dan Heisman since my last post. Here's a brief re-cap:

2006-01-21
We went through the De Groot exercise. Dan has an article on it at the Novice Nook so I won't go into it here. Needless to say it was very enlightening to hear how Dr. Euwe went about analyzing a chess position. The takeaways for me were:

You are trying to find the best move in a position given reasonable time spent. You *do not* need to figure out how much better it is than the other moves. So if you have convinced (or "proved" as Dan would say) that you have found the best move, make it. You can find out how much better it was than the alternatives during your analysis after the game.
Dan talked about the "king of the hill" algorithm that Euwe used. Basically the idea is that as you analyze candidate moves you always compare it to the best move you have found so far, and if you find a better one, replace it. I actually used this in a game today against Chris Kilgore when I had an opportunity to trade my knight for one of his bishops, thereby depriving him of the bishop pair (which is worth about 1/2 a pawn). So in my analysis, I compared each of my other candidate moves against neutralizing his bishop pair. When I saw nothing better than that, I took the bishop.
Dr. Euwe only focused on forcing moves. Since he had a beneficial forcing sequence available, he didn't bother to analyze moves that were not forcing (i.e. routine development, improving piece placement, etc.).
I found it interesting that his analysis was not nearly as ordered as I would have thought, but it was still a lot more structured than mine. For example, at the start

Overall I thought it was useful and very instructive.

2006-02-04
We went through a game I played with Chris Kilgore and discussed, among other things:

I moved a piece twice when I still had reasonable developing moves for other pieces that had not yet moved. At least I'm gettting better since in my game today I thought about that and developed my undeveloped pieces instead of improving the position of another piece.
The benefits of not castling too soon.
How I dawdled around in an opposite-side castling scenario instead of throwing those pawns forward as fast as possible (needless to say, Chris' attack landed first).

2006-02-11

Went through another game I played with Chris in which we discussed (among other things):

In the opening I ended up with an IQP in exchange for a tempo. Dan was really excited about gaining the tempo, whereas I was worred about the isolated pawn.
We discussed (again) taking a good, hard think on your first move out of book. I'm trying to remember to do this, even when there seems to be many natural moves to play. It's a bit of a challenge since my inclination is to play way too slowly, so I am really trying to get better about playing faster when appropriate. It's taking some getting used to.
I'm still taking too long on essentially forced moves, such as protecting a pawn that is hanging when there is only one or two reasonable ways to do so.

2006-02-25

We reviewed a game I played with OJ in which we discussed among other things:

We discussed a number of positional elements that I had completely misunderstood.
I was still playing routine developing moves too slowly.
He had me do a simple quiz. Of course I completely messed it up. Just shows I still need to work on simple board vision...

In Summary
I'm still very happy with the lessons. Again, Dan's approach (at least with me) is to help me with the "basic" stuff I'm not doing well such as time management, developing my pieces, etc. It is very frustrating to not be able to do these things. They all seem so simple, but for whatever reason it all goes to hell during my games. Many of the topics have been covered in the Novice Nook articles, or is common chess knowledge. So again, maybe others could learn all this stuff themselves just by reading articles, etc. Me? I just set up two more lessons. :-)

Hope everyone is playing well...!

Lesson Three and a Chess Club

2006-01-18T20:01:00.000-08:00

I had another lesson with Dan a few weeks ago (Dec. 31) and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. As in prior sessions, we went through a game I'd played a few days prior with OJ. I had black in a Qd6 Scandinavian. As for as the game itself (sorry I'm too lazy to post it), after a few inaccurate moves by OJ I won a pawn about 10 moves into the game, and after the queens were exchanged I picked up another pawn but had to surrender the initiative. I then dropped a knight to an oversight and had two connected passed pawns for a bishop with two rooks on the board. A draw was most likely with accurate play on both sides, but Caissa smiled and I made off with the full point.

Anyway, we spent most of our hour looking at how I spent my time during the game since time management is one area in which I need to improve. Dan noticed that in the tactic where I won a pawn there were two possible captures. I saw that too during the game but quickly discarded one. Of course it turned out that the other capture led to a winning position instead of merely being up a pawn with most of the game still to come. The interesting thing was that when he looked at the time I spent on that recapture. (This is where my DGT board comes in really handy- I hook it up to Shredder during the game and it automatically tracks the time per move for me and saves it as a comment in the game.) It turns out that of the first 10-15 moves I made, the recapture was the second or third fastest move I played (25 seconds or so), including the book moves I played. His response was that there was no way I could possibly have fully analyzed both captures in such a short time, which I agreed. So the takeaway is that (as he's mentioned in his Novice Nook columns) when you have a tactical position, slow down and really take your time since that may be a critical moment. In my defense I was trying to play more quickly, and didn't think winning a pawn was much of a critical moment. But had I spent the time like I should the game would have only lasted another 20 moves or so (since OJ likes to play all the way to mate).

Another thing I did was slow down a lot after I'd dropped the knight. His comment (summarized) was I should have spent more time earlier ensuring I didn't drop the knight in the first place. Better to spend your time trying to maintain a winning position than trying to pull some miracle save after you are already losing.

Finally, we discussed why I dropped the knight. Basically OJ attacked a pawn with his rook which I saw, but my analysis of his move stopped there. Had I looked at it more carefully I would also have noticed that the pawn had become pinned and no longer defending my knight. So the moral here is that you need to consider everything a move does, not just stop after identifying the obvious purpose.

In general I've not been so good at consistently analyzing my opponent's moves, so I thought of a framework to help my checking process. Every time my opponent moves, I should ask:

What is his piece doing now that it wasn't doing before?
What was his piece doing on its old square that it is not doing now?
What are other pieces now able to do after the move?
What are other pieces no longer able to do after the move?

I have found I often overlook things that would be covered in #3 and #4. While I realize that having a rigid though process like this is not always possible, I'm still going to try to use it until such a process becomes automatic, then I can stop consciously going through the list. Incidentally, this list is also useful for blunderchecking my own moves so I may use it there also.

Anyway, I have two more lessons scheduled, one on Saturday and one two weeks later. Overall I've been fairly happy with my lessons and plan to continue them for the time being. The only downside to the lessons is the cost, which are now up to US$70 / hour. I'm happy with what I'm getting, but I do have to wonder if there are cheaper options. I've not tried anyone else, so I have no idea what other instructors might be like.

Chess Club
In other news, Austin is getting a new chess club. I don't know all the history of the chess scene in Austin, but there used to be a sparsely attended club I went to once many years ago. It was reasonably fun, but I never managed to make it back (for all I know it is a big group these days). Anyway, I got a mailer a few weeks ago informing me of a new chess club meeting every Sunday night. They have a schedule of events so I'm definitely planning on participating in the March slow chess tournament (30/90, SD/1) if nothing else. I'm hoping it will be a good opportunity to play more people just to get more exposure. They are having their opening night this Sunday, so I'll probably make an effort to attend even though it will mostly be G/5 blitz. OJ may come as well, but he's mostly interested in the free pizza. :-)

Second Lesson with Dan Heisman

2005-12-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

Boy, things have been busy. November and December is a super-hectic time at work for me so I've not been playing much lately. Fortunately I have lots of games played at slow time controls I can go over with Dan, but it would be better if they were more "fresh" in my mind. Perhaps this is not the best time to be starting chess lessons, but I'm forging ahead anyway. I had my second lesson on December 10.

We started out going through a game I played against Chris Kilgore a month or so ago. I had white and played the bishop's opening. I started developing my pieces and after Chris castled queenside I tried to start a pawn storm before I had finished developing and had stablized the center. So Chris of course played ...d5 and I started suffering. We ended up trading down into an equal-material endgame where I had numerous pawn weaknesses and about five minutes left on my clock to Chris' 45 minutes plus. Needless to say I lost.

Going over the game Dan yielded two major insights. First, I never did finish getting my pieces out. Many moves Dan suggested were simple developing moves. Nothing fancy, nothing special, just getting my pieces out. I know I am supposed to do this, but for some reason I have always had this fear that if I make planless, standard developing moves I might find that my pieces are not well-coordinated or ill-equipped to handle some threat from my opponent. Dan's reasoning was to first worry about getting my pieces out consistently, and *then* worry about getting them perfectly coordinated. This makes a lot of sense...a lot more sense than my current policy of worrying excessively about piece placement and using tons of clock time while not getting my pieces out. So this seems like a simple thing to fix and should also help with my frequent time trouble.

The second major issue we discussed was my time trouble and in particular, why I spent 11 minutes choosing between Nf3 or Ne2 in a quiet position. Dan's suggestion was that if two moves are very similar in evaluation, then just pick one and move. I can spend as much time as I want after the game determining whether one move is 0.12 pawns better than the other one. So this is another thing for me to work on- realize when my candidate moves are nearly equivalent and just pick one.

So after two lessons I have been happy with Dan's approach and I feel like I'm getting a fair amount out of the lessons. I'm only doing 1 hour at a time and it goes by fast, but for now I'll keep on my schedule or 1 hour lessons every other week or so. Given the upcoming holiday my next lesson is not until December 31, but I'm looking forward to it. If you've thought about taking lessons with Dan, so far I can recommend him.

Happy holidays everyone!

Some Things Just Are Not Meant to Be

2005-12-06T20:03:00.000-08:00

Well folks, I really was looking forward to the tournament this past weekend, but work conspired to foil my plans. I had been studying a lot (working on my opening repertoire and reviewing tactics problems) but last week was just hell at work (long, super-stressful days). I was just so mentally worn out at the end of each day that I was a zombie, so I didn't study at all the week before the tournament. I was still feebly thinking about playing anyway, but Friday I was informed I had to be "on call" over the weekend, which means my cell phone had to be on all weekend. That pushed me over the edge, so I opted to skip it. Turns out it was a good choice anyway since when I woke up Saturday (tournament day) I was feeling bad, and later I discovered I had a mild fever. Not sure what the deal was, but I would not have been in any condition to play had I gone.

Anyway, there's nothing promising in the area for the near future, so I think my tournament debut will have to wait... C'est la vie...

First Chess Lesson

2005-11-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had my first chess lesson with NM Dan Heisman. Overall I would say the lesson was interesting, if not a bit insightful. In general I was not expecting too much since it was only an hour, and I was certainly not disappointed. Overall I enjoyed it and found Dan pleasant to work with.

So what did we do? After discussing my goals (make expert), particular areas of focus (thought process and time management), and situation (I'm a working adult, etc.), we started off with a problem in which I was supposed to decide if the king and pawn position was a win, loss, or draw for either side . It was not too complicated and I had "unlimited" time to think about it (unlimited in that all the time I'm willing to pay for :-)...and I bungled it horribly. I was fairly surprised I messed it up, especially since I saw the major elements, etc. The really interesting thing was that it took me a looooong time time notice a few things about the position. The takeaway is that I really need to work on my board vision...just noticing basic things about positions like what pieces or pawns are hanging, etc.

We then started to go through my game vs. OJ this past Thursday (a terrible affair...I played horribly, survived a massive attack to emerge a rook ahead, allowed a perpetual check, and then decided to try out a stupid idea just to see if there was any possible winning resources in it...and I lost shortly thereafter). Unfortunately, one hour flies by and we only got partway through the game.

As a result of our first session I've decided to work some more on tactics and board vision. Tactics are easy (more CT-Art and other simple tactics...nothing too complicated, just working on recognizing basic tactics instantly, so I'll probably stick to level 10 and 20, maybe level 30), and doing the MDLM Chess Vision drills which I skipped the first time around. I also dug out my copy of Chess Mazes which is a fun way to work on board vision.

I figure I'll do 3 or 4 more lessons at a minimum and then decide if this is something I want to continue longer-term. Overall I'm relatively happy with the first lesson. Dan's and my schedules don't match up very well for the next couple of weeks so I won't be able to do lesson #2 until mid-December or so.

BTW There is a tournament in San Antonio the first weekend in December, so I'm trying to decide if I should make my tournament debut. It is a 4 game Swiss system, slow time control (30/90, SD/60) event, so it would be perfect to test the water and actually get a USCF rating. I'll probably enter the reserve ground (U1700) so I'm sure I'll get beat up by a bunch of grade-schoolers, but it will be fun and good experience nevertheless.

Chess Lessons!

2005-11-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

Boy, I'm just barely squeaking by on this "one post a month" requirement to be an active knight...

Chess Lessons!
The big news is that I'm trying out chess lessons with NM Dan Heisman of ChessCafe's Novice Nook fame. My first lesson is Saturday and I can't wait. He's not cheap (US$65/hr), but I figured I would try it out and see how I like it. Heck, I'm already spending 12+ hours a week on chess, so if it adds to the enjoyment of the game then it will be well worth it. I'll just buy fewer chess books instead.

Why did I decide to take lessons? Well, I have been playing two slow games per week for a few months now and carefully analyzing the games afterwards. This has been incredibly helpful. The main benefit has been to expose flaws in my thinking and analysis process. For example, a couple weeks ago I had white in a French Tarrasch against fellow knight Chris Kilgore. I was analyzing an unfamiliar position for maybe 10 minutes and had decided on a fairly commital plan that I had decided was of mixed benefit to me (trading knights and altering the pawn structure). During analysis I discovered I should have just played a simple move, improving the position of my queen slightly, but not making a major change to the game. Apparently the lesson was retained, because this past Sunday I had in a Sicilian Dragon and again spent 10 minutes and was poised to make another fairly commital move that I was not 100% sure was beneficial. However, this time I remembered my lesson and played a different move. So the move I chose was not best, and I still spent 10 minutes on it, but the point is that I'm improving.

What does all this have to do with Mr. Heisman? Well...I had recently read a novice nook about how the worst positional defect in your position (doubled, isolated pawns on an open file) is worth a little over one pawn. So the worst single positional weakness is worth less than a pawn, so in many cases if you are faced with material loss of even a pawn, unless you are getting significant positional compensation you are better off saving the material regardless of the cost (Dan calls this the "Principle of Tactical Dominance".) Recently I had a game where I had finally figured this out something similar to this on my own (before reading the article), so when I read the article I wondered how many of these other "principles" are there that I am missing? Anyway, I decided to give it a shot so I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Current Focus
In case anyone is interested, here's what I'm doing chess-wise these days:

I play two slow games per week (G/120). One is with OJ over-the-board, and one is with Chris Kilgore over the internet (though I set up a board, clock, and scoresheet to simulate tournament conditions). So this is 6-8 hours per week.
I analyze the games in detail. This takes maybe 2-4 hours.
I'm working on building up an opening repertoire. The time taken on this varies, but sometimes I spend up to 6-8 hours per week on it.
Various other stuff (some tactics, playing Pocket Fritz, reviewing master games, etc.)

One thing that Chris and I have been doing that has been helpful is to practice specific opening lines. This way we can both work on our repertoires. It's been helpful, and now I feel like I have a basic grounding in playing white in the French Tarrasch (whereas before I was clueless after two moves).

I need to be doing more tactics problems, but I really want to get a basic repertoire hammered out before I jump back on the tactics. I sort of miss the endless hours in front of CT-Art you know...

Anyway, if you are not playing regular slow games, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Long time no see...

2005-10-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

Sheesh, has it been a month already since my last post? Wow, time flies when you are having fun.

I'm still playing my weekly game with OJ, and also a weekly game with fellow knight Chris Kilgore. Chris and I are practicing various openings, and somehow I've gotten myself into the Sicilian Dragon (as if I have hours of free time per day for openings study...). We had a great dragon game two weeks ago. I lost in 19 moves if I recall correctly, but it was one of the most fun games I've played in a while. I have black this coming Sunday so maybe the dragon will re-surface again. Currently I'm down 4.5 - .5 against Chris (I drew as white against his Berlin defense :-), but I'm learning a lot and having fun.

Someday I'll get around to posting games- really.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well.

Slump

2005-09-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss in posting my games of late, but I've still not broken out of my slump I mentioned in my last post. I have still yet to win a game on my new DGT board (only losses and draws). Most everything is due to time trouble or just spacing out. I've been working on my time trouble and I think it is improving, but there is still more ground to cover.

Slow Games and Opening Repertoires
I've starting playing two slow games per week (about G/120), one against my usual sparring partner OJ and one against fellow MDLM graduate Chris Kilgore. Chris is up 2-0 so far, but I'm learning a lot. Playing more often was a major necessity in my chess improvement. Now that I'm playing more I'm focusing on other areas, mostly on pulling together an opening repertoire since I really don't have one. Sure, there is no substitute for thinking during the opening, etc., but I should have at least a basic idea of what line to play against all the major openings. It's pretty bad when I am out of book against the Ruy Lopez on move four. If nothing else, knowing a little more about the openings will help with my time management and add extra confidence to my game.

Anyway, I'll post some recent games soon.

I love my DGT board except...

2005-08-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

...I have lost both games against OJ I've played with it. I've been in sort of a slump since OJ got back, and now I've lost two in a row. Two games ago I dropped a pawn in the opening without any compensation whatsoever and was ground down without much fanfare. My last game was going great after OJ miscalculated something and I went up a piece...but I lost on time. I've always had a problem with time-trouble, so my immediate chess-improvement goals are:
1) Improve my thought process
2) Play faster

I think by improving my thought processes I will play faster since currently my thoughts are all over the place during each move. I think also I suffer from a general lack of confidence since I will analyze the same lines over and over and over and... Well, you get the idea. I need to have confidence in my initial evaluation and move onto other thoughts, especially for non-critical moves. If I'm sacrificing a piece or something, double-checking is fine. But for other moves, I need to just think straight through and move on.

One thing the DGT board has been really helpful with is seeing just how much time I'm spending on each move. It's pretty amazing to me to actually see how much time I spend per move.

Link to replay this week's game with commentary.

OJ vs. fussylizard- 1/2 - 1/2

2005-08-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

What a game. OJ opened with 1.d4 for the first time I can remember and played something reminscent of the London system. There were some tactics that worked out better for me and I came out with tremendous pressure on the c-file which shortly led to a blunder and I went up a rook. Then, several moves later in a completely winning position, I changed my move I was going to play right before I played it. I thought I had already analyzed it and thought it was fine, and I actually thought to myself that I should do a blunder-check, but after seeing just over 20 minutes on my clock I hurriedly played the move and got what I deserved for such an oversight. Bam! OJ takes my bishop and forces a draw by perpetual check even though I was still up an exchange. In a brief moment I had thrown all my hard work away. So the lessons of the day- never change your move at the last moment, and always do a blunder check.

Link to replay the game with my commentary.

Chess Position Trainer & Pocket Fritz

2005-08-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

I actually started using Chess Position Trainer (CPT) last night. I'd looked at it before, but now that I actually entered some lines I'm planning on playing in the future, I have gotten a better feel for it. Overall, a great application. I started by entering my lines into Pocket Fritz 2 on my PDA with a separate game for each opening. Then I beamed them via IR onto my laptop that is running CPT. I then imported the PGN database into CPT and split it up into the various sub-repertoires for white and black. I tried out the training feature that lets you practice openings. Overall a fun way to practice memorizing lines. Of course I still need to learn the reasoning behind all the moves so I'm not blindly memorizing stuff, but entering the lines into CPT is a start.

And yes, I did some tactics study last night before I spent time on openings. :-)

Tactics in Pocket Fritz 2
I also figured out how to change the tactics training positions in Pocket Fritz 2 last night. Just put your own tactics problems in PGN format in the PF2 install directory as Tactics.pgn overwriting the factory default (though I did back-up the factory defaults first). There's some other file there named Tactics, but I'm not sure what the extension is so I just deleted it and it worked fine with my new tactics file. So now that I have this, I may not bother with CT-Art for my PDA. We'll see...

Happy birthday to me!

2005-07-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

My birthday was a couple of days ago and my wife got me one of those DGT sensory chess boards. It is a beautiful piece of work. I've not had a chance to try it out yet. I'm hoping it will be good for playing blitz games with OJ since it will record all of our moves. Also, I think it might be fun to let Fritz analyze our weekly games as we play and see what Fritz has to say about our moves immediately after the game...

2005-07-21: fussylizard vs. OJ: 1-0

2005-07-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've not done my analysis yet, but this week I came out on top against OJ. He played the accelerated dragon again and varied first from his prior game with black. I quickly got a positional advantage but shortly overlooked an annoying queen check. Instead of moving my king I offered a dubious pawn sacrifice to mix things up, and later OJ allowed a discovery on his queen. After the tactical smoke cleared I had a technically winning position with a queen versus a rook and knight with black having an extra pawn. I played carefully and ground out the win. Overall I was pleased with my play except for overlooking that irritating check (check the checks!).

I'll post the game as soon as I analyze it.

Update 2005-07-26: Game posted

OJ vs fussylizard: 1-0

2005-07-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in my report, but I've been busy (who isn't these days?)...

Last Thursday I got to face OJ's new opening with white- the English. Fortunately it transposed into the Queen's Gambit Declined. I remembered some of the theory from Sadler's book, and ended up playing a Lasker's Defense. I worked into a technically won game with an extra pawn and a queenside pawn majority. Unfortunately I had blown through most of my 2 hours of time and ended up resigning in a lost position during the time scramble. Since OJ plays at blitz speed all the time, he was playing full strength while my play dropped dramatically. Even if I had sufficient time, I'm not sure if my current level of technique would have been sufficient to convert it into a win, but I wish I could have tried.

So the good news is I played a solid game. The bad news is that my time management was terrible, so that is an area of improvement. I just have to stop agonizing over so many moves, especially in quiet positions, and just play something reasonable and get on with it. It's that perfectionist in me wreaking havoc with my game.

I don't have much experience playing in closed games or games where slow attacks must be built up (as in last week's accelerated dragon), so I'm actually glad OJ has been steering us from the usual open tactical games we've mostly been playing. I guess his strategy of switching up the openings has been working (I'm .5 out of 2 for our last two games), but I'm learning new stuff and playing reasonably, so I'm having a lot of fun.

Anyway, I'll post the game later. I've finished my own analysis, but I've not yet run the game through Fritz (I always comment first without the computer analysis). Once I do that I'll update my comments (if necessary) and post the game. Last week Fritz didn't tell me anything I didn't already uncover in my own analysis, so I hope that means my analysis is getting better!

Update: Here's our last two games. I made them downloadable per zeon's request. The game described above is the second one on the page.

Return of the Titans, Round 1

2005-07-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a bit more travelling, both for business and vacation over the last couple of weeks so I am just now getting around to posting the results of the first game OJ and I have played since he got back from the Philippines. I had white and opened 1.e4 and we went into the accelerated dragon variation of the Sicilian defense. I've never played against this opening before, so it was a lot of fun and great experience. I played quite aggressively, sacrificing a pawn for an attack and pushing my kingside pawns to open up the black king. Unfortunately I overlooked a tactic and lost the initiative (and another pawn). I immediately replied with an exchange sacrifice to open up the black king in a lost position. But then Caissa smiled upon my bold play earlier and I escaped with a perpetual check! Overall an exciting game. You can replay the game with my annotations. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

OJ and I will probably play this coming Thursday, so wish me luck. I can't wait to see what his new white opening is.

I confess I have been a bit lax in my chess study and in keeping up with everyone's blogs. Life has just been super-hectic lately, what can I say...?

What a Strange Feeling

2005-06-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

What a strange feeling it is to actually be reading the chess books I've bought over the years. After finishing the MDLM plan I went through Chernev's Logical Chess, and tonight I just finished Snyder's Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors. It is a nice feeling to actually finish going through a chess book instead of watching it collect dust on a shelf...

I just went rummaging through my book collection and found a few more game collections I want to go through: Weeramantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, Snyder's More Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors (I just bought this a few weeks ago), and Nunn's Understanding Chess Move by Move. I also have game collections of Morphy and Marshall that I would like to get through as well. The first three are all extensively annotated, so I'll probably tackle them first. The Nunn book may be a bit over my head, but I'll give it a go.

I've been lacking in my tactics practice since finishing the MDLM plan, though I have finished Bain's Chess Tactics for Students (but I will continue to review it a bit more until I can do all the problems instantaneously). However, in going through the Snyder book I was pleased to see that when asked to find a move I nearly always quickly saw any move that was a simple material win, so I suppose that is encouraging.

Since OJ is now back I need to get back into the groove. He's up 11 wins versus my 9 (with a few draws), so I need to work at getting that in line. :-) We were supposed to play last week, but we ended up doing happy hour with some of our mutual friends from our grad school days. After all, no one had seen him yet since he got back from his several month long trip...

Anyway, Thurday the gauntlet will be thrown down again when OJ and I square off. OJ has a new white opening he said, but I have white this week. What to play, what to play...? Maybe I'll actually plan on something this week beyond just 1.e4...

Wish me luck!

The Return of OJ

2005-06-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, time sure flys by when you are not slaving away over chess problems in every spare moment. I regret to say that I have been quite lax in my chess studies of late. However, now that my friend OJ is back from an extended vacation, my Thursday night chess matches will resume which should provide fresh motivation. OJ says he has a new opening, so I'm looking forward to our first game in several months this Thursday. It's my turn to play white, so maybe I will surprise him with 1.d4 (I play both 1.d4 and 1.e4, but mostly I play 1.e4 with OJ). Or perhaps I'll boldly play 1.e4 and see what he's got...

Sorry I've not been keeping up with the blogs of the other knights. I will have to get back on track with that. I also need to play online at FICS so I can join in the other Knights in team play...

In chess news I am almost finished with "Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" by Snyder. It's a good book (game collection with every move commented), and I like his style and explanation better than in Chernev's "Logical Chess". Recommended.

My Life Story

2005-05-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

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.

Writer's Block

2005-05-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update on the story of my MDLM experience: I'm still working on it. I have been very busy with work (travel) and have not had much chess time lately. However, I'm going to finish my epic masterpiece about solving chess problems for months and then get back to my chess training.

I Have to Have This
Did you know that Convekta offers a Pocket PC version of CT-Art? I think I will order a copy since I love playing chess against Pocket Fritz 2, and always having CT-Art at my fingertips would be great. Not enough time to get slaughtered in a blitz game? No problem- zip through a few problems in CT-Art...

A Confession
I am embarrassed to mention it, but I went ahead and ordered Total Chess Training (mostly for Strategy 2.0 and the opening blunders CD) and Middlegame Training 3 (mostly for the stuff on the Scandinavian which I play from time to time). Overall I now have about 20,000 problems from Convekta to do. Hmmm, guess I'd better get to work!

Online Team Play
When catching up on Knight blogs I read with interest about the team competitions being organized by Pawn Sensei. G/45+45 is not too bad, though slower would be better (I prefer G/120). So I think I'll try to play a few games over at FICS to get a rating so I can join in on the fun. I definitely need to play more, so this sounds like a great opportunity.

Novice Nook & Chess Tactics for Students

2005-05-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

Novice Nook
I finished reading most of the articles from Dan Heisman's excellent Novice Nook series at ChessCafe last night. I skimmed a few that I didn't think were immediately useful to me in the process of building my own study plan, but I will go back and review those later. If you are an adult player (or maybe even a younger player) trying to improve, I highly recommend you take advantage of this fantastic resource. Dan seems to be pretty good at presenting things clearly, so his articles are well worth a read.

Based on what I already knew and Dan's suggestions from Novice Nook, here's what I'm going to work on:

Playing more slow games (G/60 or longer)- I'm working on getting some set up. I already review my games, look for opening improvements, etc.- I just need to play more.
Thought process- I need to work on this, but playing more games will help.
Tactics- The MDLM plan helped, but I still have more work to do in this area.
Evaluation- This is a new one I think I need to improve based on Dan's articles. In particular I need to focus on evaluating "quiet" positions where material and king safety are about equal.

Note that your list may vary, so read Dan's articles and figure out what you need to do for yourself. For example, Dan recommends learning general principles like rooks belong behind passed pawns, etc., but I think I know most of the big ones. Of course how often I put them into practice is another question, but whether or not I need to work on this more will become apparent after playing more games.

Bain's "Chess Tactics for Students"
I did the first 100 problems in Bain's CTFS book last night (spent maybe 45 minutes right before bed). Overall they are pretty easy after having completed the seven circles and most of them I solved in a few seconds (most of the hard ones were ones I had seen in CT-Art). However, there were maybe 5-10 easy problems that I had to think about or overlooked something in the problem, so I will probably go ahead and finish the book (a few more hours I expect), and maybe do another pass or two just to be safe. I might cut the problems out of the book (or scan them) so I can mix the problems up. They are all sorted by theme right now which makes it too easy.

Status

2005-05-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd update everyone on the goings-on in Chateau fussylizard:

I just finished Chernev's "Logical Chess: Move by Move" tonight. Overall an interesting book. Chernev chose games where everything looked so easy. If I could only win with such natural moves.
I'm looking forward to moving onto Snyder's "Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" (basically another book of games).
I got a copy of Bain's "Chess Tactics for Students" which is highly recommended by Heisman and other instructors. Overall it looks like a great book that "builds" from one position to another (i.e. you see a simple one-move motif, then you see the same motif except that it requires a preparatory move, etc.). Unfortunately most of it looks far too easy, but I will probably go through it anyway to ensure all the patterns are firmly burned into my brain. 434 problems should be about 3-4 hours, right? :-)

I also played a couple of games on InstantChess.com the other night. I won the first game when my opponent overlooked a pin that would win the exchange. We were playing G/15+5 and he had over 12 minutes left. The jerk just let his clock run down without making a move. This sort of thing really hacks me off. Or the people that just disconnect when they are losing since on InstantChess they get five or six minutes to reconnect before the server declares you win by forfeit. If you are losing then either defend the position or resign. Sheesh.

My next game ended abruptly after my opponent cancelled it after move 2. I guess he didn't like the way things looked after 1.e4 e5 2.d4 (he was playing black). After this I set my game seek settings to only play class B and higher players (I'm rated a low class B) so as to hopefully avoid some of the riffraff.

My third game was against a 1700-something player which I lost on the black side of the Ruy Lopez. I can't remember the last time I played against the Ruy, and I got into trouble early. I sacrificed a pawn to stir things up but to no avail. Needless to say I now have learned a line against the Ruy for future use.

I'm still working on my summary of my MDLM experience. I can be a bit long-winded at times, but I hope everyone finds it interesting when I finish it.