Sunday, February 13, 2005

Accepting the challenge

Patzer King challenges the Knights Errant to joust.
Of course I accept.
The Dutch ratings are not kept overtime.

To give you an idea of my rating progress:

1998 1529
1999 1532
2000 1532
During this years I studied chess in the classic way for about one hour per day. Openings, strategy, analyze your own games, playing through grandmastergames, reading books etc.
These figures prove:

  • Classic study is of no help to me. My understanding and knowledge improve but my rating doesn't.
  • I have no special chess talent which can account for a sudden dramatic improvement in rating.


2001 1565
2002 1624
2003 1697
A gain of 170 points in rating due to a different approach:
I dropped the classic study completely.
I started to solve a vast amount of tactical problems.

2004 1699
2005 1701
Plateauing again, in spite of continous problemsolving.

BUT... because I discovered the articles of de la Maza I changed my method.
I solve the same problems as I did and I repeat them over and over again, until I see the solution a tempo and all the subvariations in about 30 seconds.
And because of these repetitions I feel the swelling of my tactical muscle so I'm not afraid to pick up the gauntlet.


You can verify my rating of 1701 on 1 feb. 2005 at http://www.schaakbond.nl/rating/club0433.html
I'm the guy with id 7923355
The one below me with the same name and a rating of 1417 is my wife.
A chessplaying wife is, apart from a divorce, the only way you can do such brutal training as de la Maza's method.
She trains only now and then, but I wouldn't be surprised if her rating improves also.
The next ratings will be published here on 1st of may and 1st of august.

If my rating will improve the next six months I don't know but I'm pretty sure my English will....

4 comments:

  1. That ratings increase pretty much speaks for itself.

    btw - Knights of (T)error is hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My wife doesn't play, but at least she is supportive. We'll just hang out in the room, me doing tactics problems and her reading or playing on her computer. So I suppose you can add a "very understanding spouse" to the list of "divorce" or "chess playing spouse" to the list of requirements to be able to do the MDLM plan.

    And your English is already very good, so no worries there!

    Regards,
    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey, a 1701 dutch rating isn't that bad!

    And seems the last ratings you only improve so, although the way may seem long, you are slowly but certain getting there.

    logis

    ReplyDelete