Applying logic

 I always have been surprised that I wasn't able to apply my usual logical reasoning to chess. While in normal life my logical reasoning is able to handle pretty complex situations, in chess my brains seem to stall almost immediately. The mystery why that is has been solved, now.

I used to play chess like a moron. My mind felt always easily overwhelmed by the complexity of a position. I never had a clue what I was doing or trying to accomplish whatsoever.

Since a year or two, the development of my tactical training method has been finished. The test of the method with myself as Guinee pig has remained inactive for a long time due to the health issues of Margriet. What I have done the past two years, though, is reading about the middlegame. As a result, I begin to know what I should try to accomplish in the middlegame. If you don't know what you are looking for, then you don't know when you have found it. That was the reason that I always have been in time trouble during a game.

My opening repertoire with both black and white is undergoing a complete overhaul. I understand the openings that I play now. I know what I try to accomplish. That has never been the case before. Whether I have the skills to reach those goals that I try to accomplish is another matter. But I'm definitely better off with knowing what the goals are.

I never have been able to analyze my own games. Which is not so strange when you have no clue what the goals are. I play for another club now. My play is totally changing. Now I know what I'm after, I finally can apply logic to my games. I'm no longer totally surprised by the effects of my own moves. I don't feel clueless anymore, nor overwhelmed. Last week, I have been able to analyze my own game, for the first time. So I'm definitively making progress!!