Temposchlucker

 I retired in Januari. Since then, I have mainly been busy to organize my life in accordance with the new situation (planting geraniums). I played my games on two clubs, but besides that, I haven't studied new material. Although I maintain the current stuff. Yesterday, I subscribed for a 9 day round robin tournament in July. And now the question is: how am I going to prepare for the tournament the coming months? The last tournament in december had a clear conclusion: 1/3 of my points I lose by tactics while 2/3 I lose by molesting endgames. Losing should read as not winning.  If I would worry about points, then focusing on the endgame would be the logical path to go. But I don't consider endgames as being problematic. It is only a lot of work. And even that remains to be seen. My problem is that I lack an endgame plan most of the time. And without a plan, tactics have no direction. The past weeks I have been quite successful as white. I won three times in a row with a bishop s...

 Robert stated: " If the patterns (principles/”rules”/whatever) are  NOT  embedded in LTM, then it is highly likely that we will NOT “SEE” the available options. " This is the core conclusion of this blog. It might not be immediately obvious what this means for our training. The following diagram makes this perfectly clear: Diagram 1. Black to move r3r1k1/1p3pp1/p5N1/P1p3n1/6b1/2N1P1B1/1PQ2PKP/R4R2 b - - 0 22 Pal Benko vs. Wolfram Hartmann (1984) I hesitated between Bh3+ and Bf3+. I thought it was equal, ceteris paribus. Admittedly, it was 6:00 am this morning and I just woke up. But that are the perfect moments to show you what has been absorbed and what not! What a grandmaster has absorbed doesn't disappear when he is drunk or sleep-drowsy. As long as these two moves look the same at first glance, I haven't absorbed the patterns. And that has dire consequences! What you haven't absorbed, you can't SEE during calculation. Diagram 2 is from my game yesterday. ...