Temposchlucker

 When I adjusted my openings due to my tournament in December, little did I expect that that would result in more endgames. I made two adjustments. With black I adopted the simple opening system for beginners by GM Ludvig Hammer, and with white I added the "cheesecake" to my repertoire while dropping the London and the Barry attack. Both new openings are quite solid, with enough bite to walk over a higher rated player every now and then. What is more, both openings with black and white lead to similar positions. And the endgames they lead to are equal or better. I haven't decided what kind of player I am. Or want to be. In life I'm avoiding risks at all costs. But my chess history is a bit different. I played solely gambits for 7 years, just to get the hang of it. And I used to train 6 queen sacrifices before breakfast each day for years. So when I see something that should be done on the chessboard, I do it without hesitation or fear. My mentality is more easy going ...

 After my previous tournament in December, I wrote a post about in which areas I still suck . Endgames, preparation of the assault and the opening. I pretty much solved my openings. About the preparation of the assault I had  a revelation a few weeks before my tournament in July. Yesterday, I decided that endgames must be my next goal (finally). I lost 2.5 points in the endgame in just 7 rounds. I adopt the suggestion of Robert and will use Silman's endgame course as the base. When I see an endgame position, usually my mind goes blank. Somehow the triggers don't fire. I had a good experience while exploring an endgame a few months ago . After just a few hours, I discovered already a few concepts that are more generally applicable. Even better, the discovery of the invasion in the endgame was the indirect cause of my revelation of invasion in the preparation of the assault a month later. So Silman must guarantee that I focus on the absolute minimum I need, and fiddling around ...

 I played a tournament lately. I played 7 games. 1 win, 1 loss and 5 endgames. I managed to screw up all endgames. 2 potential wins became a draw and 3 potential draws were lost. I spilled 5 x 0.5 = 2.5 points there. So that is very good news! It were all better or equal endgames. I consider it a luxury problem to screw those up. By not preparing my endgames I took that into account beforehand. I have now the difficult task to decide to follow the revelation from the previous post or to work on my endgames. I deem that both take half a year to think through the matter and 1.5 year to absorb it. Thinking through is a system 2 task. And I cannot split my focus in two. That simply doesn't work. I'm inclined to start with working out a framework with positional scenarios around the invasion. It is a big task, and I already see the contours of it. It will be great! The consequence is that when I play a tournament at the end of the year, I will again drop points in the endgame. In an...

  While studying the Chessable course  The Positional Chess Patterns Manual from IM Alex Astaneh it slowly dawned upon me that squares are the next step in my framework. Themes are the words, scenarios are the sentences, and the combination of scenarios form the stories. I focus mainly on the "standard scenarios", whatever they may be if they exist. In my world they exist, and I'm building some sort of framework with it. I assume that in ideal world, a storyteller is free to make up his own scenarios on the fly. But to me it make sense to start with the most frequent "standard" scenarios, in order to don't get overwhelmed my the amount of possibilities. My biggest revelation lately has been the discovery of "the third duck" AKA the invasion squares. The invasion squares come in three flavours: weak squares outposts pivot points They have in common that an enemy pawn cannot chase a piece away from those squares anytime soon. Hence the enemy pawns d...

  In a comment, I lately described the four stages of my method. Unearth the logic. That takes quite some fiddling around. Transform the logic into patterns that are more or less position independent Remember the patterns Test the absorption This method works to a certain degree. With a pace of one problem per day and, say, 3 patterns per problem. about 1000 new patterns per year seems to be doable. But it is hard work, and although the method works,  I have somehow the feeling that I haven't reached the maximum learning potential of the method. The method is pretty crude, so let's have a look whether it is possible to refine it. Unearth the logic In this area, you might be able to snatch a free lunch or two. Don't waste your time with trying to solve the problems yourself. Use Stockfish and fiddle around as much as you can. Make use of every annotation by grandmasters if you can. Use themed problem sets whenever possible. Since this is a system 2 activity, it will take a l...

  Step by step, I'm trying to unearth a set of standard scenarios for the whole game. It is a highly personal approach, and I assume that there are a lot of people who don't like such a rigid approach. That is fine with me of course, in that case you must invent a strategy of your liking yourself. TINSTAAFL. I started at the end of the game with the PoPLoAFun system, from there I invented the sitting ducks (king and weak pawns), piece activity as the nec plus ultra of positional play. Lately I added a stage before that, the invasion. A chess game can go in either two directions: a king assault (king = duck 1) or an endgame (pawn = duck 2). Either way, you need to invade the side of the enemy (invasion square = duck 3). Tactics usually don't appear just out of the blue. If they do, it are blunders. As your opponents become better, it is likely that the blunders diminish, and that they change into mistakes due to the pressure you apply. And pressure is related to the 3 ducks....

  With the assault of the king, you need a standard plan. You must have a clear picture of the standard scenarios. That way, you prune the tree of scenarios and the tree of analysis beforehand. You calculate the main line, and when you are happy, you calculate the alternatives (or else), when the opponent doesn't want to cooperate. When all alternatives are worse, you are good to go. White to move 3r2k1/p3b2p/3pbpp1/7R/1r2P3/1P1B2Q1/q5PP/B4R1K w - - 0 25 The standard plan of the assault contains two elements: breach the wall of the killzone invade What does the breach Rxh7 accomplish? it attacks Be7 it undermines g6 it allows the white queen to attack the invasion square f6 with tempo Black cannot afford to ignore the rook . He must take the rook (or else). The next move is 2.Qh4+, which is a double attack on the king and the invasion square f6. Another way to say that it is, the white Queen attacks f6 with an additional tempo (the check).