Temposchlucker

I worked my way through the first 5 chapters of Silmans complete endgame course. The scheme of this course is brilliant. It gives a logical order in studying the subjects. Unlike most endgame books, which mix material that you will never need in a lifetime with common used stuff. And Silman has resisted the temptation to straw with composed curiosities from Grigoriev indiscriminately. No distraction of differential calculations when you still strugle with the tables of multiplication. No exceptions before the common path is clear. The material from the first four chapters I knew already very well, except for one or two minor topics. Chapter five consists of material that was either new to me or long forgotten. Silmans claims that with mastering the first five chapters you can make do for the rest of your life. If you really don't want to spend any more time on it. Of course I'm going to do the next chapters too. But his claim gives me the assurance that I can take a break ...

Yesterday we had our third session. We talked about trading pieces. There is a difference between the opening and the endgame when it comes to trading pieces. In the opening it is often usefull to keep the tension between pawns as long as possible, and trade only when you can do it at a favourable moment or when you have no other choice. In the transition to the endgame you have to determine which endgame you want to play before you can trade pieces. We both (the pupils) noticed a tendency to trade too mechanically without reason. Thus compromising our position. Another issue that became clear is that my performance declines steeply at the moment that the transition to an endgame needs to take place. I usually protect myself by offering an early draw when that happens. The past 14 years my time trouble problem has protected me against this phase of the game, but now I have taken rigorous measures, that is no longer an issue. This means that I now have to learn to play the endgame. ...

Yesterday we had the second game analysis session with my coach. The first session was a revelation in the sense that I never was aware of how big the role of time trouble was in the results of my games. I thought I had overcome this problem by changing my repertoire from solely gambits to a positional repertoire a few years ago. What I effectively did by then was that I changed my time trouble from extreme++ to beyond average. That felt as an improvement, which it was, but it made me unaware of the fact that my time trouble was far from over. Apparently my bias that the time trouble problem was solved created a blind spot. I was already aware of the fact that a lot of time was spilled by irrelevant thoughts , so when the conclusion was that I spilled much points because of time trouble and my coach encouraged me to get rid of it rigorously, I decided to simply drop the irrelevant thoughts. By every move where I have to decide between two candidates I ask myself "can I decide th...

Lately I have experimented a acquisition of a database of 178 high rated tactics. I even added to this: if this doesn't work, I'm prepaired to admit that adult chess improvement is not so easy as I thought. So what is the status? My recall of the database was 100% in After two months hiatus I decided to test the recall of the positions. It turned out that my recall was about 72%. With very little repetition I could improve that to 100% again. When I stored the problems the first time in my memory, I focussed on storing the critical elements as diagrams. When recalling the positions now, it turns out that about 60% I remember as move sequences, while 40% are rememberred as geometrical patterns. The patterns in the form of diagrams show transfer to my actual OTB games, while move sequences are downright useless. So tactical sharpness has reentered my OTB games again, but not to the extend that my rating rises to 2000. This means that I'm now obliged to announce officia...

In reference to don't DIY I hired a chess coach to analyse my games and to give advice. While I was analysing my games as preparation  I realized that most of my games spill points due to time trouble. I thought that I had already passed that station. The reason I was wrong about this can only be explained if you know where I come from. When my opening repertoire consisted of gambits solely, my average game length was 21 moves. A game length of  >30 was extremely rare. As gambit player you have to "make" the game and decide the games by tactics, preferably. I was always in extreme++ time trouble. I often had to accept a draw  in better position against lower rated opponents due to time trouble or I simply blundered the game away. When I replaced my gambit repertoire by positional openings, my average game length increased to 30. Since I no longer was forced to make the game, I had much less time trouble and a lot of the spilling of points stopped. My rating increased t...

Usually after the opening and the first half of the middlegame my position is ok. But from there on things all too often go downhill rapidly. Either because I try to work miracles in a non tactical position and end up in time trouble, or I simple play with no plan at all. To fix this problem, I started to analyze my own games. As you can see in my previous post. But I soon realized that my own games lack something. Certain things simply cannot be learned by studying your own games with the aid of a chess engine. And so I decided to study positions from grandmastergames. The first few books from Buckley, Larsen, Yakovlev, Polgar and Dvoretsky were very disappointing. The positions in those books are not computer checked. If Houdini finds 15 better moves than the move proposed by the author, and the difference is >0.30 points, it is too hard to keep your faith in that you are on the right track. And in these times no author has an excuse to not check his analysis by computer. Lucki...

Due to the acquisition of a database with 178 diagrams from high rated problems in memory my OTB tactical vision has become pretty sharp again. Time to take the next step. We talked a lot about relevance of chess positions and improving the speed of finding the moves. A position is relevant when the chances that you encounter it in your own games are high. From this perspective it is logical to keep score of the time you need per move in an OTB game. The moves which costs an unreasonable amount of time indicate the positions where you can gain the most improvement in speed. This is an old idea of mine which I have never put into practice since my tactical ability had to be sharpened first. I almost forgot about this until a conversation with mr. Z about my losses the past year and a half. Yesterday at the club I had the chance to put it into practice. This position took me 21 minutes to decide upon a move: Black to move. What on earth have I been doing those 21 minutes? I'm ...