Temposchlucker

 The following rant is a summary of my experiences of the past 1.5 years and especially the last tournament. It might sound a bit vague because it is partly based on my gut feelings, and not hindered by common beliefs. Since it sketches a realistic view of what might be needed to improve in the following years, I think it is useful anyway. There are five areas of improvement. Technique tactics positional play Strategy endgame opening king assault From these five areas, I have only developed tactics to a certain degree. To what degree? Ad tactics I have absorbed: 389 mates 208 knight moves 122 other tactics These numbers are problems. One problem is inhabited by 3 patterns, at average. I estimate that I have absorbed 36% of the tactics that are necessary to become the tactical wizard we all want to be. Currently, the absorption of tactical patterns has as effect that my my view changes from pieces to the cooperation of pieces.  It turns out that the PoPLoAFun system is especial...

 One of the three areas where I suck is the endgame. Since I manage to screw up positions where I'm a piece ahead, I suppose that this is the area where I can gain the most with a little effort. This position came from round 5 in the tournament: Black to move 8/8/p7/PpKnk3/1P6/6P1/8/8 b - b3 0 37 I'm black, a piece ahead, and totally clueless. I was lucky to draw this position. After the game, my 14 year old opponent showed me an easy way to win for black: 37. ... Nxb4. I felt pretty silly. Since the resulting position is familiar to me. But we already noted long ago that being familiar is not enough, we need absorption. I have the feeling that the endgame is about a finite amount of scenarios, which are in general not rocket science, but can be hard to SEE when you haven't ABSORBED them. And since we are talking about LONG lines, you can't visualize them by just being familiar with the scenarios. You can't SEE them without having them absorbed before. This position...

 I have been immersed in chess the past 10 days. I scored 4 points out of 9, which is less than I expected. But for the first time in 25 years, not the method to improve was under scrutiny, but the areas in which the method can be applied. It turned out that there are 3 areas where I fail: opening endgame king side attack I didn't apply my method to these three areas, so in fact it is quite logical that these areas caused the loss of points. The third area came as a surprise to me. Which in itself is very surprising. The past time I have been busy with studying what is happening after the middlegame and before the final blow to the king. The "Vukovic" area, so to speak. And I noticed that this area is reigned by the LoA landscape (lines of attack). I didn't realize that just gathering the knowledge isn't enough by far to master this area. A stupid thing to miss, since it is very logical, but hey, that is what these tournaments or for. It was the clock which put me...

 Robert helped me to identify the things that caused me trouble in two of my games. It turns out that I screwed up in the following cases: Opening (I remember ideas, but mix them from different openings) Endgame, especially rook endings and pawn endings (extended Trebuchet) Bishop pair (don't know how to handle them without losing them) Knight moves (especially those pesky beasts from the enemy) The good news is that since a few weeks I can fully concentrate on the holes in my bucket, now the method to acquire skill is clear and somewhat definite. The next step is to prepare the right problem sets in order to address the problems. At tactics I'm already making a steady progress, albeit I have to face the following problems: A steady decline in rating points since 2008 of about 100-150 points A decrease in cognitive abilities due to my illness An increase in tactical ability in people under 40 due to daily training Ad point 3: intensive first time exposure to tactics leads to an...

 Now I have a method to transform knowledge into skill, it stands to reason that I have a closer look at in which areas I can use the method as well, beyond the obvious. The obvious areas are: Opening Middlegame Endgame Tactics Positional Strategy And I have installed a daily training regimen for every obvious area already. Observations of my own games, and the playing of grandmasters have shown me there is another area as well, though. Every move has its own logic. That logic is often very trivial, since that logic is often why we move a piece in the first place. To bring a piece out, to protect a pawn, to restrain an opponent's piece et cetera. What I noticed though, is that not all simple logic is  seen by system 1. Not all simple knowledge is transformed into skill. It is more like learning a second language, where you often need to use a dictionary or have to google how an expression is used. The latest discovery is the change in order during training. For the actual skil...

  At least I have made a start with solving the opening conundrum. As usual, to find a beginning is the most difficult part. I have adopted the Chessable course   My first opening repertoire for black  from GM Jon Ludvig Hammer. That should be a ridiculous idea, because that course is aiming at 1000-1300 rating. Yet it isn't so ridiculous at all. I played 4 games with it after studying it for a few days. Two wins, two draws. The opening has one simple goal, getting you safe to the middlegame without falling for an opening trap. The method is simple: Put a stake in the center with e6 d5 Develop your kingside pieces Nf6 and Be7 Castle. Often you are castled on move 5 Fianchetto your light squared bishop Bb7 Nbd7 Attack the center with c5 Usually your side of the board looks something like White to move r2q1rk1/pb1nbppp/1p2pn2/2pp2B1/2PP4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R4RK1 w - c6 0 10 The first thing I noticed is that the opening stage is about the LoAs (lines of attack) too. I alrea...

 My main focal point for the next tournament will be the openings. I don't feel comfortable in many of my openings when an opponent deviates early OR I forgot the variation. While I have come to grips with the middlegame, I clearly have not solved the conundrum of the opening stage. Because 80% of my opponents deviate early, either because they forgot their book line too OR they have chosen some obscure variation OR they are just like me and have no idea what they are doing, the frequency of occurrence of my book lines is too low to get enough training in them. In general, with white I'm doing better than with black. I have found a band-aid for black though with the Chessable course  My first opening repertoire for black  from GM Jon Ludvig Hammer. Which is easy to learn and provides an answer for all early move deviations. While training this new repertoire, I'm quite aware of what exactly goes wrong with my usual approach. Have a look at the following position: Diagram ...