Making another big shift in my 'training' (loosely using that term) program. Getting back into more tactics practice, and will be playing 1. d4 as white exclusively for the next few months.

Finally broke 2000 on chesstempo! Only have to gain 89 more spots on the ranking to reach my ultimate goal of being on the first page (aka top 200)

User: jwhis

Total Solving Time: 45 Hours (excluding outliers)

Star Ratings Made:0
Comments Made:133
Tags Added:4

Stats for standard tactics
Rating: 2005.7 (RD: 61.95) (Best Active Rating: 2005 Worst Active Rating: 1582)
Active Rank: 289/5580 (Better than: 94.84% Best Active: 304 Worst Active: 1554)
Problems Done: 1618 (Correct: 1073 Failed: 545)
Percentage correct: 66.32%

Busted out a few tactics problems. Pretty tired tonite and not seeing clearly, but got the ideas on all the problems, a few missed response moves.

User: jwhis

Total Solving Time: 45.9 Hours (excluding outliers)

Star Ratings Made:0
Comments Made:135
Tags Added:4

Stats for standard tactics
Rating: 2005.6 (RD: 48.98) (Best Active Rating: 2015 Worst Active Rating: 1582)
Active Rank: 284/5583 (Better than: 94.93% Best Active: 260 Worst Active: 1554)
Problems Done: 1631 (Correct: 1082 Failed: 549)
Percentage correct: 66.34%

Been sick all week with strep. I spent almost the entire month of march sick in some way or another. It really sucks. My chess is now suffering badly due to the fuzzy head and hard time thinking. My tactics are crashing, my blitz game is really bad, and I lost a standard game too that I was positionally much stronger in, with a bad f-pawn move (go figure). Really frustrated today. I can't wait to get my clarity back in my calculations and my pattern recognition is really sucking hard lately.

Well it'll just be temporary. Soon you'll get over it and play better than ever. Losing streaks are impossible to avoid, we've all been there

Did some tactics, and summarily lost over 110 pts. I am all the way back in the 1800s, and it is just pissing me off to no end. The problem is that instead of immediately zeroing in on the winning move and just struggling with the calculation, like I usually do, I am seeing like a million different candidate moves and calculating a lot of long variations and seeing better it seems like, but I am missing the really obvious stuff, and the winning moves as well. It is really annoying. Hopefully when this stupid phase of idiocy ends, I'll make another plateau, but it just feels like it might be a while this time. I haven't had any time for tactics training for the past month, and it is killing my game.


Total Solving Time: 52.8 Hours (excluding outliers)

Star Ratings Made:0
Comments Made:135
Tags Added:2

Stats for standard tactics
Rating: 1896 (RD: 41.76) (Best Active Rating: 2015 Worst Active Rating: 1582)
Active Rank: 658/5584 (Better than: 88.23% Best Active: 260 Worst Active: 1554)
Problems Done: 1734 (Correct: 1139 Failed: 595)
Percentage correct: 65.69%

Finished my last TL regular season game today. Hopefully we make finals. My record was

3 wins, 1 win by forfeit, and 2 losses, so 4-2 overall. I should have won one of those losses. It seems like I lost a lot more. Maybe I just am stuck on that one game in my mind. Who knows? Started the season really strong, but I went into a slump midway which I am still working through. Overall, another good experience, I did better this time around of using time on the clock, and the teammates were pretty good about getting their games scheduled and not giving me a heart attack, except for the round where nobody contacted their opps till about 20 min before the deadline!

Here are my player reports from SCID on my TL games:

As White


Player Report


Player: "Whis" with the White pieces (4 games)
Database: WhisTL.pgn (6 games)
Generated by Scid 4.2.2, 2010.05.20

1. Statistics and History

1.1 Statistics

Games 1-0 =-= 0-1 Score
-----------------------------------------------------------
All report games 4 2 0 2 50.0%
-----------------------------------------------------------

1.2 Oldest games

1: 1-0(40) Whis 1824 - jpoblano 1641, FICS 2010.04.18 [1]
2: 0-1(25) Whis 1834 - stevelco 1716, FICS 2010.04.26 [2]
3: 1-0(68) Whis 1808 - arunsingh 1779, FICS 2010.04.29 [4]
4: 0-1(34) Whis 1778 - alexborz 1656, FICS 2010.05.15 [3]

1.3 Newest games

1: 0-1(34) Whis 1778 - alexborz 1656, FICS 2010.05.15 [3]
2: 1-0(68) Whis 1808 - arunsingh 1779, FICS 2010.04.29 [4]
3: 0-1(25) Whis 1834 - stevelco 1716, FICS 2010.04.26 [2]
4: 1-0(40) Whis 1824 - jpoblano 1641, FICS 2010.04.18 [1]

1.4 Most frequent opponents

1: 1 2010 0% 1779 arunsingh [4]
2: 1 2010 100% 1716 stevelco [2]
3: 1 2010 100% 1656 alexborz [3]
4: 1 2010 0% 1641 jpoblano [1]

1.5 Result lengths and frequencies

Score Game length Frequency
1-0 =-= 0-1 1-0 =-= 0-1
Report games 50.0% 54 0 29 50.0% 0.0% 50.0%
All games 33.3% 54 0 28 33.3% 0.0% 66.6%

2. Ratings and Performance

2.1 Average ratings and performance

White rating: 1811 (4 games); White performance: 1698 (50% vs 1698)
Black rating: 1698 (4 games); Black performance: 1811 (50% vs 1811)

2.2 Games with highest average rating

1: 1-0(68) Whis 1808 - arunsingh 1779, FICS 2010 [4]
2: 0-1(25) Whis 1834 - stevelco 1716, FICS 2010 [2]
3: 1-0(40) Whis 1824 - jpoblano 1641, FICS 2010 [1]
4: 0-1(34) Whis 1778 - alexborz 1656, FICS 2010 [3]

3. Moves and Themes

3.1 Openings

1: C60-C69 1 0%
2: C90-C99 1 100%
3: D10-D19 1 0%
4: D30-D39 1 100%

3.2 Positional Themes

Frequency of themes in the first 20 moves of each game:
Same-side castling: 75% White Isolated Queen Pawn: 0%
Opposite castling: 0% Black Isolated Queen Pawn: 25%
Kingside pawn storm: 25% White Pawn on 5/6/7th rank: 75%
Queens exchanged: 50% Black Pawn on 2/3/4th rank: 25%
Only one side has Bishop pair: 25% Open c/d/e file: 50%

3.3 Endgames

Material at the end of each game:
P BN R R,BN Q Q,BN Q,R Q,R,BN
Report games 25% 0% 25% 50% 0% 0% 0% 0%
All games 17% 0% 17% 50% 0% 0% 0% 17%

4. Theory Table

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+2 =0 -2 (2/4: 50%)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 d4 c4 Nc3 Nf3 e3 Bd3 OO cd5 1:
Nf6 e6 d5 Be7 OO c5 Nc6 ed5[1] 100%

2 ... c4 Nc3 Nf3 a4 Ne5 f3 Nc4 1:
d5 c6 Nf6 dc4 Bg4 Bh5 Nfd7 Nb6[2] 0%

3 e4 Nf3 Bb5 c3 Ba4 Bc2 d4 cd4 1:
e5 Nc6 Bc5 a6 b5 Nge7 ed4 Bb4[3] 0%

4 ... ... ... Ba4 OO Re1 Bb3 c3 1:
... ... a6 Nf6 Be7 b5 OO d6[4] 100%

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[1] 9.dxc5 Bxc5 1-0(40) Whis 1824 - jpoblano 1641, FICS 2010.

[2] 9.e4 Nxc4 0-1(25) Whis 1834 - stevelco 1716, FICS 2010.

[3] 9.Nbd2 d5 0-1(34) Whis 1778 - alexborz 1656, FICS 2010.

[4] 9.h3 Na5 1-0(68) Whis 1808 - arunsingh 1779, FICS 2010.


As Black

Player Report


Player: "Whis" with the Black pieces (2 games)
Database: WhisTL.pgn (6 games)
Generated by Scid 4.2.2, 2010.05.20

1. Statistics and History

1.1 Statistics

Games 1-0 =-= 0-1 Score
-----------------------------------------------------------
All report games 2 0 0 2 0.0%
-----------------------------------------------------------

1.2 Oldest games

1: 0-1(30) LLIAMAH 1705 - Whis 1799, FICS 2010.04.11 [2]
2: 0-1(24) DarkKing 1702 - Whis 1754, FICS 2010.05.20 [1]

1.3 Newest games

1: 0-1(24) DarkKing 1702 - Whis 1754, FICS 2010.05.20 [1]
2: 0-1(30) LLIAMAH 1705 - Whis 1799, FICS 2010.04.11 [2]

1.4 Most frequent opponents

1: 1 2010 0% 1705 LLIAMAH [2]
2: 1 2010 0% 1702 DarkKing [1]

1.5 Result lengths and frequencies

Score Game length Frequency
1-0 =-= 0-1 1-0 =-= 0-1
Report games 0.0% 0 0 27 0.0% 0.0% 100.0%
All games 33.3% 54 0 28 33.3% 0.0% 66.6%

2. Ratings and Performance

2.1 Average ratings and performance

White rating: 1704 (2 games); White performance: 778 (0% vs 1777)
Black rating: 1777 (2 games); Black performance: 2703 (100% vs 1704)

2.2 Games with highest average rating

1: 0-1(30) LLIAMAH 1705 - Whis 1799, FICS 2010 [2]
2: 0-1(24) DarkKing 1702 - Whis 1754, FICS 2010 [1]

3. Moves and Themes

3.1 Openings

1: C40-C49 1 0%
2: C50-C59 1 0%

3.2 Positional Themes

Frequency of themes in the first 20 moves of each game:
Same-side castling: 100% White Isolated Queen Pawn: 0%
Opposite castling: 0% Black Isolated Queen Pawn: 0%
Kingside pawn storm: 50% White Pawn on 5/6/7th rank: 50%
Queens exchanged: 50% Black Pawn on 2/3/4th rank: 0%
Only one side has Bishop pair: 0% Open c/d/e file: 100%

3.3 Endgames

Material at the end of each game:
P BN R R,BN Q Q,BN Q,R Q,R,BN
Report games 0% 0% 0% 50% 0% 0% 0% 50%
All games 17% 0% 17% 50% 0% 0% 0% 17%

4. Theory Table

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+0 =0 -2 (0/2: 0%)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 e4 Nf3 d4 Nd4 Bc4 OO Re1 Bb3 1:
e5 Nc6 ed4 Nf6 Ne4 Be7 Nd6 Nd4[1] 0%

2 ... ... ... ... Nc6 e5 Qe2 c4 1:
... ... ... ... bc6 Qe7 Nd5 Ba6[2] 0%

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[1] 9.Qxd4 OO 0-1(24) DarkKing 1702 - Whis 1754, FICS 2010.

[2] 9.Qe4 Nb6 0-1(30) LLIAMAH 1705 - Whis 1799, FICS 2010.

I don't get it. I am still sliding farther and farther down in my tactics practice. This is by far (3x-4x) the biggest slump I've ever had on there. I am almost to where I started. Using up a lot of time, and missing really obvious stuff, while seeing lots of pretty finesses in the incorrect lines. This is so annoying. Down from a peak of 2015 in February to 1860 in May, that's 3 months of continuous decline. Maybe my brain is just losing it all. I will mention, though that funny enough my over the board play has been very strong lately. So who knows?

User: jwhis

Total Solving Time: 53.9 Hours (excluding outliers)

Star Ratings Made:0
Comments Made:136
Tags Added:2

Stats for standard tactics
Rating: 1861 (RD: 46.36) (Best Active Rating: 2015 Worst Active Rating: 1582)
Active Rank: 824/5947 (Better than: 86.16% Best Active: 260 Worst Active: 1554)
Problems Done: 1748 (Correct: 1145 Failed: 603)
Percentage correct: 65.50%

Don't worry too much about a tactics rating. The important thing is being able to sift through a random position and find real tactics in a regular game. I've seen you get much stronger in this regard.

If anything, get some patterns down from the tactics practice - that will save you time in a game.

Rowson would probably say you need to tune your air guitar more That is to say, relax and it's probably going to get a lot better instantly. I know, that's easy to say and hard to do.

Played this game vs an expert at the club meeting on weds. Got my moves a bit out of order in the opening:



I stopped notating somewhere in here and the final position was something like this:



This is of course a total ballpark of what the actual game ended like, but he forcibly won a pawn, and I resigned. For some reason, I thought the R+P fortress that tends to work well against a queen with the king on g7 would work against 2 rooks, but I couldn't find a way to make that happen. Anyways, I'll prob not get around to annotating it, except that after the game I had an interesting moment where I learned twice in one week that I severely misjudged a position with doubled f pawns. Once in my teamleague game, I thought I was very good as white with doubled f pawns, and I lost to a caveman attack, and here I thought white was better, and didn't play Nh5 on move 12 because I had calculated that 13. f4 Nxf4 14. Bxf4 exf4 would be better for white in my mind. However, my opponent, and the engine both agree that black is a bit better there. So for some reason, I am not judging these doubled king pawn positions accurately, perhaps I am giving too much credit to whites open file in my mind and not thinking of black's counterplay. At any rate, it was a very valuable lesson, not to be timid in these types of positions. I let myself get railroaded. On the other hand, I did an excellent job in the endgame in mutual time trouble, if only I had the notations! I was down a whole rook and got reasonable counterplay, prob was a perpetual with N and R in there somewhere. and ended with R and 3 connected pawns vs 2 rooks. Unfortunately, the pawns were just not advanced enough.

I got that song in my head "All I need is a miracle... all I neeeeedd.. is a miracle" Check it out dudes:

History for Whis:
Opponent Type ECO End Date
89: + 1442 B 1002 Bertoplamus [ br 5 0] C20 Fla Wed Jun 2, 19:33 ??? 2010
90: + 1448 B 1344 carlosgw [ br 5 0] D46 Res Wed Jun 2, 19:36 ??? 2010
91: + 1779 W 1478 NightMover [ sr 15 5] B22 Res Sat Jun 5, 09:07 ??? 2010
92: + 1451 W 1217 Pelucon [ br 3 0] B18 Mat Tue Jun 8, 21:21 ??? 2010
93: + 1458 B 1395 Paligap [ br 3 0] C31 Res Tue Jun 8, 21:23 ??? 2010
94: + 1463 B 1307 Greystoke [ br 3 0] C24 Res Tue Jun 8, 21:31 ??? 2010
95: + 1468 W 1301 damilasa [ br 3 0] B21 Res Tue Jun 8, 21:34 ??? 2010
96: + 1474 B 1369 darringtonman [ br 3 0] C88 Fla Tue Jun 8, 21:41 ??? 2010
97: + 1486 W 1663 Krewger [ br 3 0] B17 Mat Tue Jun 8, 21:47 ??? 2010
98: + 1492 B 1368 Pajonal [ br 3 0] B15 Mat Tue Jun 8, 21:52 ??? 2010

Yowsa! Very nice.

So much to say, so little space (well, I guess there is infinite amount of space here!) My tournament last weekend was not good, I considered it disastrous, if not for the result 1.5/5.0 which wasn't that bad, my goal was 2.5 since I was playing in the U2000, but it was disastrous in terms of psychology. I had my first competitive collapse, and it ruined my whole experience. I went into the tournament with a real lack of confidence in my game, and allowed this to cloud my understanding of the games. I overestimated/or missed my opponents threats completely, missed opportunities on my side, played too fast in some cases, played too slow in other cases. As Waitzkin would say, this one was a real 'Investment in Loss'. I learned quite a bit about my weaknesses, especially controlling the emotions, responding after mistakes and the like. How to correct all this? Well, for starters, I am going to be working tactics problems until the cows come home, hopefully 20-30 problems per day on chesstempo. Second, I hope to find a way to replicate tournament conditions as much as possible. Probably I will do this via long games played online using a real board set up beside me. I think this will also help in seeing things over the board that I see very quickly on a 2 dimensional screen. I don't get much OTB play so it takes me a while to adapt, and even then I can feel the significant difference in pattern recognition between a screen and board. Third, reduction in blitz games. I enjoy blitz, but get caught up too easily in the addictiveness of it, and not thinking through positions well. I found myself rushing in certain points in my tourney games, especially tactical sequences. 4th, finding a way to rebound from mistakes and/or losses without becoming angry, or rushing through my next tactics problem because I missed one and want 'revenge' (As an aside, you'll see my 'fails' come in clumps not random fails), following up a blunder with a blunder, etc. I haven't heard of a clear cut way to do this, apart from just getting up and taking a walk/break whatever. Anyways,

7/13 I only got 15/31 (48.3%) problems correct - still in bad mind state.
7/14 I got 26/40 (65%) correct - but reverted to the downward spiral at the end and ruined a good session. Most misses were all back to back at the end, I missed 5/6 in the last group of problems
7/15 I got 23/29 (79.3%) correct. The misses were a bit more intermittent, thought twice I had back to back fails. Need to slow down the calculation process. I still feel really fuzzy. I can't believe how much worse I am at tactics than a few months ago. You really have to keep at this stuff constantly!

My USCF rating only dropped a bit, like 30 points, which doesn't really bother me that much. But I do need to change my attitude of being 'underrated' and even really caring about it so much. I get jealous of the older guys in the tourneys who are like 1100 or 1200 and just smiling and having a good time. That will never be me - I am far too competitive and want to be better, better, better all the time. You see this the worst in the top boards, where the FM and IMs are. They have such an inflated sense of self worth and ego it is sickening! I said hello to a relatively well known IM one morning and he just sighed and looked down and waved me away, like a king brushing off a subject or something. Nice manners! At least off the chessboard I can let it go and be fun and whatnot.

The nicest player I met at the tourney (by the way, I played kids 4/5 games!), was my round 1 opponent, who was 1848, around 12 or 13 years old, and he did a post mortem and was receptive to my ideas, instead of just 'here's your mistake' which is what you usually get. We had a good back and forth for about 30 minutes and both of us found some real interesting things in that game. I cheered him on the rest of the way, but he dropped a game later on and finished just above me in the standings if I remember.

So I guess just summarizing, it isn't technique that is holding me back in tourney play in my opinion, it is the inner workings that cloud up my ability to see clearly and assess the positions properly. I did lose all my games on a tactic, so that will definitely be the focus going forward, seeing that I made long 4 month stretch of studying Botvinnik's positional handing and neglected tactics study in the process. I did come out of 3/5 openings in good positions, 1 was a berlin, which went straight to the endgame, and 1 I just completely fell apart and dropped a piece and resigned on move 8, but we will pretend that never happened Anyways, back to life

interesting insights. I am no chess player really but I have a real hard time going back to a 3d board. I can't "see" the position as as well. I like your idea of longer games and a real board. is there a way to play on FICS without a GUI?