Hi, I'm Hiddie, I thought I'd make this journal so I could keep track of my improvement. Looks like fun.
Think I made a journal before, but after that, I went on a long chess break for a couple of months and lost track.
Guess once you start playing, no one can escape the beautiful game of chess

I'll try to update my journal at least once a week.

So today, I made a new Playchess account. I won the first three games easily and got my first rating of 1700+ (not that I thought I could keep that up) The fourth game I lost to a 1560. During the game I noticed that I had missed a nice move a move earlier. Except for that, he just outplayed me. I decided not to analyze any games today because I was playing against weaker players (I didn't have a rating yet) My rating went back to 1600+

Then I decided to play another game, just because I hadn't analyzed any games yet and I had some time left. I was caught up in a sicilian dragon from the black side. I was completely winning but had about 105 seconds on the clock. I was calculating some variations and then someone starts screaming my name and I lose my concentration and start making mistakes. Next thing I know I'm in a drawn rook endgame with some left pawns on the board and with 7 seconds on the clock. Obviously he flags me. I'm pissed as a ******F!@#$% now. I can't stand it when something like that happens.

The other problem is there building some stuff next to me, and the noise is really annoying while playing.

My rating is slightly over 1500 now.
I'm not in the mood to play, but I will play a few games anyway. Just so I can get back up a bit.

The tactics are going great, it's just that I'm having trouble finding the solutions to a few problems.
I'm halfway through my book and when I'm finished in a couple of weeks I'll return to the tactics I didn't find at the time.

I would recommend analyzing all your games played at a time control over 15 min, and also to look up your opening lines in your blitz games. The idea of analysis in my opinion is to understand where BOTH sides went wrong, not only tactically, but strategically as well. Often I find that I or my opponent may be using a new system that they aren't fully in control of yet, I do this often in blitz, and frequently make pawn moves that create weaknesses or aren't in keeping with the theme of the opening/defense, etc. Also, by analyzing games you play against weaker opponents, you can reinforce the ideas you used to exploit a weak move played by your opponent, so that if a stronger opponent makes a similar mistake in the future, you can think to yourself 'Hmm, I remember a 1300 made a move like that once, and I was able to push my F pawn and sacrifice a knight on g6 for a great attack' or whatever etc. I guess I think that all games are learning opportunities. Nice to see new faces as always!

I agree with JWhis regarding game analysis, anything longer than 10-15min and you have a good look at it. I suggest you check out correspondence chess which is basically a long OTB game where you can treat every position as an exercise and spend 10-15min on it

Thanks for the comments and recommendations.

I was doing alright on my training schedule, except for the last three days which have been a mess because of travelling.

I have improved slightly since I started my journal (well, in my blitz that is).
I played like 20 blitz games and it's very easy to keep my rating above 1500. It's between 1520-1550 now.
Looking up all the games has really helped me.

Because of some different circumstances I'm going to have to make a new training schedule.

As you may know I'm playing in the CV.TV tournament! So I won't be posting games untill that tournament is over so people can't prepare againt me.
I´m also going to try to play a local tournament or play at the local chess club.

edit:

*New Temporary Training Schedule* (for 6 weeks)
-Do at least 1 page of tactics from the workbook or work through Silman's Endgame Course, 5 days a week (30-45 minutes)
-Play two 10 minute + 10 sec increment games on FICS and analyze/annotate them, 5 days a week (60-80 minutes)
-Do some preparation on my opponent for the CV.TV tournament, once a week (1 hour)

I also have Silman's endgame book and I am thinking of doing what you are. As in hour tactics a day then studying through the endgame book. How has it been working for you? Anyway keep it up and your journal I always enjoy reading people's.

EnovyT

I very much liked the comment by Pobble ( I think ) made on analysing games. He said that one would be MUCH better of after playing one game just stick with it like for a month. Now for a 10min game that's probably not what he meant and in general this doesn't sound like a lot of fun but my point is that I think you would benefit more playing less games per day ( say 1 ) and then stick with it for the day

It's only temporary because I'm practing for the CV.TV tourney.
I'm also going to play a real tournament with slow time controls next week.
So I will have to put my training/studying on a halt then and only focus on playing games and analyzing them.
Next to that I will also be visiting the local chess club once a week for some blitz (and after the summer for real games)

I have read and mastered Silman's Endgame Course up to class D.
Most of it was real easy for me, but it was still a good read and nice to have that kind of basic overview on the endgame.
I'm hoping to finish class C and to finish the endgame puzzles in my workbook before the tournament starts.
I have finished around 300 out of 500 tactics in my workbook.

My internet connection isn't that great here, so I can only play games when it's working properly.
I don't want to risk any losses on disconnects.
My blitz rating is still the same because I haven't played any games since my training schedule change.
My 10 min + 10 sec games are going well and I haven't lost any of them.
That means my slow time control rating is 1800+ and I'm hoping I can keep that up.

I haven't been playing seriously on FICS because a disconnect is a loss there.
I only played a few blitz games (which I lost to disconnections) so I could choose a comfortable board/pieces/interface etc.

The only problem I'm having is that I find myself to lazy to analyze my game and instead play another game and not analyze some of my games at all

Well, that is all!

Same here, although longer games tend to do the trick

Whoohoo!
I just finished Silman's Endgame Course up to class C and also my tactics workbook is nearly 70% completed.

I haven't been playing any games online because of a bad internet connection.
That doesn't matter that much because a tournament is coming up.

I played 3 rapid games in the club this week and got a nice lesson with some exercises by a strong player.

I just want to take a quick look at my openings before the tournament starts.
Obviously because of the tournament I'll have to quit studying chess and only focus on playing my tournament games.

I've already been looking at some new study material in case I finish my tactics workbook a lot faster than I expected.
Hope to set some new goals and a new training schedule when I'm done with everything.

Hiddie

Hi everyone, haven't posted it in a while.
Just played a tournament and had a decent result.
I have lots of plans for my chess study and I hope your comments on them can be useful.

First, I'm going to analyze and annotate all my recent games and some older games that might still be useful.
I'm going to put them in a database and I'll add all the games I play in the future.
I'm also going to post some of the games in video or replayer form.
I have never really taken the time to analyze my games, but I'm expecting to learn a lot from it.
I'm basically going to go through the games on a board and think at each move, try to find plans and exploit weaknesses and find combinations.
Once I've done that I'm going to move the pieces a bit and then repeat until the game is finished.
After I'm done with that I'll look up the opening and analyze the game with a stronger player if I can find one, and after that or if I can't find a stronger player with an engine.

Second I'm going to be posting a list with some of my biggest weaknesses and I'm hoping to get advice from you guys on how to improve on them.

Also I've been making a list of chess books and material I'll be using in the future.
I'm going to try to do one or two at a time and then work through them and move on to the next item.
All subjects are covered except for opening books. I'm not planning on doing those until I get better.
For now, I think it's enough to check the databases with each game I play.
I have a pretty solid understanding of chess openings for my level of play and they're one of my stronger points too.

Fourth, I'm going to play one long game online a few times a week and analyze it.

Fifth, I'm going to change my opening repetoire and will be posting an overview of all the openings I'm playing and all the wholes in my repetoire that I can fill up.

As I posted earlier, I finished Silman's Endgame Course up to class C and my list of goals says that I'm going to do class B too.
However, I think I don't have that much use for that now, so I will be picking that up later.

I dropped out of the CV.TV tournament because of a bad internet connection, but I hope I can join the next one.
And when the next TL comes around I'm hoping too join that one too.
I've changed chess servers and so far FICS and channel 226 has been great.

After I'm done with everything I'm hoping to make a new training schedule and stick with that for a long, long, long time.

Hope to give you a major update with all the details later


, Hiddie

Hey all,

I haven't been very active on here, but I've been reading and watching some.
And I think I should comment more and thank people for the videos.

I kinda figured out that schedules don't really work me for me, so I've quit that.
I just play whenever I feel like it and if I have time watch some videos and so far it has worked for me. I don't really do any tactics/analysis or study of any sort.
But if I really want to get better, I should study. In the longterm it will be good for my chess.

I've been gaining in strength and I'm close to that 1800. Sinces joining this site I've increased at least 500 or more rating points.

Since I really like the playing aspect of chess (duh ) I signed up for the FICS teamleague. Over the next few days I'm going to try to play some more online. Usually I've got a problem that I play too much in one sitting and kinda lose my sharpness after a while. So I'm going to give myself a rule not to play more than five (blitz) games at once and see how that goes. For the FICS teamleauge I'm going to have to build a rating with slower games in the next two weeks.

Anyone any suggestions on how to start studying again and how much? I don't want to do too much and burn myself out. That happens a lot with chess.

My advice is to study as much as you want (and no more) of whatever interests you at the moment. Hard to do too much and burn out following that rule -- and it's conducive to learning too...

Thnx for the advice/heads-up Wildman
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Hi there

Notice I updated my first post. Hopefully I will be able to post an update each week.

I'm doing quite well on my long term goals. The 1800 bar doesn't seem far away anymore, and I think I'm going to make it.
The 1600 blitz mark is still far away since I switched servers from Playchess to FICS and the ratings are slightly lower on FICS.
I also started doing tactics on Chess Tactics Server very recently. I tried it almost a year back and didn't like it then, but I do now.

A new thing I will be trying is going through high-level games with annotations. When I watch videos by the masters here I notice that a lot of times they refer to other games that they know when they recognize similarity's. I have the Grandmaster program which has lots of annotated games, but I feel like the annotations are a bit light. If anyone knows some good sources for games with annotations, please tell me. In the meanwhile, I think I have a few books with games lying around here, hopefully they will be of use.

Next to CTS, I have this book with a lot more difficult problems (it takes longer to solve), but it's also developed to train pattern recognition. It's the follow up to the first book I finished. I'm going to try to finish it in 6 months.

As for my openings, I've decided to buy Chess Openings for Black, Explained and I will be basing my black repertoire around that book. There is this program called Chess Position Trainer. And it allows you to train your openings. I'm going to use this program, but first I need to collect a pgn file of all the lines and variations I'm going to play. I'm going to do that over the next 6 months.

I will be playing a slow game OTB almost each week. And since I also want to join the FICS teamleague, I'm going to try to play a few fast standard games to just get the required amount of games. I won't be taking it very seriously though. Since the lower the rating, the lower the team average.

Hey hiddie,

I have a good book I got for like 6 bucks at Borders, called mammoth book of 112 greatest chess games, or something like that. It has 112 games and Mammoth in the title, so you could find it on your own. They are all classic games and well annotated with comments/concepts as well as variations. Indices in the back sort by opening, and player. Hope that helps. Glad you want to play teamleague, I am looking forward to it!

JWhis