been a couple weeks since the last update - haven't done much - finished a few more games in Chernov's logical chess book. Starting to get a little tedious but I will finish it. I may be close to 1380 now - sort of an up and down week.

On a totally unrelated note I grabbed a copy of Informant's best 1000 games (the top 10 from each issue up till now) - pretty entertaining and I MAY end up grabbing all the informants on CD just for the hell of it - (birthday coming up) - I just like the high level games and annotations and I did the first 10 from '66, which included about three fights between Spassky and Petrosian.

I play to finish Logical Chess and move on to Amateur's mind - I was going to study endgames but have decided to spend a bit more time in tactics since there's great need for improvement there. (using polgar's book on chess tactics for champions - I try to do a few before bed each night) - However I also am going to be spending a lot of time this month finishing an album and getting ready for a show - so probably less formal study though I'll try to keep a game or two in as I desire -

really liked this one - was pretty tight but I got a passed pawn and had the common sense to figure out how and when to push and what the effect should be -



rb

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say I'm a Class C player

My slow ratings for correspondence and long games is 1500 - my USCF is 1400's (though for some reason it didn't update offically in the Sept. supplement) - and I've recently set new highs on the playchess server, getting up to the low 1400's there as well - in addition my win rate is going up and so is the rating of my average opponent - (whew) but damn those 1100's with their tricky ass openings - LOL

Finished Logical Chess move by move - and am currently going quickly thru "The Art of the Checkmate" which is interesting converting back to ol' descriptive and then back to algebraic, but I'm grateful for the mates - finally got a grip on Legal's anyways. -Still plan on more tactics/endgames training but I sorta stalled early in Polgar's and Pandolfini's books - will get back to it I'm sure.

but kinda nice to be seeing progress from the ol' 1100/1200 days

RB

if slow and steady wins the race, I'm getting there - had another draw vs an 1800 player that I could win any other night when I'm not crushed by adrenaline, another win vs a 1600 player, and about every week I hit a new peak of 10-12 points on playchess for my 15 min. ratings (around 1450 right now) - and I'm playing some excellent chess -

I am working on Jeremy Silman's "The Amateur's Mind" and for heck's sake, inputting Chess Informant's 1000 best of the best games into a database for who knows what in the future - (plan to annotate them and then compare to the informant's annotations perhaps) - I finished Logical Chess move by move and am now going to go to Chess - The art of logical thinking by Macdonald (a next step as recommended by heisman) - some more modern games there and a bit more past amateur stage -

when I see a position where there is a resignation and it's one I've been working on with my PC I tend to fire up Fritz and let it try to finish the endgame - figure this is good endgame experience since Fritz after 5s. will rarely ever make a game blunder - sometimes I blow it and rewind to where I blew it and sometimes I cheat with the engine, but getting good endgame experience -

learning to put rooks behind passed pawns and running pawns - using imbalances better - just trying to work on my strategic thinking and I think Silman's book is a good start for that -

RB

while it's not a big deal, I finally got my first Legall's Mate -



what's interesting is I thought I saw it around move 6, and played Nc3. Then when I came back a day or two later I had FORGOTTEN my plan and thought I had hung a pawn and when I rewatched, I realized I had set up the trap if need be, so I gave it a shot and programmed in the last two moves conditional - today I have a checkmate.

This is less about being tricky for me and more about spotting the tactic/pattern as learned thru "The Art of The Checkmate" - kewl

RB

finished Silman's book - blew almost every practice exercise at the end - if it asked "is 9. h4 good here?" - I'd work out every reason why I thought it would be and then in my gut said no because my instincts were almost always wrong - LOL -

I'm picking up some stuff - played a game vs mschosting where I realized a certain move would trade a good bishop (his) for a bad one (mine) but he was distracted with work

My heart is telling me tactics and endgames and I probably will, but at the same time I'm just not interested in study right now - I'm hanging WAY too many pieces again and an overall sight of the board needs to be worked on - to that end I'm just gonna play a bunch of games myself and replays - I do have Jesus' 100 endgames you must know - but right now I'm more interested in replaying games and trying to spot the best move without hanging pieces then I am in reading another strategy/tactics/endgame book right now. If I read a book it'll be game replays/collections.

I'm considering totally flipping my opening repertoire as well - as black I'd play QGD vs d4 (as opposed to KID) - and I'm considering Caro-Kann vs e4 - the reason being Silman recommends them, and I just want to change up my games - maybe fire up the scotch gambit again as opposed to dry scotch with e4 when I play it, and I need a good d4 system for white somehow. I've just been 95% Scotch/Pirc/KID for so long it's starting to wear me down, so I am hoping to use a different opening for my next 10 games unless I see a Sicilian, at which point I may go back to KIA. This will probably take the appearance of playing 6 moves - blowing the 7th, looking to see how not to do it and going from there (that's how I picked up the Caro-Kann Exchange variation as white - LOL)

I just want to change things up - I'm 1350 again anyways, so I've got nothing to lose - but mostly I'd like to do some replays - maybe Kasparov's Great Predecessors though some of the commentary on there is tough to play thru.

Also thinking I'll use two boards and play live as opposed to on the PC - not liking my PC very much right now - would rather play on/look at a live board again.

RB

Hey, whiskeytown ^^
I post it everywhere I can (shame on me) so you probably have seen the recommendation elsewhere but -just in case you didnt ^^: If you are looking for commented games
John Nunn "Understanding chess move by move" is awesome ! (There are actually 2 books..the one mentioned and the other "Grandmaster chess move by move", which is not that good as the "Understanding"-one imho). I agree with you that Kasparovs "My Great..." is rather tough but John Nunn's is pretty well done (really explaing every! move).

It was not work you owned me



probably games collections like best games of Tal Fischer or Alenkhine would be a good reading (I wish I would read any of those lol)

just a quick update -

I'm on week 2 of CT-ART training (it's a DVD with about 1200 tactics positions) - although I've been doing the CTS server a lot, the memorization of positions isn't coming to me and I'm under too much time pressure so i'm flubbing - whereas with CT-ART I'm taking 5 minutes a move if need be - sorta trying that rehashing the problems 7 times over several weeks a la "De La Maza" in getting 400 points in 400 days - (I know - far fetched, but until I get to 1800, tactics should be my only real concern - that and not hanging pieces) -

so it's tactics, tactics, tactics - whoo hoo?

RB

Are you using a specfic regime with ct-art or ? I ask because I just started using it and I only found one recommended structure for using it. You canf ind the link in my journal if your interested.

I'm going to be going thru the problems 7 times, incrementing the number I do and the path from easy to hard -

a rough idea can be found here - http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles150.pdf - his book maps it out a bit more closely but truth be told, I'm not a big fan of it as a whole - the articles cover most of it and it's filler - http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles150.pdf

should work ok for me - last couple weeks will have a lot of problems, but the idea is by then to have recognition take over calculation a bit -

that's really what I need - recognition

RB

Yea Ive run across his book a few times. I havent found any good reviews of it in the chess world. Not to mention he isnt a quality player himself plus the book just reminds me of the infomercials on late tv advertising how to get rich selling real estate part-time or something.

well, too late - bought it - LOL - (used, I wish) - but the idea is sound - since anyone under 1800 should be concentrating on tactics anyways, and just playing on CTS isn't improving my visual recognition of tactical patterns -

can't hurt to go thru CT-ART several times anyways thru problems of increasing difficulty

RB

Well, I started off with a steady rating in the 1200's and have gotten up to an average of about 1400 this year mostly just reading and playing - I plan to make a more diciplined study this year with the plan to put 10 hrs/week into the game -

I need variety to keep my brain fresh - I'm going with Silman's course as discussed in our interview -

Endgames - just as far as my rating goes in Silman's endgame course
Tactical puzzles/ideas - 15% - (not counting CTS/Chesstempo where I'm not as serious as I am on the paper stuff)
Study of Positional/Strategic - 15%
Analyzing Master games - 30%
Analyzing my own games more closely - 30% - (big doh on this one I'm usually fairly lax - esp. in the Gameknot games I play like correspondence - )
Openings - 10% -

10 hrs a week should break that down ok - and I'll play when I want to play but try to get a few games in a week

My Chessbase is 1465 (when I started this year) - USCF about 1500 - gonna shoot for 200 more points - I want to focus on Tactics a lot more as suggested but I am just not memorizing the patterns, so I need another plan for that - I'm better, but not top notch yet - RB