Carld256 that's precisely what I mean But you are misguided when you refer to tactical vision. I am doing it to learn the mechanics behind clockwork attacks, since I am already quite tactically proficient at sacrificial attacks from superior positions.

Update to the log! My rating is still hovering at 1680-1710 on Chesscube, which is pleasing. I have just set my targets for the internal season, so will share them here. Last year I scored +8 =1 -4 in Classical games, with an amazing +5 =1 -1 as White.

1.Score >90% unbeaten against players graded 120 (~1610) and below. This should preferably include no draws with White.
2.Score 70% against players graded 121-140. (1610-1770)
3.Score 60% against players graded 141-159. (1770-1922)
4.Score 50% against players graded 160 and above. (1922+)
5.Try to go unbeaten against the trio of Kelly/Rivers/Glover (three of our strongest club players, all rated about 1900) and win two games.
6.Score +2 against players like Ian and Bruce, graded roughly 1730.
7.Win 20% of Classical games by perfect play through the opening and quick kills. Try for 30% in Rapid.
8.Place in the top 3 of every tournament I enter.
9.Win the Major (U1770ish) of the County Championship or South Lakes.
10.Win the Lightning Championship by proper preparation and tactical skill.
11.Score above 60% with Black.
12.Lose no more than ONE game in classical season through huge stabbity tactical blunders.
13.Lose no game through any fingerfehler that may try to slip in.
14.Keep control of the clock in ALL games.

Well, the season has started and I have been playing only rapid games, in our local league. I learned a great deal about technique from two games against a 161/1922, when with two totally won positions, I leaked to score only 0.5, but it was fun. I also got a good position from my next game against a 141/1778, and traded into a drawn endgame with a blunder (I was in time trouble, my fault), but then got a won endgame and won on time. I have decided that this season will be a focus on tactics and endgames, given that I want to extend my ability to play with stamina in longer sessions, and to be able to gain a third chance to win any game.

I have been playing Fritz at various Rook endings culled from my own games, learning a hell of a lot already, and I am working on learning to mate with Bishop and Knight in the same manner. This may sound like an excuse, but I find it difficult to work on tactics training for any length of session, because my play is suited to deep concentration so I naturally find my raw results in random positions are quite skewed. Nevertheless, I simply want to know what percentage of ending training and tactics I should be adopting, in relation to what will come with deep annotations of every long game I play. My inclination is that for every hour of game annotation/playing I do, be it online or real games, I should do one hour of tactics, and half an hour of endgame practice: perhaps playing through possible arising endings from games I get, or simply working on the bread and butter. Any tips for more useful tactics training apart from the typical website randomised positions?

For tactics I don't think you will find a better bet that CT ART 3 which you can basically get for free at any torrent site. I have been solving it ever since I started playing chess, great stuff

I have a student! I've had someone I worked with on chess before kinda informally, as is this, but the guy used to play tournament Xiangqi, so I'm teaching him about making his tactical play stronger (he hangs pieces sometimes and whatnot), and giving him a suggested openings repertoire based on open games and stuff. In my own world, I'm playing some wonderfully strong crushing games in all openings on chesscube, my ratings in fact have stabilised around 1740 now! I lost my last game in real life, a bad game where I sinned again by not considering the statics in the end position of a variation, but I learned from the game, and realised the opening itself (Anglo-Indian/Cheb Slav setup) was a hole in my knowledge, and I am working to rectify that.

In the club rapid championship *28 games total*, I have a lead with 4.5/9, and I reason that playing all my games in itself will make me the clubhouse leader even with only about 14 points, but I aim to get about 18-20.

I have a match prospectively next Monday pending my work swapping a day, and I'm playing my student in two rapid games tomorrow night. I noticed that even when I do tactics online every day, I need to play solid proper games without much gap for ages, because on Saturday I hadn't played on cube for about a week (couldn't get on to it the night before...), and was so rusty in positional eval! However once I get the swing of things back, my evaluation skills are higher again so no worries there just usual ups and downs of a nonpro.

I've had some awesome tactically shootout wins in positions, and pulled off some remarkable swindles online by sticking at games, and this is a great confidence booster! I am trying to work on various books one by one, but find this difficult, as I am a busy fish Either way things are going great and I still hope to break 1750 on Cube soon and keep playing 1. d4 and even in rapid games in real life!

Update a year on from my original post



What a fascinating game I had yesterday!

Ironically I had been reading about material imbalances the day previous, so come the endgame which massively favoured me, I knew exactly what to do. My targets for scores this season have kinda gone down the drain, as I am now at 80% with White (including one spoiled win which became a draw against my student, who I basically mullered), but an abysmal 38% with Black :O This despite some nice winnable positions, yesterday at the eighth attempt was my first win at long time with Black this season. Shameful! I feel stronger though, because my Chesscube rating has been going above 1750 regularly, and I'm now 3/3 in the club championship with plenty of time to fit in my remaining 7 or 8 games. I stopped playing rapids, because the one was conflicting with the other, the whole thing is too large for the school year schedule anyways, so if I remain at the club next year instead of setting my own up, I'll lobby that the rapid be split into divisions.

In other news, the Northern Counties Club Cups are my hunting ground next weekend, with trips to Manchester and Liverpool, including to the former club of Nigel Short! I'm confident, because I've been doing some technical work, and my tactics are getting back to prime strength. Any comments etc on that game much appreciated

A further update reveals that the NCCU Club Cup matches were all cancelled one way or another, but I played a game which you can find in the relevant section of the forum against an 1895 at long time control, and drew despite a winning ending. I was tired

Since my disastrous form with Black earlier, I have had two more draws, one in the Slav, from a poor position early on which my usually strong opponent didn't convert, and one last night, against my long-time whipping boy Lewis. Lewis was the very first person I played in Cumbrian junior league, 11 years ago now! I've only ever lost twice to him in about 15 games, one of those was the yearly fingerfehler, one cos I was a weak player. I had a Petroff, last night, when he usually plays Lasker's 5. Qe2. He deviated and played the Main Line! I was quite proud of him actually He played it quite aggressively, but nothing came of it, and the position was very dry and equal. When he advanced c5, I thought it was wrong positionally, but as ever, concrete analysis showed his d4 pawn to be untouchable, and it eventually fizzled to a draw, leaving me on +2 =4 -4 with Black, at just 40%.

To rectify this, I have been looking at my Slav DVD, and am going through the games more, as well as planning to create a new database for every Slav I play, and annotating them very thoroughly. I am also doing this with my Vitolins Dragon weapon, and Petroff, then other openings, transferring every future and past game from Chesscube, and in real life, into them, with subvariations given separate sections. My openings with Black are putting me in danger when I don't know what I'm doing outside of book, and this needs work.

The main problem though is that since my meteoric rise to near 1800, I'm struggling to 'see' properly again, and I can only attribute this to constantly changing diet, and also simply not doing enough work on tactics. It's all well and good to solve 40 problems, but if I'm not spending enough time on calculation, I won't end up flicking back into tactics first, 2Bishops mode, and getting the heights of my form. So I'm now going to do a full hour of tactics puzzles each day, to reaccustom myself to deeper thought, because I am soon to be playing more closely matched opponents in the club championship. I have three Whites in a row, in my three expert openings, so I am planning some carnage. To any master-level players passing by here, or anyone else who wants to offer support or advice, I ask: Some positions are low-calc. Are there also some positions where only minimal planning is required?

I will soon put the Petroff game up on here, but right now I've got some database mining to get on with

Update! I was doing so much tactical play without having my base positional form, that it was doing me no good whatsoever. I've realised that simply playing a lot and getting my calculation semi-subconscious again is a long way towards the tactics supremacy I need. But I can still do a couple of hours a few days before a match to switch me into the highest gear.

It's one year since I started to play on Chesscube. My rating went down recently as I mentioned, and I was confident this was simply from new learning and subconscious thought processes rejigging themselves after the short break I took. Accordingly, I am delighted to report my rating is hovering at 1770 now, and I hope to break 1800 this month I've had some awesome wins, and I've got the big series of games coming up from this Thursday to see if I can win the club championship. Please root for me!

The major focus the last few weeks has been in the scrutiny of subtleties in opening variations. The Tromp complex of ideas has been sorted in my mind, including Bg5 in the Slav, where I was all over a 1740 guy last night. The most important change is that I am now playing 2...Nc6, ready to run the gauntlet of any opening. Ironically I have not yet had a single Ruy Lopez! I've had some nice wins in the Four Knights, Scotch and Italian though. I looked last night on Amazon at Jan Pinksi's collection of books on Four, Two Knights, and Scotch. I'd buy Wells' effort for that last but it retails for around £40 because of its relatively small print run or something, and I don't want to shell out that much for something I'll face about 10% of the time, when I can easily cull ideas and learning from my own games and those of Kasparov in the 90s. Can anyone recommend the Pinski books, or other specialised monographs on beating open games? I don't want to buy Emms' single volume because I'm already relatively familiar with many things in these openings, I simply need the deep explanation of each of them in isolation.

I haven't thought yet about what I want to play in the Spanish: for White and Black, since I am now widening from my beloved Exchange variation. I could play 5. d3 for now, but as Black the Berlin would probably be the best: some players would go into the ending, and I have experience from White in the Exchange, and some would play other stuff like 5. Re1, forcing me to learn defensive finesse. I certainly don't like the reputation the Classical or other such lines have, and I'm not loose enough to accept playing the Jaenisch/Schliemann. Any recommendations for something in the main line?

I've also with a buddy taken a look through games at the border of Modern/Sicilian Dragon play, and found my pet line in the Scandinavian tested very strongly! I attained a fine position after some effort, so I'm happy enough. And of course I should mention, that when I buy any opening monographs from pinksi et al, I can use those same openings in more depth as White to surprise particular opponents Advice and experiences would be greatly appreciated!

This is a double celebratory post!

Last night, ironically one day before St George's Day, I played George, and beat him for the first time ever. He blundered by castling queenside in the Caro-Kann Bayonet, and I had a forced seven move combination that won the exchange, after which his position was dead, and a few moves later he sportingly resigned. That puts me on 4.5/6 in the City Championship, with George on only 5.5/8, and I've scheduled my next games for the next few weeks. Another CKD next week, then a Reti, and two junior players as White who I can beat with preparation and respect. That should put me on at least 7.5/9, and I cannot then be caught realistically

Then today I FINALLY BROKE 1800!! It wasn't a great game, I played poor defence in a 3. Bc4, 4. Bxf7+ Petroff, but I got into the endgame a Knight up and after quaffing a few pawns his time expired. What a week!

Congratulations on breaking 1800 and on beating George! That was indeed a very pretty combination you had in that game. It must have been a lot of fun to play such a strong and pretty move just after he thought he brought his King to safety!
Good luck with the City Championship, and keep on the good work! I am now going to practice my Rook endings with the FENs you sent me. Thanks again for giving me those.

Well, I've had a mixed bag since my last update. I didn't even mentally turn up against Ian in the Club Championship, and lost in short order. This puts us in the remarkable situation that with three games left, three of us are just a half point apart. I have an advantage though: Ian and George, my two competitors (saving another guy who has a higher point record from his games played, but has no time to finish all his games in all likelihood), haven't played each other yet, and a draw virtually knocks them both out. By contrast, tomorrow I play John Kelly, a strong (151/1850ish) but reclusive player, who I will get a Torré Attack Black side against. I've looked at some very dynamic variations in this, to unbalance him, and I feel confident of a draw at least. Probably nobody else will fit a game with him in, and then I've got two juniors in two weeks with two Whites after that.

Last Thursday I played a relatively good game in a pub in our secondary league, against a weak but resilient player, who hung a piece on move thirteen, but didn't make the winning attack easy. Unfortunately, our board 3 lost his game, and we for the first time have finished rock bottom of this league, despite winning it something like four times in six years!!

I've still hovered at 1800 online, some very instructive games in the Berlin endgame sidelines, and other areas, including a very dynamic one in the Latvian Gambit of all things last night! I'm also still going page by page through Fundamental Chess Endings pawn section.

However, the big big news is that in August I'm playing my first FIDE rated tournament Nine rounds in Chambéry France, and twelve days away from work (man's gotta acclimatise!), it's gonna be a <1800 section, but since I'm unrated nobody will consider me a favourite. I can't wait!

Good luck! I expect a 9 part video series

Ha, I finally got my microphone to work so that could be on

Update

Tonight I played against John Kelly. He surprised me with 1. c4, and 2. g3, but we transposed back into Slavic Catalonian territory. Please take a look at the game in the replay section I think I played it very well! I took a draw after nearly 3 hours because we both had less than ten minutes left, and this brings me to +2 =6 -4 for Black; not bad considering my horrid start of year.

I've been looking at my openings and result percentages, and it's clear to me I need to work on English/Réti structures where White plays cagily, and offers no precise weakness or target. Any video links from the site or elsewhere which deal with the understanding of these systems at a higher level (and what precisely can qualify as weakness) would be greatly appreciated; as any rules of thumb about when White only plays, say, c4 and d3 or something subtle like that.

Considering I've only played the Slav a year, I'm not too displeased with my progress, after all, I can't immediately expect to solve every variation's foibles OTB. I'm struggling in honesty to learn the subtleties of the Ruy Lopez for White without the exchange. I had a horrible game in the Delayed Steinitz last night, played like a lemon. So I'm wondering whether I should try to look at every RL game by ECO code in the database I have, and take it very slowly, and only introduce it next year to my OTB games. Problem is what would I play in the mean time? The Exchange is toothless, the Italian too. The Scotch doesn't suit me, and I'm still only learning 1. d4. I suppose I could just carry on as I am, since proper Spanish is very rare here.

More importantly I've been considering some new ideas for summer. Since I already record my games in real life in a spreadsheet, with opening, opponent rating, result, and whatnot, I should do it for my Chesscube ones too. This would allow me to see whether rapid chess has an impact on any particular aspects of my play, and also to monitor any specific openings variations which trouble me, but also to look more closely at timestamps, since very often I leave myself a bit short even in good positions. Gearing up for the tournament in France, I have the idea to play a 90 minute game online in summer every few days so that I don't go into rapid mindset (cutting evaluation corners and becoming a calculation machine, and naught more), and trying to annotate every game deeply before using Fritz for answers, if only to make slow progress. I also hope to break 1850 by October Any thoughts suggestions or comments welcome, my journal has very little feedback

What you could do is play 6.Qe2 in the Ruy, which is almost exactly like the mainline. Only with almost no theory. Or just play the Ruy proper, because nothing teaches you openings like playing (and losing) in tournament games. At least that's the way it is for me.

Well the classical season is over! I flagged at the end; a loss from a very strong opening position with a very unlike me blunder, followed by some solid play by my student Marco to hand me my third loss as White this year. But I still finished almost certainly 2nd in the club championship despite being only ranked seventh

One large disappointment was making 2-3 huge tactical blunders in the season, which was unusually many for me. I know though that no amount of tactics training in the days before a match can sometimes save me from being on Planet Dan.

Some stats for those interested (please pipe up and let me know you read! )

I scored 2.5/4 in my Petroff, 2.5/3 in the Ruy Lopez, both fantastic, but only 1/5 in anything c4 or d4. Clearly some work has to be done on positional evaluation there.

Total Score from 23 games: +8 =8 -7. A positive season, but with some disappointments. Eight draws looks strange because I very rarely get the same proportions like that, but some of those were saves from dead lost positions so I'm pleased.

White Score: +6 =2 -3, 63.64%. Not bad at all, but the losses were all quite severe.

Black Score: +2 =6 -4, 41.67%. This looks bad, and is when compared to my target, but my last six games as Black were without loss, and a few of the draws in the whole season were from poor positions.

Average Opponent Grade=~128, but this cannot be precise until Marco my student is graded. It will probably increase a tad, and reflects a high standard of opposition.

Season grading performance: 130. This again should be higher because last season will filter extra results but also because I had some incredible blips.

For reference, 130 in ECF is roughly 1690, but that's probably inaccurate because I've had a drop of form but I'm still at a floor of 1740 on Cube.

The most surprising thing was that most of my poor performance was against those in the same grade band as me. In the two bands above (everyone above 140, since I consider myself performing at that level) I actually scored +2 =3 -1, which was damned fantastic

I know now that I need to do a lot of work on being consistent against Réti-like systems, where White holds back from d4/e4, and if anyone can link me to video that explains the weaknesses in any White setups I'd much appreciate it, as finding weaknesses in solid positions like that is a major weakness of mine.

My White score would actually have been higher if I hadn't made the mistake of playing for seven Thursdays in a row (and an extra Sunday), thereby near-guaranteeing I'd have a dip in form. That isn't an excuse as to the performances in games, but certainly it's something for me to watch out for in future.

I'm still hoping to play in France, and I recently got books on the Four/Two Knights, and Berlin Wall, to beef up my Black repertoire should I want something a bit more poisonous and dynamic, or something alternatively solid. I'm working on Rook endgames still, feeding positions slowly into the database and making sure to understand them rather than overload myself. I'm also looking over every single game I've ever played to input them all into my databases! Note I've only covered 3 seasons of 11 so far but I've found about 10 interesting Rook endgame positions if anyone wants the FENs. At first it was a morale-remover to see how uselessly I used to play but if anything it's a boost now as I can think to myself on the points I better understand, while it also reinforces anything on which I still am poor: closed positions!

So I'm now looking at targets for next year...

1. Go unbeaten and score over 90% against those graded below 120 (If I perform at 140 and the average opponent is rated 115 I'm expected to score 75%, and yet I often find this my easiest target).
2. Score 65% against those graded 120-140.
3. Score 55% against those graded 140-155. (These other two targets may seem audacious, but I did so well in them last year I want a challenge!)
4. Score 50% against those graded 155+.

5. Place in the top three of the city championship.
6. If I am in a level position, try to play on more often, probing for technical errors.
7. Keep control of the clock in all but the messiest or most vital couple of games. Keep an emergency reserve of 15-20% clock time for technically won positions.
8. Be extra vigilant for odd tactics and strategical points in closed openings.
9. Never exchange into a lost ending.