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I've been jumping all over the place in my studies. Time to make a plan, and set some goals. I will do all these by 11/1/2006:
1. Tactics: Reach 10,000 Chess Tactics Server problems, with 86.5% overall accuracy. I want to raise my CTS rating from 1326 to 1350.
2. Practice: Play 20 rated games against equal competition. I want to raise my Free Internet Chess Server rating from 1487 to 1500.
3. Strategy: Play through and study all 30 annotated games in Nunn's book, Understanding Chess Move by Move.
4. Endgames: Review the Rook endings in Pandolfini's Endgame book.
16 comments:
While your goals are admirable that strikes me as a lot to do in essentially a month.
i like all you say here. i have meant to write sooner, but VERY busy... so didnt want to write you superficially.
i like this plan and feel compelled to comment in contrast to bob above. go for it.
we can argue the speed or duration, such as the time needed to for example not only review the games in Nunn's UCMBM, but what matters is if this plan gives YOU ENERGY. that is all that matters!
dont set goals so high failure is likely, nor so low as to be easy, but a series of intermediate goals leading to one large goal via steps, and you will have what maxwell maltz in psycho cybernetics calls 'confidence', or 'the repeated experience of success'!
my post tonight is perhaps not totally in-appropos.
Transformation: your comments are good. You are right about generation of ENERGY!
I imagine my comment was biased by how much free time I have available, which would not allow so much study as listed, but if likesforest has enough time, go for it!
So you are right, study plans should be ambitious, and a stretch, but achievable.
I too admire the work of Maxwell Maltz.
bob, i am glad to hear from you. thank you.
question: i have seen you around, cannot recall exact nature of comments, but favorable impression, so go to your handle to read your blog if you have one, and no link is operable.
since my pc is of the most current sort, is it possible that you do not have one? or if you do, might you please mind providing a link to it that i can access? i dont want to miss out.
likeforest and i have become friends here, and he is a good heart.
fyi, i am disappointed by most everybody at eisita, and while i want topalov to win, cannot see much to fault on part of Kramnik. if i had a 6 hour chess match, id be to the bathroom ALL the time, as that is how my body works or to walk in small circles... if that be the case.
today i had an email from Yasser in my inbox, so nice to be one degree removed.
david
I have posted as "chipschap" or "chipschapbungert" at other times, but my blogs are no longer on blogger. I publish the checker webzine Checker Maven at www.checkermaven.com and the blog Bungerting Baloner at bungertingbaloner.bobnewell.net ... which, by the way tomorrow morning abandons my usual conservative politics and prints a short story on chess that I wrote.
Hi Bob, glad to stopped by again. It may be too much.. I'm not sure.
15hrs practicing tactics
20hrs playing chess
30hrs studying annotated games
5hrs studying rook endgames
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70hrs in 34 days.
I spend about two hours on chess per day, so if I really focus I believe I can achieve this. And if not, it will be fun trying! :)
DK, thanks for the advice! I think you're right, milestones can only help me.
10/9 - Reach 8500 CTS tries, read 8 annotated games, play 5 games, review rook endings.
10/16 - Reach 9000 CTS tries, read 14 annotated games, play 10 games.
10/23 - Reach 9500 CTS tries, read 20 annotated games, play 15 games.
11/01 - Reach 10000 CTS tries, read 30 annotated games, play 20 games.
I never heard of psycho-cybernetics or Maxwell Maltz, but many people seem to recommend him. I'll check out his book the next time that I stop by my bookstore.
Elista has been... something else. While they're still negotiating, I have hope.
Hi chipschap, nice website... I'll check out your story about chess.
You asked whether aiming for high accuracy at the expense of rating is a good approach.
dktransform and I would say yes!
I aim for 95% accuracy in every session, as I need to be able to do that in a real game. Your rating will drop at first, but soon it will stabilize, and then begin to go up again--no worries there. I was at 1221 not long ago.
we can finess all this, but a plan is a plan.
first, chernev most illustrative games of chess ever played is much more foundational. of course, i have both books and many others and are each alike most excellent, but MIGCEP has more vegetables than the pure meat UCMBB.
again, maltz is very good, but napolian hill, think and grow rich is MUCH better. and please everyone, its not a book about money, but riches is to strive for your fondest dream, with all your heart, and not so trivial a thing as money or money only!
it is axiomatic as spinozas ethics is or wittgensteins tractacticus philosophicus (rutledge), so well edited by bertrand russell.
lastly, question to likeF: which is better: ten games three hours, or five games six hours, or four games 8 hours, or three games ten hours, or thirty only one hour?
i say let your ego chew them SLOWLY, AND TAKE three months, and learn ten times more. stare at the position like a zombee. no moving peaces, no clicking pgns, but staring silently and deeply inquire.
the other unfinished games will grow inside you.
ive done this. i spent seven months of chernevs first seven games, off and on, one capabl game two months, and annotated them myself. but you will learn the position!
slow review of gm games is to quick viewed ones, what higher percentage success is to slap dash CTS low % users.
IMHO
as my branch manager a Piper Jaffray Investments said to me when i said that broker xyz was making 150 calls a day: Jim M, who latter became a very successfull district manager [only to get a rare case of male breast cancer (obesity) latter on], replied:
"he THOUGHT that he made 150 calls!!"
what did i do? i decided to make thirty calls a day. smart calls! planner targeted calls or what ew called elephant hunting. you only take one shot with a big gun.
likeForest: below is cc of note i just posted at my own blog in lieu of new post. i will push it back >1500.0 now that i have this done. a big push!
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"tonight, finally:
a mighty long haul!!!!
85.0004% (85.0%)
#159 rank
3290f/18,644s = 21,934
#30 rank
RD 16.7
#2 of 1434 active users.
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how many CTS users 20,000 tries and up are => than 85.0% and rated over 1420? six, illustrated by tries:
morkovkin 1615, 21.2k @ 89.1%
dktransform 1491, 21.9 @ 85.0%
alvis 1543, 24.9k @ 87.5%
kawala 1534, 27.1k @ 84.2%
spacecowboy 1424, 27.7k @ 88.9%
trallala 1583, 34.3k @ 93.1%
is this the only grouping of outstanding efforts? no. just my idea of what i idealize in other CTS users and have been striving for. others who are close:
slowmouse 1403, 10.8 @ 93.5%
bahus 1537, 11.1k @ 89.0%
loomis 1668, 14.1k @ 77.9%
edgy 1684, 15.2k @ 79.6%
chessdog 1305, 27.0k @ 95.8%
mousetrapper 1423, 31.5 @ 82.2%
slowmouse is below 1424 but % is ++
bahus is rated+ with %++
loomis is rated ++
edgy is rated ++
chessdog is rated lower but % is ++
mousetrapper is below 85.0% but has ++ tries
From transformation:
"i say let your ego chew them SLOWLY, AND TAKE three months, and learn ten times more. stare at the position like a zombee. no moving peaces, no clicking pgns, but staring silently and deeply inquire."
This is something like the Stoyko method. (When I was a kid very long ago, Steve Stoyko, also very much younger, sometimes played at the chess club I frequented in New Jersey.)
You can look up on the internet to get a good explanation but it is basically all about taking a position and spending literally hours on it, writing down every single thing you can think of, every possible aspect and line of play. Steve says this really improves your ability to analyze under real conditions with the clock running.
One last followup: with my own schedule of work, family, other obligations, etc., there is no possibility to spend 2 hours per day on chess. So my own goals must be considerably more modest. I probably can spend an average of 1 hour per day if weekends are included (less during the work week, more on weekends usually).
So I have right now the modest goal of 20 CTS problems per day; one section in Seirawan's "Winning Chess Tactics" per day; and 3 games a week from Chernev (Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played).
What is missing here? Actual play! And that is a major failing, but during the work week I would just be able to play blitz, which I consider harmful. So sometimes I get a couple of games in on the weekend, sometimes not. I realize this is going to slow my development a lot and I am trying to find a better mixture.
Thanks to all for the chance to engage in this most helpful dialog.
Bob, my wife and daughter always come first, so I can relate.
I like your strategy. It's like the turtoise and the hare--if you take constant small steps towards your goal, you get there faster than someone with more time who messes around.
Winning Chess Tactics is very good. I've read through it a few times, and DK recommends MIGCEP. Another free resource in the same style as Yasser's book is chesstactics.org.
Blitz time controls are not as good as regular time controls if your goal is to play well at regular time controls. I still figure they are better than nothing as long as you play with a long increment such as 2+12. That avoids silly unsound attacks and attempts to win on the clock by "wood-pushing".
What is your handle on CTS? Do stop back and let us know how it's going!
DK, as you and Bob recommend, I will try to spend more time on each game. I've been downloading the PGN, writing my own analysis as I play through it, then reading Nunn's commentary and explanations.
Perhaps I will play them throughout the day instead of in one sitting. I checked, and Heisman recommends the Stoyko method sometimes, too.
Actually, I was going to pick up Chernev's Logical Chess but it was out of stock, and I was eager to start while The Amateur Mind was still fresh in my head.
likeForests: i worship at the alter of MIGCEP. i spent months on the first game. yasser complimented me on that... :).
to me, it is to positional chess what mozart is to classical (oh well, for me it would be mahler or beethovin or ali akbar kahn, but that is another story!).
this book has so much essence, to use the term that my guru used... 'the gods who worship at the alter of truth night and day...'
my new post is a biggie. cannonical elaboration of chessChat.org post.
i feel that K wont show up to play on principle, as he is 3-1 but kirsan omminously says the match will continue at game six at 3-2. some friends of mine dont have much hope...
i must now record all the key global weekly financial data for major markets including commodities, interest rates, DAX, FTSE, Bovespa, Nikkie, etc, then bedtime. seahawks loose in chicago.... :
dk
Hello, I am a 1700 player, going up, I advise that before you read Nunn's book (Advised for players 1900+) you read book "Logical Chess Move by Move", great book to get you to 1600! Then after that, read book "62 most instructive chess games". Both of these books are by Irving Chernev. Hope you get better, and most importantly, have fun!
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