 | Deep in our soul |
Tactics - On Chess Tactics Server I moved up from 8,000 tries at 85.9% rated 1326 to 8,500 tries at 86.1% rated 1335.
Practice - I played 5 rated games. coolaa and humblerook were the closest battles throughout all phases of the game... you can view an interactive board here. My FICS rating climbed to 1522!
| Win: likesforests(1487) - nerokj(1635) Win: Bellnboz(1465) - likesforests(1501) Win: Forhe(1454) - likesforests(1510) Win: coolaa(1543) - likesforests(1519) Loss: likesforests(1531) - humblerook(1591) |
Strategy - I read 3 annotated games from Nunn (less than planned).
Endgames - I read Rook vs Pawns in Dvoretsky's book, plus studied 60+ master endgames from a games database.
Overall, I'm quite happy with my progress. :)
11 comments:
I came upon your blog during my random sojourn through the "next blog" button and wanted to let you know that I visited.
Can you estimate the total time it took you to complete this very impressive weekend course of study and play?
Tactics - 3 hours
Practice Games - 4 hours
Annotated Games - 4 hours
Endgames - 9 hours
--------
20 hours
I have to attend a few corporate meetings each day. It's common for some attendees to be busy on their laptops, half-listening. I was solving endgame puzzles most of the time, but I paid attention long enough to chime in with one or two good comments per meeting.
This load is too heavy and I have some important deliverables at work. I'll probably drop the annotated games this week--I feel like the endgame training is helping me more.
This was an 11-day cycle, so I spent 2 hours each day. If you add in time for forums and blogging it comes out to 2.5 hours per day.
86.1!!!!!
yummmy.
10,000 not many days away, my good friend. your first jubalee.
:) dk
Thanks, Dave! It looks like you were right about Topalov-Kramnik. Who wins the title will all come down to their last game... a longer match would give us more confidence in who the superior player is. Ahh, well. Today's game was another interesting one. Topalov again came up with a novelty--8.Rb1, threatening to advance the queenside pawns.
yes, if K wins the last one, it is all settled. as i have said, for fighting chess i want T as winner, but now it is really too late for that. whether K will win a protracted legal battle or other matters well discussed today (Cox letter) at chessBase.com is beyond me, but if for any reason T wins, we have a real mess. 6 1/2 to 5 1/2 but 3 wins by K via chess, but only 3 wins via chess from T. that is IF he can win one, then of course we have no unification, since unification is a spiritual and not just a titular matter. lastly, if it goes 6-6, first, it is not clear K will go for rapids, and instead take his chances with the courts, maybe swiss courts. but if it DOES go to rapids and T wins, then he got to it with 2-3 decisive games, again, NOT unity. if K wins rapids, again, it is all resolved again. for god, i want K to win, for chess, i kind of want T to win, but not comfortable whether this is good for chess, probably not. then K would contest it, saying he never lost a CHESS game, game five. so K and Carsten Hensen who surely is possessed of gravitas and the imprimator (sp?) of i feel real human authority (im not being sarcastic but mean it), will fight it all the way. no matter what, unless K wins, we will not have unity.
what do i predict? kirsan will toss open the box of his 16 contestants from fide to find 8 challengers, as sadly indicated by borris gelfand of israel that he has already been preparing for a specific opponent, not a round robbin, and so just as kirsan has recently put his plan in jeapordy and changed terms and conditions in mid course on a whim as he often does, so he will toss it open to create room for T (i predict) in the next cycle, cheapening the integrity of his own promises and contracts with archtypal asian capriciousness violate to writen and signed agrements, as is often the case 'over there'. sorry, but true... the chinese in 1995 reneged on a $ us 300,000,000 futures or stock transaction for no other reason than it did not go there way, and i have seen these myself. dk
Wish I could do endgames at work :) I see you do a lot on endgames these days compared to tactics... maybe it is just where you are right now.
I am doing more CTS... tonight picked up 13 rating points but dropped a couple decimal points on percentage; I'm up to 1284 at 84.6%. My long term goal is 90% (very ambitious) and rating of come what may. I am noticing that by paying attention to accuracy, the rating does indeed come up slowly but surely as I do more and more practice.
But... this is fine for sight solving and so on, at speed. It is doing nothing for my ability to calculate variations and make plans. So this coming weekend I will do a Stoyko exercise. Does anyone have a favorite mid-game position for this?
I did try a game. (What a concept!) I won against a 1650 player. Then, against a 1700 player, I was up two pawns in a single rook & pawns vs single rook & pawns endgame! And I still managed to lose! I cannot make excuses. I must not do that. Perhaps it was fatalism: I am 1260, he is 1700, so I deserve to lose? But then I cannot explain my win against the 1650. All psychology of some sort.....
It's a shift. I usually focus 90% on tactics but over the next few weeks I want to learn some basic endings. In some endgames you have to calculate very deeply, so I'm exercising those skills, too.
A rich, tactical position, huh? Here's a tough one from one of Morphy's games:
http://tinyurl.com/nyxv8
Here's a moderate one from Bloodgood's games:
http://tinyurl.com/pca2e
Congratulations on your wins! That is very fortunate. Rook endings, even a couple pawns up, can be tricky. Would you believe, after all my Rook vs Pawn studies, I played Rook vs 3 pawns this weekend and blundered?! Luckily, my opponent also blundered, and I managed a draw.
dk transform at cts:
1563.34 elo is #396 out of 1472 or 26.9% of all active users, for 85.1% at 22,243 tries at #32.
chessWaste at cts:
1477.7 elo at #22 of all active users for 93.3% at 1,660 tries.
slowtempo at cts:
1376 elo at #15 of all active users for 94.5% at 1,217 tries.
let the percentage wars continue. dk
1297/85.1% at CTS, picking up points and accuracy now. Will do the Stoyko exercise probably on Sunday.
I am working on visualization, back to trying to learn blindfold as an means to be able to calculate better.
Have any of you tried it.... something like taking a game score and seeing how many moves you can visualize accurately before losing the picture?
Post a Comment