CTS at 78%

Hi everyone,

I've been taking a break from chess for a couple of months due to other priorities, but I'm slowly becoming active again and I've started reading blogs as well, soon I'll drop you guys a line at your blogs.

At the moment I'm working on TCT and CTS. The plans are unchanged, I'm still working in Step 2 and after I finished Step 2 I will work my way from Step 1 up to Step 3 in TCT. As for CTS, I still want to reach a succes rate of 80+%.

Today's result are promising, after a session of 25 exercises with only one failure, these are my results.

Handle mentat
Country Netherlands
Rating 1153
Current RD 46.6
Highest Rating 1247
Date of HR 2008 Jul, 03 - 10:38
Tries 3775
Success 78.0 %

Latest action 2009 Oct, 12 - 15:38
Latest RD 46.6
State active
Until 2009 Nov, 17 - 20:30
Pieces standard

sort of active again...

Sunday January 18th, 2009, 19/25 correct = 76%

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009, 22/25 correct = 88%

CTS at 75%!

I didn't mean to bore all y'all again with CTS this fast after my latest post. I intended to write a posts on my progress with the Steps Method or TCT. But I had no choice, today, with a session's splendid result of 100%, I crossed the 75% success rate barrier!

Here I come 80%! let's see if I can do that within 55 sessions (11 weeks) from November 13th?

My 100% score now in the afternoon may suggest Rolling Pawns is right in the comments under the 2500! post that at certain times of the day you're performance is better. Speaking for myself several factors come to mind: 1. biological cycle; 2. being tired and 3. being able to relax and take my time. The third one is what he suggests is a factor in what makes his time work for him.

I'm working on a poll, where you can vote if I'll make it to 80%, but this public computer is giving me trouble with it. It keeps complaining about a valid date/time, but I'd say 30/11/08 and 23:59 are correct. I will try it at home later this weekend.

2500!

As some of you might know, I try to do 25 exercises on the Chess Tactic Server on a daily basis, at least 5 times a week. This is half of my chess training, the other half consists of working in my Steps Method books or in TCT.

The other day (November 13, 2008) I reached my 2500th problem on CTS. At that time I had a success rating of 74,4%. Now I'm not getting anywhere near my peak rating of 1247, but my success rating is climbing, slowly but certainly! And obviously that's all that matters at this point.

My rating has been climbing a bit slower than I hoped, especially as I managed to have a 100% score in two sessions in September. Lately I have noticed that being tired can have huge effects at my solving ability. Thus I should make sure I get enough sleep. My goal, for now, still is to break the 80% barrier.

It would have been prettier if I could give you the info after my 2500th exercise, but since I didn't think of that at the time I leave you with the score sheet after today's session.

Handle mentat
Country Netherlands
Rating 1162 (1162)
Current RD 35.1
Highest Rating 1247
Date of HR 2008 Jul, 03 - 10:38
Tries 2575 (1500)
Success 74.6 % (69,1 %)

Between brackets are the values I had when reaching the 1500 mark. No, the fact that my rating stayed the same is not a typo, but maybe this is prettier after all.

Am I slowing down?

Tonight while doing some mixed exercises ones on 2/3 of Step 1 in TCT I noticed that I was slowing down, for one particular exercise I even took nearly a minute.

I went on with my 25 exercises on CTS ranging in a difficulty between 904 and 1465. Here I took my time as well. Funny thing, I ended with the exact same rating as I started with. Great thing, I had a 100% success rating! (I of little faith, only now I believe it's even possible.)

I am slowing down, and it feels just great!

What has changed, am I just taking more time? No, I'm just trying to look at positions differently. Call it real chess, call it frustration on not "instantly" seeing the tactic in the second diagram and realising that I can and should, call it anew found instruction, especially the a-e and a-d lists and reading some older blogs that discussed looking at the squares that are "covered" when looking for a mate. Probably it's they sum of all of the above and a few things I don't even know.

But no matter what you call it, I think that once I get used to this I will be able to do it faster.

Besides continuation there is only one thing left to do: play games and see if I can apply this.

Guess what, I have a FICS account ready and waiting.

Update:
To give credit where it should be given
It was Bleu Devil Knight who showed me the way to what was lost, he provided the very link to the article in this post on his excellent blog that seems to be a bit active once again. But there is also much te be learned from his old posts for beginners, improving players and other chess minded people.

Back in action, got 1500 on to the next 500!

A few of you may have noted that I was active in the chess blogosphere again , today I resume posting here.

Since my last post on the Chess Tactics Server I have been making some progression there in terms of success percentage. I haven't been able to train regularly, but I have the feeling I'm getting ever more relaxed under the time pressure.

Handle mentat

My rating dropped slightly to 1162 (1186), however my success percentage increased to 69,1 % (65,3%).

03 of 10 training sessions where above 80% correct; exellent.
06 of 10 training sessions where between 70 and 80 % correct; not too bad, but still...
01 of 10 training sessions was 63 % correct; useless.

Now I must see that I continue this increase in percentage correct, but progress there is!

At this moment I have done 1500 problems, onwards to the next 500 and when this really gets a habit, I will post every thousand or so.

1000, It's not a rating

Tonight I just present you the data, no stories or conclusions from my side, yet.

Between brackets is the value from the first time I posted on Chess Tactics Server.

Handle mentat
Country Netherlands
Rating 1186 (1204)
Current RD 28.3 (48.8)
Highest Rating 1247
Date of HR 2008 Jul, 03 - 10:38
Tries 1000 (705)
Success 65.3 % (65.5 %)

Thursday 03 July 2008 - 35/49 correct = 71,4%
Saturday 05 July 2008 - 29/50 correct = 58%
Monday 07 July 2008 - 30/45 correct = 66,7%
Tuesday 08 July 2008 - 32/50 correct = 64%
Wednesday 09 July 2008 - 29/50 correct = 58%
Thursday 10 July 2008 - 33/50 correct = 66%
Friday 11 July 2008 - 38/50 correct = 76%

Chess Tactics Server

This morning I had a small session on the Chess Tactics Server, it really amazes me that, if that information is in fact accurate, there are so many Dutch tacticians there. Apparently there is a huge Dutch chess scene, in combination with good Internet access.

With the first third or so problems I really was in some kind of flow, no matter what the rating I just knew what to do. I did lose some points there, but I just didn't fail. Then in the second third it was 50/50 and the last third went rather well again. In the end I had a score of 35/49 correct, which translate too 71,4%.

Although I don't particularly like seeing my rating drop, I really feel that getting my succes percentage from at least 2/3 to 3/4 is the right path to follow. After all, practicing tactics is a mean and not an end. One missed tactic can and will loose a game, a few tenths or hundreds of seconds won't necessarily do so.

This is my current status at the Chess Tactics Server:

Handle mentat
Country Netherlands
Rating 1204
Current RD 48.8
Highest Rating 1247
Date of HR 2008 Jul, 03 - 10:38
Tries 705
Success 65.5 %

I hope to be doing session of, for starters, about 50 problems daily. Let's see what happens. I won't write about it daily, I don't want to bother my, so far non-existent(?), audience and I'm more interested in long-term results.


Look at the steep climb that starts around the 150 last problems, that was that flow I was talking about.