Still here

So, we are half a month in the new year, and I'm still here. I've noticed that the chess blogosphere that I used to follow and try to become a part of is dead. Some moved to chess.com or other blogs, but there appears to be some fresh blood as well, there appears to be a shift from North-America to Europe, that is most promising, timezone-wise.

A. What I have been doing so far
1. At January 1st I became a member of chess.com and I've played 3 games there;
2. I've been doing 25 tactics a day at CTS and am proud to say that I've reached 78,9% correct;
3. For my chess education I've started at square one, or, to be more precise, at Step 1 using TCT and S1.

What I've noticed so far is that playing chess is very different than training chess. My former approach would be to train chess so I would understand it better and only then perhaps switch to playing. It seems to me now that to learn and understand chess at a basic level playing is very important.

B. What I will be doing for the remainder of January
1.Playing slow games, that is G30/5, G45 or slower, at least one a week and analyse for blunders;
2. 25 Tactics a day at CTS, aiming eventually to reach past 80% and stay there;
3. Daily puzzle at chess.com and 3 tactics at least 5 times a week;
4. Finishing Step 1 with TCT and S1.

C. What I plan to do after January for a couple of months
1. Playing two slow games a week and analyse them;
2. 25 Tactics a day at CTS;
3. Doing some tactics, using SCT and SCM for starters, every day later using other material for instance Predator at the Chessboard;
4. Going through Step 2 with TCT and S2, maybe getting some extra material to do that as well.;
5. Reading LC and DCO

This should get me a solid start and after a few months of playing an idea of my playing level.

It appears not all abbreviations are explained here, I'll fix that.

Tasc Chess Tutor - report

I'm going to use this post to keep my score while I make my laps trough the Steps Method using Tasc Chess Tutor (TCT).

There will be a link to this post at the sidebar.

Last update: Wednesday, 21 October 2009.

The Steps Method, TCT Plan
Round 01: Step 1 & 2
Round 02: Step 1, 2 & 3
Round 03: Step 1, 2, 3 & 4
Round 04: Step 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
Round 05: Step 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
Round 06: Step 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
Round 07: Step 2, 3, 4 & 5
Round 08: Step 3, 4 & 5
Round 09: Step 4 & 5
Round 10: Step 5
notes: The plan may be subject to change and will be put on hold every once in a while for other chess study (SCT, SCM, LC). I have to find a way to also fit the Steps Method books in here.

Report
Round 01
First lesson: Friday 05 September 2008
Last lesson: Sunday 18 October 2009
Result step 1: Average score 96 %
Result step 2: Average score 82 %
notes: I had a decline in scores at the end of step 2, this was most likely caused by the time between the lessons and the repeat exercises. That time increased due to a break from chess.

Round 02

First lesson: Monday 19 October 2009

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

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%

A balanced approach

Chess blogs of (re)starting and improving players usually have (lack of) progress posts along a scale from "let's hear how much I rule..." to "... and now back to how much I suck". My last post may have been one of careful optimism, this one falls generously in the latter category, giving at least my chess blogging a balanced approach.

Besides CTS I did some exercises everyday, one day from Gillam's Simple Mates, the other day from his book on tactics. Today I found out that it's called Simple Chess Tactics for a good reason. Yes, the emphasis on "Simple" is mine.

A few months back I made it to Step 3 of the Stepsmethod, but got stuck in Chapter 10's exercises; those exercises deal with the material covered in Chapters 1 till 9. Yesterday I decided to give them another go, but to no avail. What was I to do next? Restarting Step 3 or while I was at it Step 1 seemed genuine options, I planned on going trough them from the start before or after Step 4 anyway.

The mailman however seemed to hand me an easy way out: It brought me Nunn's Learn Chess Tactics. While considering what to do in what order I would browse trough this books, with ease! Weren't the books of Gillam a piece of cake by now, this would be the same, but different.

After reading the the first chapter, on forks yesterday evening, I decided that I had an extra half hour, that would be more than enough to do all of Chapter 1's 46 exercises. Can you taste the hubris already?

A few exercises and the 46 were halved to only 23: Chapter 2 had only 27 exercises anyway, so it wasn't hard stepping down a bit. But after 23 exercises I was getting desperate, in about half those 23 exercises I either wasn't sure of my answer or couldn't come up with a single move altogether. And this is from the very first chapter in a book that states clearly that the only perquisite is to know the chess rules, and I am quite a bit above that.

I must however add on my behalf, that Chapter 1 covers more than plain and simple forks, it delves into sacrificial combinations and checks in preparation of the eventual fork as well.

Let's say it like this, especially for Chessloser, if Gillam's books are the prologue of tactics, than after finishing with Nunn I'll be wearing polka dots!

I'm not yet sure what to do next, I probably will give Nunn's LCT another go, if that fails I'll probably will restart the Steps: back to square one.