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

It was quiet on the Kingside, but boy did I win

The story

A few days ago after a lousy session on CTS and after some fine training in Tasc Chess Tutor, I decided to give the easy mode of online shredder a go.

The first game I not just lost, but I was really shot to pieces, but to my astonishment I won the second game. This is the first game I ever won a game against this engine!

Quite unfortunately the web page doesn't save your moves and I didn't keep notes. I tried to recreate the game, using the take-back button, but that didn't work either. So I'm afraid this achievement won't be more everlasting than bronze, but just forgotten.

The game

What I do remember is that I opened with 1.e4 and the program responded with 1... e5, this allowed me to start playing with basic opening principles. However, soon I found myself pausing my development and start attacking the engine with threats and tactics, this kept Black busy and allowed me to continue development with threats. This fully stopped Black's development and crippled his Queen-side: it lost its Queen, some pawns and some minor pieces. Its King side was just as it was when the game started, my back rank was empty with the exception of my Rooks and uncastled King. Instead of also taking its Rook, I mated Black on the 7th or 8th rank.

The lessons

1. I should play more often. This will also show me with trial, error and analysis how to deal with different opening moves;
2. I actually do stand a chance in simple low level games, just play "real chess";
3. I should follow opening principles, but if I can win material and stop the opponent from developing that can work as well.
4. Attacking (overwhelming and crushing) the opponent is fun! Maybe I should do it more often but it's also a bit of a risk.

The meantime

1. CTS at least 25 problems a day, 5 times a week, My focus is still on a
   80+% score, today I had only 2 mistakes;
2. TCT at least a lesson a week, currently working on Step 2.

The plan

1. Getting CTS above 80% and either keeping it there while my rating should rise* or changing to Chess Tempo, Chess Tactics for Beginners, Chessimo, Back to basics: Tactics;
2. Finishing TCT's Step 2, and then repeating Step 1 & 2 and starting with Step 3. (In the Steps method books I have I've almost finished Step 3);
3. Playing at least one game as White and one as Black a week, against easy machines, human opponents or on FICS, but with a not too fast time control (at least G15/15), no doubt slower is better, and analyse those games;
4. Some sort of analysis of 3 games a played a while back;
5. Continuing the game on my phone;

The longterm

1. Getting better and better, (success and rating) at CTS
2. Working trough Gillam's Tactics and Mates books (SCT, SCM).
3. Finishing growing "circles" of TCT and doing shrinking "circles"
4. Playing at least two games a week and analysing them

The order in all but the Lessons-list give some indication of the order of importance to me. I used the "numbered list", but somehow the numbers aren't displayed and we have to do with some chrysanthemum like bulleted lists.


* I will be focusing on correctness rather than rating, but I have found that focusing on correctness doesn't need to have a negative effect on my rating, although there is not the steep rise one gets with playing on time.

Who will fight with me for the Red Lantern?

Everything that has an end, has a beginning. For every first place there is a last. Every Tour de France has a Red Lantern

Yours truly signed up for the L.E.P. III tournament, more info here: http://www.liquideggproduct.com/i-was-expecting-a-more-sophisticated-poster/

I have no real news, I have been training a bit irregular, but signing up for the tournament probably will get me back on a schedule.

A reply to comments, part 2

A lot of you have been giving me advice over the last posts and elsewhere. I have been wondering lately, have I done something with all these good intentions? Have I thought about them, acted accordingly?

Let's find out!

Chess Tactics Server
Chessloser, Chesstiger (aka Logis) and Polly keep hammering not to worry about rating, but about strength. My interpretation of Chess Strength at Chess Tactics Server is the success percentage, a score based only on how many exercises are solved correct. I think this is what they mean with Chess Strength. David K even suggests percentages to aim at, first he mentions 90%, later 80%.

I do think I'm getting better at this, my rating seems to be stabilising around 1150, but my success percentage is still climbing: The other day I broke the 70% barrier with, for me, an extremely good score of 90% (45/50 correct). I'm aiming to keep my average score per session above 80% and eventually get my percentage there.

Playing chess
Chesstiger suggests that I shouldn't forget about playing chess and joins Likesforests in saying that I need a stronger sparring partner.

I have played the friend from the dreaded endgame post again in August, -I wrote the game down, but cannot find it- and I lost. I think I should be playing him every now and then. I will probably keep playing against Jabba and should be able to win easier and easier or maybe he'll do some chess training himself.
Joining a club isn't a possibility now, I don't no yet what my schedule will me for the this year with work and school. Maybe I should play a bit on the Internet, but I want to play slow games and I've heard it's mostly fast time controls.

Study material
Endgame
Chesstiger (and a lot of others) suggested Jeremy Silman's Silman's Endgame Course, Tommy G was enthusiastic about Lev Alburt's Just the Facts, but he's now appears to be converted to Silman's church.

I'm not sure when I should be looking for exclusive Endgame material, there is quite some endgame training in the Steps Method, so maybe after Step 3. On the Chessvideos.tv site there are endgame exercises to play against Crafty, that might be promising. Crafty also can be strengthened with Endgame Tables, but maybe it's time for a commercial chess program, because Crafty sometimes just stops annotating or the program crashes while playing over an endgame.

Annotated games
Chesstiger advised using Max Euwe's Amateur vs. Master as a game collection to work with.

I already own Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move, so I would rather not buy yet another book; I do have the tendency to buy more and more and yet even more books, who doesn't in the world of chess, so I should rather use what I have.

Training & Tactics
In addittion to the Steps Method I'm using the TASC cd2, mentioned by Chesstiger. It uses the same method, but has way more exercises.
Dan says on his site that Nunn's Learn Chess Tactics (I own this book and the title is about as deceiving as the adage "for Kids" on some chess books) is a good successor book to his Back to Basics: Tactics. On that same page he also suggests a circle like approach to a basic tactics book.
Likesforests says that Susan Polgar's Chess Tactics for Champions also is a good follow up to Heisman's book.

I already had the TASC cd 2 on my wish list and ordered it. It should arrive somewhere next week. I will use TASC side by side with the Steps Method and say out loud (or when around others mentally what tactic/motif is used. Instead of buying more tactics books (Heisman's is tempting me very much), I will go trough the books of Gillam a couple of times and of course I'll be active at CTS.

A big thank you
I'm sure I haven't named everyone who has given me advise, or helped me in another way, so thank you all of you out there, named and unnamed!

Questions that remain
1. When should one start specific Endgame training (i.e. Silman's book)?
2. Does it matter if I start with Chernev's book or Euwe's? Who knows anything about the difference in level?
3. What chess program would be most beneficial to me? I want it to be able to annotate as well. For some reason I like Chessmaster IX:The Grandmaster Edition, I haven't seen it.

Instant Update on Question 02:
Heisman gives this order of difficulty on his site (Those which I own are in bold type, hiddenleaf):

"Recommended Instructive Game Anthologies (in roughly ascending order of difficulty):
Logical Chess Move by Move - Chernev
(note: the non-anthology A First Book of Morphy by del Rosario can be read here!)
Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played - Chernev
Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking - Neil McDonald
The Art of Planning in Chess - Neil McDonald
Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur - Euwe and Meiden
50 Essential Chess Lessons - Giddins
Chess Success: Planning After the Opening - Neil McDonald
Winning Chess Brilliancies - Seirawan (after this book I would go to individual game collections)
Understanding Chess Move by Move - Nunn
Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces - Stohl
Zurich 1953 - Bronstein"

What Step to take? Baby Steps!

"To proceed with the third step the knowledge from step two is indispensable, but apart from that step three is not really difficult."

The above quote, straight from the Steps Method site made my decision on how to proceed with the Steps Method an easy one. If I have so much trouble with Step 3, than I must have missed something from Step 2, or it slipped away in a few months. I have restarted from square a1, or h8 if you have to play the black pieces.

After reading trough Step 1 I did the first exercises of Step 2, those are a test on Step 1 anyway. Now I'm working my way trough Step 2 again and only after finishing that one I'll restart in Step 3.

Hidden Leaf recommends
I would like to use this moment to recommend the puzzle section on the Steps Method site. It has daily and weekly puzzles on all levels. They don't have an archive, that I could find, so you'll really have to try them weekly.

Help feature
If you're really lost you don't have to use trial and error all the way: the question mark button will highlight the piece that has to be used. Also, it's good to know that when you make a wrong move in a combination, you don't have to go back all the way, another possibility exists: just click the last correct move in the notation.

Challenges on all levels
Whilst looking at some of the Endgame puzzles, clearly above my chess ability, I realised the truth in the quote: "Studying openings teaches you openings, studying endgames teaches you chess." I can see how, by studying the endgame, one learns the true nature (I couldn't resist this one) of the pieces and how they cooperate.

You can find these amazing puzzles on all levels by either clicking on the link in the sidebar or by clicking here.

I've shamelessly borrowed, copied and stolen quite a lot of links from other blogs and sites, but I haven't seen anyone linking (directly) to this one. I hope at least a few people will enjoy it and find it useful in their quest for chess improvement.