Fromper's new 2008 improvement thread

[Fromper]

I know it's only been two days since the last update, but I've actually done a bit in terms of study, and in terms of re-thinking my immediate study goals. For the first time in several months, I have a bunch of stuff that I want to study and don't know what to do first.

For a while now, my top priority has been trying to learn Pandolfini's Endgame Course down cold, but it's very slow going. I don't get far when all I do is 3-5 puzzles per day while eating my breakfast. I think I'm getting a little frustrated with that, which is why I haven't been motivated to do more of that study in the evenings after work or on weekends.

Yesterday, I started re-reading Chernev's "Logical Chess: Move by Move", as I mentioned in another thread. I read it originally 7 or 8 years ago, when I first started playing chess. I also have his "The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played", which I've never read. I decided this would be a good time to read these for a couple of reasons.

Oddly, the top reason is that I want to learn how to play the Queen's Gambit. Rather than just looking up lines in MCO, I want to study whole games, with explanations. I've gotten clobbered the last two times I've played black against players rated over 1800 who started with 1. d4, primarily because I answered with an unsound gambit. The Englund Gambit has done well for me against opponents in the 1400-1600 range, even when I was in the 1300's, but it just doesn't work against good opposition. I need to learn to play the types of closed positions that 1. d4 generally leads to, instead of relying on a cheap, unsound gambit to avoid them. And learning the rest of what Chernev has to teach can't possibly be a bad thing.

I've also been looking into switching back to e5 as a response to 1. e4, instead of the French that I've been using for a while now. I do prefer open, attacking games these days, but there are enough possibilities for white to hit me with in 1. e4 e5 that I was nervous about playing it. So, again, as mentioned in another thread, I ordered the book "Play 1. e4 e5! A Complete Repertoire for Black in the Open Games" by Nigel Davies. That arrived in the mail today.

And at the same time, I've been learning how to handle the Sicilian by playing the Smith-Morra Gambit. And once again, as mentioned elsewhere, I've been learning that opening from the books "The Modern Morra Gambit: A Dynamic Weapon against the Siclian" by Hannes Langrock and "Play the 2 c3 Sicilian" by Eduardas Rozentalis and Andrew Harley.

And through it all, I've also been doing some tactical puzzles here and there from Fred Reinfeld's classic "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations".

So where does that leave me? My current study/reading list is:

1. Pandolfini's Endgame Course
2. Reinfeld's tactics puzzles.
3. Chernev's master game collections
4. Davies book on 1. e4 e5
5. Books on the Smith-Morra and 2. c3 lines in case it's declined against the Sicilian

That's too much. I know myself well enough to know that I'm not a good multi-task studier.

I've actually finished reading the intro to the Smith-Morra book, skimming the chapter on the gambit declined, and skimming the main lines of the 2. c3 book to prepare for other declined lines. So I think I'm actually ready to put those two books aside for now. I'll use them as references, but I don't think I need to sit and read them in detail any more than I already have. At least, not yet.

I think continuing to do a few puzzles while eating breakfast every morning is a good idea. This can be either the endgame puzzles or tactics puzzles, depending on my mood each morning. And occasionally, maybe I'll do some more of those types of study in the evenings and weekends, as well. But they won't be my primary study for now. I know enough basic endgames already that improving slowly in that regard is acceptable, and doing some tactics puzzles regularly to keep me calculating should be enough to help me keep my head in the game when it matters.

That leaves numbers 3 and 4 above - Chernev's game collections and Davies black opening repertoire. Having two books to read as my primary study is a good amount. I think I can go back and forth depending on my mood and keep working through them both. I only consider it two books, because I'll only read one Chernev book at a time, while doing Davies opening book as the other one.

I went through the first three games of "Logical Chess" yesterday. It's much easier going through it with the pgn files on the computer, so I think I can go through those two books relatively quickly.

I was skimming Davies' book, and the big question in my mind is how to read it. His intro says to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, then dive into playing these openings immediately. All well and good, but there are some openings covered in this book that I need to study more than others. So I think I'll take the chapters out of order, starting with ones that cover openings I know the least about. That leaves me reading the final chapter, on the second move alternatives (Vienna, Danish, King's Gambit, Bishop's Opening, etc) before the material on the Ruy Lopez and Scotch that I'm already relatively comfortable playing.

So there you have it - my completely reworked study plan.

I should probably set some short term goals in there. My USCF rating should break 1500 once my last tourney is rated, and I stated at the start of this thread that I'm shooting for 1700 by the end of this year. But that's a long term goal.

In the short term, I'll be playing a "one game per week" tournament at G/120 for the next four Saturdays. I think I'd like to be far enough along in reading the books by Chernev and Davies to be relatively comfortable answering 1. d4 with d5 and 1. e4 with e5 by the time that tourney ends. So that gives me a month to read most of "Logical Chess" and the chapters in Davies book that I need the most. I don't have to complete both books, though that wouldn't hurt.

And of course, I need to continue to play regularly. I play in tournaments every Saturday and I'm in two online leagues, so I'm playing 2-3 slow games every weekend. I need to play a little more during the week, though. And I need to make sure to study my games afterwards, which I sometimes do, but not every single time like I should.

--Fromper

[Octal]

I have an idea (though it might not be very good). You want to learn how to respond to the Sicilian, and a response to e4. Well, the Sicilian is a response to e4, and playing it will help you learn what to do against it. You also said you like attacking games, and the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian is pretty good in that point, because White usually castles queen-side, black castles king-side, and they each throw all their pieces at each other's kings.

If you don't want to spend 100 hours studying book lines for the Sicilian, I just recently found a few videos online that cover the Sicilian Dragon (and I'm sure you could find plenty more by spending two to three minutes searching):
YouTube - Majnu2006's Videos
This person isn't too great at speaking English, but they are good enough so that you can understand it.

Though learning the Dragon won't help with learning Smith-Morra.

[Fromper]

I've thought about playing the Sicilian as black to learn how to play against it as white.

After all, that's how I became an expert in the French, which used to scare the heck out of me when I had to face it as white. Now, not only do I play the French regularly as black, but I love facing it as white - King side attacks, Greek Gift sacs, locked up pawn center to limit black's queen's bishop and black's overall counterplay. I like it so much as white that I'm not sure why I play it as black.

But there's just too much theory in the Sicilian. If I stick to 1. e4 e5, I can get attacking games without a ton of theory. And the Smith-Morra's a good weapon that most opponents don't like playing against, even if they do know what they should do. So just sticking to that gives me a good game with a lot less opening study.

Maybe I'll reconsider trying the Sicilian as black later in my chess career, but for now, I'm relatively comfortable sticking with what I've picked, especially since I just bought books that I'd like to get some use out of.

The bigger question marks in my opening repertoire right now are how to deal with anything other than 1. e4 as black. I'm going to study the QGD a little for 1. d4 (and probably 1. Nf3), but I'm not sure how to deal with 1. c4.

--Fromper

[Fromper]

I just noticed that my last tournament was rated today, and my USCF rating is up to a new high of 1515. Since ratings will be fixed for the April published list this Friday, that will be my next published rating, barring any slight adjustments that may take place. An increase of 180 points in 2 months isn't bad. Only 185 more to go to hit my goal for the 2008 calendar year, so I'm half way there already.

I've looked through Davies' "Play 1. e4 e5" book a little this week. I went over the game for how to deal with the Ponziani Opening (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3) in the "third move variants" chapter.

Because I'm worried about the Danish Gambit, I glanced at his ideas for dealing with that, along with the related Goring and Scotch Gambits. He recommends declining all three of these gambits with an immediate d5. I haven't played through those games yet. Actually, it looks like he doesn't give them as much coverage as I'd like - just one Scotch Gambit game with passing references to the others. I would have liked to see at least one complete Danish game.

I think I'll hit the "second move variants" chapter in its entirety first, then the Scotch and Two Knights chapters (not necessarily in that order), and save the Ruy Lopez for last.

--Fromper

[Fromper]

At the USCF club on Saturday, I had a rematch against the 1850+ player that I drew the previous week. I lost on the black side of the Scotch game. I'm still not entirely clear what I could have done better, so I think this game warrants detailed study. I'll probably post it here when I get a chance.

I haven't gotten to the Scotch chapter of Davies book on 1. e4 e5 yet, but I stayed in a "book" line for about 6 or 7 moves, I think. It started 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5. Be3 Qf6 6. c3 Nge7 and I think I castled next move, but that's all I remember off the top of my head without the score sheet in front of me. As I said, I haven't read that chapter in the book, and I haven't played the black side of the Scotch very many times, so this was a pretty obvious case of not knowing what my middle game plans should be in this opening. My opponent started advancing queen side pawns and taking up space on that side, and I managed to get some threats going on the king side to go after his king, but my attack didn't quite work, and he got a winning counterattack on that side.

Other than that, over the last few days, I've looked over the three King's Gambit games in Davies' book, so I'm prepared to try declining the gambit with 2. ... Bc5 if anyone plays it against me. I always seem to end up in bad positions when my opponents play the KG and accept it, so this looks like a way that I'll be more comfortable playing against it. I was struck by the fact that this declined line ends up being very similar to the Bishop's Opening and Vienna Gambit lines that I've played some as white. I just never looked at the KG Declined, so I never realized what it leads to.

I've done some puzzles as well, but other than that, I haven't done a ton of study or play in the last few days.

--Fromper

[Fromper]

Wow. I hadn't realized it's been almost 3 weeks since the last update. I've played a few games, done some puzzles, but that's really about it. I've been busy with other stuff, so I haven't done any real book study the last few weeks, other than the puzzles.

Last week's tournament game was the black side of a Ruy Lopez against a guy rated about 20 points above me. I was surprised when I compared the game to the book by Davies that I'm using to learn to play 1. e4 e5. I actually stayed in the book opening for the closed Ruy for something like 11 moves. Only about 7 or 8 of those were memorized. I remembered having seen Na5 by black in a game somewhere, so I tried it, and then I came up with c5 by myself, which is apparently the normal move. It was an interesting game overall, though I ended up losing eventually. It was a tough, even matchup. I'm looking forward to playing that opponent again in the future.

I've been playing a few correspondence games lately on QueenAlice.com. Learning from past mistakes, I'm not keeping more than 6 or 7 going at once, to make sure I don't forget what's going on from trying to keep track of too many at once.

From the recent games I've been playing, I think I'm seeing some trends in my playing style. I used to be way too defensive, so I started playing wild gambits to learn how to attack. Now I don't play the gambits nearly as often, though I still use some, such as transposing to the Blackmar-Diemer or similar gambits when I'm white against the Scandinavian or Caro-Kann and playing the Smith-Morra Gambit against the Sicilian. But I'm really applying what I learned about how to attack in my non-gambit games.

For instance, I had two recent correspondence games where I played the Giuoco Piano as white in one and black in the other. In both cases, I found ways to create attacking chances and got solid attacks. But unlike what I probably would have done 6 months ago, in both cases I was finding ways to get ALL my pieces focused on putting pressure on the opponent's position until something finally broke through, rather than making desperate attempts to create a sharp, tactical attack when there really wasn't one there. In other words, I'm starting to get the hang of attacking properly, by using positional play to set up the attack. This is a definite step in the right direction.

Now my problem is just when I get into really quiet games where I don't know where or how I should be attacking, so I still seem to try starting an attack too early. I need to learn to be as patient as I used to be before I knew how to attack at all. This is a problem for me in the Giuoco Piano where my opponent plays an early Nc3 instead of the normal c3 and d4 for a pawn break, as well as in closed games.

And I still need a plan for how to handle 1. d4. The wild gambits I've played in the past just don't work against players at a higher level. I'm thinking the Tarrasch Defense might suit my new attacking style, and it's much sounder than some of the junk I've played in the past. I need to try it out a few times in practice games before trying it in a tournament, though.

I'm still playing the USCF club every Saturday, and I'm in the OCL online tournament that just started last week. My next big tournament is the last weekend of April. I preregistered for the U1600 section, but I might change my mind and play up in the U1800 instead. I've never done that great in an U1600, though, so I feel I can still learn from games in that section, so I'll probably stick with that.

Besides figuring out how to play the Two Knights and Tarrasch Defense before then, I'd also like to get back into the endgame study, but as I said, I haven't really had much time for book study lately. We'll see how much I get done in the next month.

--Fromper

[Fromper]

Hmm... something else interesting I'm noticing. I seem to be doing a lot worse in internet games while continuing to improve at tournaments. For instance, I had two internet league games in the last two days and lost both of them, while winning my USCF tournament game that I played in between. In this afternoon's internet game, I blundered badly 3 times in the same game, which I never do in OTB tournaments.

On a related note, that's the final game of the USCF tourney I was playing in, so I ended 2-2 again, bringing my USCF rating to another new all time high - 1518. That's up a whole 3 points from my previous rating!!! Actually, that's also the final game of a 50 game scorebook that I started on September 1, so in 7 months, I played exactly 50 slow USCF rated games and increased my rating from 1377 to 1518. Pretty good progress, I think.

But I'm not sure why I'm playing worse on the internet. It might be a problem of visualizing 2d vs 3d. Or it might be the slightly faster time controls. My internet league games are usually 60 15, 60 30, or 45 45, depending on which league, compared to 75 minutes or 120 minutes in USCF tourneys, so the internet games are about the same speed as the 75 minute games with no increment. Or it might be that I sometimes get a little distracted playing from home on the internet like that, though that doesn't explain all of them. But in the last six months, while my USCF rating has risen roughly 150 points, my FICS rating at slow time controls has dropped by roughly the same amount, from the high 1700's to low 1600's.

I'm not overly worried, as I'm sure my FICS rating will bounce back some as I continue to improve. I'm more concerned with USCF tourney results, anyway. I just sort of wish I knew why I blunder so much online and what to do about it. I think that would go a long way towards improving my overall playing skill.

--Fromper

[Abba]

I think the Tarrasch should fit your style nicely. It's a solid opening (GMs play it), gives you an aggressive position, and the one big weakness (the iso) isn't huge as sometimes you can still draw the ending even if you lose it (as I've found a few times from the white side).

As for attacking, it's nice that you're learning to improve your pieces rather than just blindly storming with your pawns or sacrificing material. One of the better quotes I've heard (and I don't remember who said it) is "Tactics flow from a superior position." So if you continue to improve your position then the tactical ideas will become available.

As for playing online, I wouldn't worry about that at all. Sure, the time controls are similar, but it's impossible to simulate actual tournament conditions online. It's good to use the online arena to learn things (especially openings for the quick games), but it's not worth worrying about your rating on there.

[Fromper]

I've been doing next to nothing with chess recently. I'm playing my weekly OCL games on FICS, and I'm playing at the local club every Saturday, but that's it. I've done well enough in my USCF games to gain 3 rating points per tourney (1515 to 1518 to 1521 in the last 3 tournies), which is better than losing points, of course, but it's really not much of a change.

But I haven't done any study at all for the last few weeks, or played any other games, just due to other things in my life taking up all my time. I even bought that book on the Tarrasch Defense (Meeting 1. d4 by Aagaard) and I haven't had time to open it yet, so I don't feel comfortable playing that opening for the first time in a tournament.

Next weekend (April 25-27), I'll be playing in the Space Coast Open in Cocoa Beach, Florida. I'm pre-registered for the U1600 section, but I can change that on site if I change my mind. I was considering a month or two ago maybe moving up to the U1800 section if I was improving lately, but I really seem to be in a holding pattern. Most of my games at the local club are against opponents much lower or higher rated, so I rarely play opponents in the 1400-1800 range, so I don't know how I'll compare to the players in the U1600 or U1800 sections of this tourney at this point.

I'm just thinking that in the last two or three months, I won my one and only game against an opponent slightly above 1600, split 3 games evenly (1 win, 1 loss, and 1 draw) against a guy rated in the low 1400's, and lost a game against a guy in the high 1500's. I've also scored 1.5/7 against players over 1800 this year. Two of those losses and the draw were G/75 games where I was clearly winning in the middle game but blundered the endgame in time trouble. For that matter, so was last week's draw against the guy in the 1400's. The time control in this tournament is twice that long, so I shouldn't have that problem, so I should be able to play better in the endgames when I have more time.

So I'm not counting on definitely being able to win money or rating points in the U1600 section, and I don't know if I'm good enough to really compete at the U1800 level, so the real question is which section will be more educational for me. Where will I learn more? Getting pounded by higher rateds can be educational, because they'll point out my mistakes and punish me for them, so I'll definitely learn from those mistakes. On the other hand, if I play the U1600 section, I'll either win every game or learn from the losses if I don't. That was my reasoning in playing in the U1400 section of a tourney back in January, when I ended up winning every game and getting lots of cash and rating points.

Another factor to consider is that I know a lot of guys from my local club who will be there. Only one of them will be in the U1800 section, but I know at least 5 of the guys who will be in the U1600 section. I'd rather play some strangers for variety than continue to play the same people over and over, even though I don't get paired that often lately against those people around my rating in the local club games. Also, since I'm in a bit of a rut in the study, I might do lousy even in the U1600 section, so if I play up in the U1800, at least I won't loose as many rating points from a bad performance.

So I guess at this point, I'm leaning towards playing up in the U1800 section and just counting on not doing that well. Back in 2003, when my rating was in the low 1400's, I used to play in the U1800 a lot, and I usually won at least one game, so I'm hoping I can do at least that well this time. If I score 1 or 1.5 points (in 5 games), my rating would probably go nowhere, while 2 or more wins would probably increase my rating.

--Fromper

[Najdork]

It sounds like your getting a little burned out. Playing in a higher section too often takes the fun out of chess. I tend to get burned out when I lose too many games in a row. I know I learn more from playing higher rated opponents, but sometimes you just need to feel that rush from crushing your opponent to get that fire back inside.

So go ahead and play the lower section and build that fire back.