Fromper's new 2008 improvement thread

[Fromper]

Ok, so I survived and did acceptably well in the last big tournament without doing much prep in the last month or so. My life will continue to be fairly hectic for the next week, but after next Tuesday, I should have more free time to spend on chess than I've had in a while. Time to get focused again.

My next big tourney is mid-June, so that gives me six weeks to prepare. This one is divided into sections, but not by 200 point ranges. There's an U1800 section with a prize for best performance by a player under 1600, but not a separate U1600 section. This works well for me, since I'm on the border between wanting to play in U1600 and U1800 sections, anyway.

So now I have to decide what study to focus on between now and then.

Based on my games in the last tournament, it's obvious that my primary focus needs to be tactics. I'm doing pretty well with endgames right now, though I still want to continue studying them to improve, but it's not a top priority right now. There are a couple of opening lines I want to learn more about, too.

The one other thing I want to do for opening study is that I bought one of those Foxy Openings DVD's last weekend at the tourney just to see if that type of study would work for me. Someone suggested that after watching it once all the way through, I can just play it in the background over and over while doing other things at home (making dinner, getting ready for work, etc), and just glance at the board positions on the TV every so often, and I'd end up memorizing the whole thing and learning the opening with very little real effort. So I decided to give it a shot with IM Andrew Martin's DVD on the Smith-Morra Gambit Declined. If it works, I might buy more of those in the future.

So I know I need to focus on tactics, but I'm not sure which tactics puzzles to do. I own too many tactics puzzle books, and I've been jumping around from book to book doing a few puzzles here and there for the last couple of months. And I've even been including Pandolfini's Endgame Course in the mix of those puzzle books.

I'm thinking I should go through the two puzzle books I used to know really well as a refresher before diving into the harder stuff. It's been too long since I've done focused tactics study, so that should be a good warmup, and it should only take a week or two if I spend at least 20-30 minutes per day on it. So I think I'll start with that, then move on to Reinfeld's 1001 puzzle books, which I haven't been through in their entirety yet. And maybe I'll keep going through Pandolfini's Endgame Course over and over as part of this, too.

So I guess that's the plan:

1. Play at least 3-5 practice games per week. Review them afterwards.
2. Look over a few of the opening lines in books that I want to learn more about.
3. Go through the tactics puzzles that I already know really well as a refresher course.
4. Watch the opening DVD over and over.
5. Once I'm done with that tactics refresher, dive into Reinfeld's 1001 puzzle books again, to complete those and go through them over and over until I know them all on sight like I do with the easier books.

--Fromper

[Fromper]

So about a week and a half has passed since my last post.

Last week, I watched the Foxy Openings DVD on the Smith-Morra Gambit Declined. It's interesting stuff, but it's kind of boring to sit through for almost 2 hours. Today, I went back and skimmed through it a bit, tracking down the start of each section (since they aren't easy to find by skipping to the next "chapter" on the DVD), and looking over the start of each main line again to remember how I'm supposed to play them. I do need to watch the details over and over again, also, to learn as much as I can from the complete games. Overall, it's a pretty good DVD, and I'm enjoying the change of pace of trying a new form of chess study.

On Saturday, the local club started the next tournament of one game per week at G/120, and I played a REALLY easy game against an unrated kid who clearly isn't ready for adult tournaments. The kid's got potential, but he really needs to stick to scholastic tournaments for a while before playing in tourneys at our level.

Based on the number of players and pairings from the first week, I suspect I'll be playing white next week against the 1800+ player who I play almost every tournament lately. I actually consider this a good thing, since I usually get a good game against him, even though I usually lose, and he is the one player over 1800 I've beaten this year. He usually plays the Sicilian or sometimes the French, both of which I like playing against these days. That's another reason I want to focus on the Foxy Openings DVD this week, though, since I always play the SMG against the Sicilian, and there's a decent chance he'll decline the gambit. There are still a few opening lines for black I want to look over, too, but they can wait until next week, since I'm pretty sure I'll have white this Saturday, even if I don't play that particular opponent.

Besides the opening DVD, I've been doing a decent amount of tactics puzzles, like I wanted to. I'm still going through the sets of puzzles that I already know really well, trying to get to the point where I can spot the solutions instantly again. I used to be able to go through these a lot faster than I am now, which is why I'm going back for a refresher before diving into harder puzzles. Hopefully, I can finish going through those sets of puzzles one or two more times by next weekend, then I'll be ready to move on, most likely to Reinfeld's books.

Other than a skittles game at the club on Saturday, I haven't played any real time practice games lately. I have started playing more correspondence games at chess.com again, though. I saw they had a Smith-Morra Gambit theme tournament, and I couldn't resist. I'm also playing a few other games there. So I am doing some practice, but I'd probably get better practice playing real time games at FICS instead.

All in all, I'm getting back in the groove of doing regular chess study, though I'm falling a little behind on actually playing.

--Fromper

[Fromper]

Since the last update, I've lost my last two USCF tournament games, and drew the only real time practice game I played on the internet. I've also been playing some "correspondence" style games on the internet, but my problem with them is that I sometimes lose the thread of what I'm doing while waiting days between moves, or else I'll occasionally make a move when I'm too tired to think about it properly, and I end up making a blunder that I wouldn't normally make. I've won a couple of correspondence games against lower rated players, but overall, I seem to be hitting a rough patch. If I lose my USCF game this coming Saturday, my rating will drop below 1500 again. Even if I win, I think my overall tournament performance will bring me down 10-20 rating points.

The one that really gets me was my USCF tourney game this past Saturday, against an opponent rated 20 points below me. I got into a great position to attack him, and I saw two possible moves to try and set up the attack against his castled king on g1. One of them was to push my f7 pawn to f5 (I was black, obviously), and the other was to put a knight from d7 on to f6. I put the knight on f6, even though I realized that it would block the pawn, and that I could have done it the following move if I'd pushed f5 first. That mistake bought him enough time to set up a strong defense to my attack, and we eventually ended up in an endgame where I was dead lost.

I just feel really stupid because I saw the better move and made the incorrect call on which move to play. Part of it is just having the necessary instincts to make a judgment call, but part of it is that I should have calculated out the attack better before making my decision. I think those are my two biggest problems in playing right now: judgment and calculation.

I'm working on Reinfeld's 1001 puzzle books to improve my calculation ability. I haven't finished going through all the sets of puzzles that I already know over and over like I wanted to yet, though. I'm kind of going back and forth now between the Reinfeld puzzles to improve deep calculation and repetition of the stuff I already know to improve my ability to spot easy stuff quickly.

I'm not sure what to do about the problems in judgment, or if that just comes from experience. I probably need to play more "real time" games on the internet for practice, instead of correspondence style.

Other than that, I'm still going through some of the opening stuff once in a while. I bought Schiller's "Complete Defense to Queen Pawn Openings", and it's providing an excellent introduction to the Tarrasch Defense. I definitely need to improve my opening play in some lines, but the opening study has been taking more of a back seat to tactics, since I know I REALLY need to get better at calculation right now.

--Fromper

[Crash]

Experience does help with judgement but only if you learn from and apply the lessons learned from your mistakes.

[Fromper]

Originally Posted by Crash

Experience does help with judgement but only if you learn from and apply the lessons learned from your mistakes.

And that's why I review my losses afterwards, preferably with my opponent. I should probably post a couple of those recent games here to see what you stronger players think.

The funny thing about the game I was complaining about is that my opponent actually had no idea why he won. He was making comments about how he "got lucky" that the endgame situation worked out to his advantage, while I was sitting there analyzing what mistakes I made in the middle game that stopped my attack from working and allowed him to have that easily won endgame. Obviously, one of us learned more from that game than the other.

--Fromper

[Crash]

Originally Posted by Fromper

And that's why I review my losses afterwards, preferably with my opponent. I should probably post a couple of those recent games here to see what you stronger players think.

The funny thing about the game I was complaining about is that my opponent actually had no idea why he won. He was making comments about how he "got lucky" that the endgame situation worked out to his advantage, while I was sitting there analyzing what mistakes I made in the middle game that stopped my attack from working and allowed him to have that easily won endgame. Obviously, one of us learned more from that game than the other.

--Fromper

That can be frustrating.

I also found it good to go over my games with a stronger friend though I have been doing that less with my recent games because aside from one person who hadn't been playing much (he stopped playing around the time I did) I am the highest rated player who still plays actively in my community.

Of course, if the improvement in one of my students continues at its present rate that may be true only for another year or so.

[Fromper]

I didn't find it frustrating so much as comical. We're both low 1500 players now, and there's no doubt in my mind that he'll never break 1600, while I'm actively shooting for a goal of 1700 by the end of this year.

As for my study this week, I seem to be doing well. My usual problem is that I keep saying "I need to study more", but then I don't always find time to do so. This week, I've been doing tactics and endgame puzzles for at least 30 minutes per day for the past 5 days, plus a little extra opening study here and there. Luckily, other things in my life have calmed down, so I have the free time to be able to focus more, though I haven't made time for any long practice games on the internet.

If I can keep this up until Friday the 13th, and squeeze in a few more internet games on top of playing Saturdays at the local club, I should be in good shape for the big tournament that weekend (June 13-15).

As I said earlier, though, I really need to win my last game of the current tourney at the club this Saturday. I'm 1/3 so far this tourney, against low enough rated opponents for that to really hurt my rating. Now that I'm in the 1500's, I'd really like to stay there or continue moving up, not slide back down into the 1400's.

--Fromper

[Abba]

Fromper it sounds like you're making good progress. One thing I'd say is right now not to get too caught up in your rating going up and down, focus more on improving your play and learning from your games. When I had my rapid jump from 1500 -> 1800, my rating went from 1566 down to 1490 (I had been bouncing around the 1500s for awhile) before I made a jump to 1607 then 1745 in the next 2 rating supplements.

[Fromper]

I'm not overly concerned with my rating gains and losses from individual tournaments, more with the overall trends. I know last year, my rating dropped all the way down to 1307 (from around 1380) before shooting up to 1468 at the start of this year, then slowly progressing to 1526 from there. I just like being able to call myself a 1500's player instead of a 1400's player, so I was hoping to not lose 27+ points from this tournament.

As it turns out, my opponent didn't show up today, so I didn't get to play a rated game. I did play three skittles games, though, which was decent practice. The tournament's already been submitted to the USCF web site, and my rating dropped to 1501 from my win and two losses earlier in this tournament. So I'm still a 1500 player.

Next Saturday, we start a new tournament with 2 games per week at G/75, but I'll only be there for the first week of it, because of a remote tourney I'm traveling to the second weekend (June 13-15).

It's a 5 game tourney at G/120, which is a decent speed, but I actually prefer slightly slower at these big weekend events. I'll be playing in the U1800 section, like at the last big one, but unlike last time, there is no U1600 section. So the U1800 section will have more people around my level or lower, as opposed to being the lowest rated in my section like last time. I scored 1.5/5 in the U1800 last time, and as I said, there will be some easier competition this time, so I'm hoping for 50% or better.

As for my study, I'm continuing to do puzzles every day, which is good for me. I usually say I need to study regularly, but actually only find time to study once or twice per week. So the fact that I've actually found time to spend at least 20-30 minutes per day on puzzles every day for over a week is good for me. I've definitely got a positive trend going in my study right now. I hope it lasts, without the other distractions in my life getting in the way.

Besides just doing tactical puzzles, I've also started re-reading Pandolfini's Endgame Course. This time, I'm reading the book from cover to cover instead of going through the flash cards I made of all the positions in random order. There are just some sections I know I have trouble with, so I want to study them in context before I go back to quizzing myself with the flash cards. I should probably go back to reading Silman's Complete Endgame Course at some point, too, but for now, I'm focusing on one book at a time.

I'm also looking over some opening lines here and there. I'm taking the books on the openings I play and copying complete games on to my computer as pgn format one at a time. This way, it's easier to replay them later, so I can look over the games and see overall trends of the openings. The big problem is that I'm trying to do this with three opening books and a DVD at the same time, so it's somewhat disjointed. I just keep feeling that if I pick one opening to study, I'll fall behind on learning the others that could come up just as often in my games. But the opening study really is the least of my worries compared to tactics and endgames right now.

--Fromper

[Hoosker]

Heya,

At one point I surveyed a few local tournaments, walking from board to board, and noting which openings were being played. Using those results I dedicated more time to working on the parts of my repertoire that I was most likely to be using. Actually worked pretty well

Also, if you like working on your endgame via the computer, just download the Pandolfini book (if you haven't already) from Gambit Chess. But you've already been around the block and probably already know this.

GL