I have completed 30 days of the “Climb To 2000” series and I think now is a good time to reflect on my progress. In a short time I have made good improvement as far as my rating is concerned (From 1668 to 1821 – Roughly 150 rating points improvement) and I am spotting simple tactics most of the time. I can feel that It is getting tougher to make gains, but I am getting good positions against players in the 1900-2000 range, while also coming up with good defensive ideas when down (usually because of an opening inaccuracy). My time management has been a big factor too. I often lose on time as I spend quite a bit of time calculating in the middle game.
The main question I want to ask is what has worked well and what could I improve on moving forward?
I think the best way for me to consider this is a pros and cons list. Who doesn’t love a good list?
Pros
Survival Puzzle Rush
I love doing this each day. It doesn’t take too long, but it is really helping me to think about simple tactics that need to be cemented into my brain.
Limiting the amount of games played each day
On the days I limit myself to 1-5 games I tend to feel like I learn more. I think more deeply about my mistakes, looking to analyse the games, rather than racing ahead to the next game and making the same mistakes all over again.
Learning from top quality games
I really enjoy watching chess tournaments and titled players play the game. There is a lot to learn from the top chess players in the world. I have also enjoyed looking at great chess games played by champions of the past.
Cons
Jumping from one thing to the next
While this is great for flexibility and choosing whatever I may be interested in on the day, it probably isnt the most effective way of learning. This is an area that may continue to develop and change over time. Do I stick to a schedule of things that I work on or one main focus that I stick to for a while. To give you an example of what I am talking about, I have opened 5 books in the last 30 days and read bits and pieces from all of them. It could be better to focus on one book at a time to gain better insight into the content I am consuming.
Caring too much about the rating
I find after a few bad beats there is this instinct in me that says I have to get my rating back to where it was, before I can stop playing. I need to continue to let that feeling go. You have to make mistakes to learn and seeing mistakes in a positive light is something I need to work on and keep doing.
Moving Forward
I am going to change the format slightly of what I share in my daily recap posts. Each day I am going to outline my current rating and puzzle rush score for the day as I think looking back over data after a long period of time could be quite interesting. I am also going to post one game. Either a game of my own, the game of a current or former high rated player or a chess tactic / instructional game that I have looked at. I will likely make a short comment about the game or analyse it.
When it comes to my learning I am going to try and focus on one instructional book (this could be about strategy, tactics, endgames etc. ) – one game collection book (such as My 60 Memorable Games) and one opening. Currently I am learning about the Caro-Kann. I have been playing it in all my games against 1.e4 to try and learn the common ideas in the opening and what moves don’t work.
That is the plan moving forward. I want to keep it simple, so that I can feel like I have accomplished the learning each day. This may continue to change as time moves on, but I am hoping it will work well.
What do you think? Do you have any training recommendations when it comes to chess improvement?