Matthew Koutnik – Page 4

My Chess Study 1

Leave a Comment / Bullet, Caro-Kann, Climb To 2000 / November 13, 2022

A year ago I started documenting a summary of my daily chess study and I posted it here on the blog. After 100 days I stopped, but now I feel the urge to pick it back up again. I am still trying to climb to a rating above 2000 on both Lichess and Chess.com. The title of these posts is going to simply be “My Chess Study” and it is essentially a journal entry of the chess related tasks I did during the day. The aim is to post daily, but I will see how I go.

Lichess Rapid 2011 Lichess Blitz 1920 Chess.com Rapid 1969 Chess.com Blitz 1788

Puzzle Rush Score 35

Daily Study Today I played a few bullet games and found myself in the following position.

In the following game on move 13 there is a great move for Black. I saw the idea and went for it, but missed a defensive resource. My opponent missed the move also and resigned shortly after. It just goes to show how careful you have to be.

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A Year Of Chess

Leave a Comment / Climb To 2000 / November 13, 2022

It has been a bit over a year since I got back into chess. I have done a fair amount of chess study in that time and I have played a bunch of online games and a few OTB rapid / blitz games.

When I started documenting my chess journey In 2021, I had a chess.com blitz rating of 1668 and my Survival Puzzle Rush scores were regularly in the 30s. Now my chess.com blitz rating is 1788 and I often get Survival Puzzle Rush scores in the 40-50 range.

I have seen a slight improvement in my chess, even though it feels like the more I learn the less I know.

Over the course of the year I played 1108 bullet games, 494 blitz games and 59 rapid games. I solved 447 chess.com puzzles and completed on average 1 Survival Puzzle Rush each day.

I successfully read through How To Reassess Your Chess, Simple Chess and The Power Of Pawns (almost finished this one) as well as half of Fisher’s My 60 Memorable Games.

I started a monthly chess newsletter. I watched a ton of chess events and kept up with chess news. I occasionally posted on Twitter to join in on chess discussions and to connect with other chess players.

I learned how to play the Caro-Kann and the Kings Indian Defense and exclusively played the openings in all of my games.

That is a snapshot of my year. Let’s see what the next 12 months bring.

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