It has come to my attention that comments haven’t been working since the site redesign.  This was due to a malfunctioning plugin, and has now been fixed.  I have also added a ‘Contact me‘ page which should allow people to let me know if comments ever stop working in the future.

Some time after returning from China I began thinking seriously about chess improvement again, and devised a simple study plan.  It is my hope that the successful completion of this plan will result in my strength increasing by at least 100 points.  It is based on two observations about my game:

1. Despite having spent many hours over the course of this project thinking about and working on my openings, my opening repertoire is still a sorry thing, cobbled together from different sources over the years, often with little regard to how well a particular opening suits me stylistically.  It is also full of holes, one early example of which can be seen below:

   I’ve played 1…e5 all my life, but after 3. Nc3 in a tournament game I would be forced to start thinking.

2. My endgame knowledge is extremely patchy.  I recently purchased Silman’s Complete Endgame Course (excellent, by the way) and found that I didn’t even know everything presented in the ‘Class C’ (1400-1599 rating) section – knowledge that Silman thinks players rated 400-600 points lower than me should have.

   The position above is an example of the famous ‘Philidor position’.  Black to move draws easily with Rh6!  I expect I have known this in the past, but I had forgotten, and would probably have played Rh1?! in a tournament game (after which it is still a draw with best play, but black must demonstrate some technique).  (For anyone wondering, I did remember the even more fundamental ‘Lucena position’.)

These two observations led me to formulate the following three-step plan:

1. Analyse all the serious games I have played in recent years, with a view to understanding which types of positions I play especially poorly and which types a little better.  I took my method from this Chessbase article and the book Chess for Tigers (a book which has been recommended to me many times, and which I have finally got round to buying, and, even more remarkably, reading cover-to-cover several times).
2. Devise a complete opening repertoire based on the results of stage 1, and learn it thoroughly.
3. Obtain a thorough grounding in endgame theory by reading Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual in its entirety.  Retain said grounding using a technique I will talk about in a future post.  This step has now been modified slightly to include reading the Silman book mentioned above before Dvoretsky (more about this in another post).

Of course, my openings and endgame knowledge are not the only two areas of my game which could be improved.  My calculation, positional understanding, and almost any other area you care to name leave much to be desired.  However, I’ve chosen those two areas to start with because it’s easy to see how to improve them and I’m fairly confident that my plan to do so will have measurable results.

The first stage has already been completed, and saw me look through around 175 of my long time-control games and record my observations in a spreadsheet.  It would certainly have been easier and I would have learned more if I had had a very strong player looking over my games with me, but even without that assistance I have gained one or two useful insights.  Stages 2 and 3 can be completed in any order, and I have been dabbling with both.  I am inclined now to focus on stage 3 until it is completed, before turning my full attention to stage 2.

Please let me know in the comments section what you think of my plan, but don’t be surprised if I disregard any suggestions to radically change it.  I believe my main problem so far has not been my method of study, but rather my frequent changes of approach, which has led to me starting to study many areas/openings/books and finishing very few.  I have learnt a thing or two about how not to get things done in the process, and my completion of the first stage makes me hopeful that this time I may be able to stick with the plan to the end.

It’s been nearly four years since I started this blog with a post titled ‘Road to Grandmaster‘.  In the year following this announcement I worked quite hard on my chess, and made decent progress towards my goal, but in the ensuing three years my priorities shifted (to my degree, learning Mandarin in China and getting a job, respectively).  Although I never completely stopped playing or studying chess, with my focus elsewhere it’s not surprising that I wasn’t able to do more than maintain my level (at about 2000 rating, or weak ‘Expert’ strength).

The job thing is finally sorted: in three weeks’ time I will be moving to London to work for Network Rail, the company responsible for Britain’s rail infrastructure.  With this arranged, I find my thoughts turning more and more to resuming my chess improvement project and blog.  Of course, with a full-time job finding time for chess study will be challenging, and my chances of making Grandmaster don’t seem to be any better than they were when I started in 2010.  With that said, I enjoy writing about chess improvement, may still have some interesting things to say about it, and have found that at least a handful of people enjoy reading what I write.  This seems sufficient reason to start blogging again, though the blog will not be entirely as before: welcome to the ‘Road to 2100’.

Nope, it isn’t April the 1st.  While I won’t be changing the domain name, the revised aim, at least for the time being, is to achieve a 2100 rating.  I have been advised more than once either to set a more realistic final target, or to set intermediate targets, and this is me finally taking that advice.  The 2100 target is a bit of both; I certainly hope that the ‘road to 2100’ will prove to be merely a ‘large step to 2100’, and that before I know it I will be writing about improving to Candidate Master strength.  However, if and when I do reach 2100 (and any subsequent targets) I will make a decision about whether or not to continue based on my priorities in life at that time, which I can’t foresee now.

I also envisage the content of the blog changing somewhat.  Updates on my progress, tournament reports and analyses of my games will still appear, but they will be less frequent than before.  Instead, I hope to feature more content about the theory of learning in general and chess-learning in particular, and perhaps also instructional content helping lower-rated players with aspirations to improve to ‘Class A’ or ‘Expert’.

As before, my blogging will only be worth the time and effort which goes into it if I have readers who find some value or interest in my content.  I hope many of the old readers who have been with me from the beginning will continue with me in this new phase of the blog, and I welcome any new readers who have just found it.  Please say ‘Hi’ in the comments section below, and let me know if you have any ideas for what you would like to see on this new old blog.

Tomorrow I will be moving to China to study Mandarin for a year at Xiangtan University.  Although my desire to improve at chess has not waned, and I still believe my project is achievable, I no longer feel able to blog under the ‘Road to Grandmaster’ heading without making chess my first priority.

Two years ago today, I wrote in my first post and ‘mission statement’:

“This blog will document my journey as I attempt to improve from a ‘Class A’ chess player to a Grandmaster, the highest title awarded by FIDE (the World Chess Federation).  I propose to do this without failing my degree (an MSci Joint Honours in Physics and Chemistry), without dropping my other hobbies (guitar, Go, Mandarin Chinese and more), without losing my girlfriend (who has not the slightest interest in chess), and even whilst maintaining a normal student’s social life.”

Starting with the secondary aims, I wasn’t able to dedicate much time to my other hobbies, though the more important degree and girlfriend-keeping have been or continue to be negotiated successfully!  The primary aim has not of course been completed; I am not a Grandmaster.  However, I do feel my chess has improved, and when FIDE takes into account my performance at the Czech Open I will finally have progressed from ‘Class A’ to ‘Expert’.  The graph below shows my ECF grade (converted into an approximate FIDE rating) up until July 2011, with the vertical blue line marking the start of this project.  In September of that year I got my first FIDE rating, and the points thereafter reflect that rating.  (It would be remiss of me not to mention that my latest ECF grade has actually gone down, but I believe my FIDE rating to now be my most reliable one.  The 2009 point is artificially high because the ECF made alterations to their grading system in that year.)

My rate of improvement during the project has been solid but unremarkable (+~150 points in two years).  Please refer to my latest study plan post for my thoughts on possible reasons for that.

For those of you who, like me, aspire to take great strides forward in your chess understanding and strength, a few words:

1.  Do not be discouraged by those who claim that ‘talent’ is all-important.  (The Polgar sisters are one great example which demonstrates that practice is much more important.)  For an entertaining and inspiring read about the power of ‘deliberate practice’, try ‘Bounce’, by Matthew Syed.

2.  Prioritise.  The American wrestler Dan Gable has been quoted as saying: “If it’s important do it every day, if it’s not don’t do it at all.”  In other words, if you try to improve your chess whilst working full-time, learning the shakuhachi, and playing golf four times a week, you won’t get very far.

3.  Make yourself accountable to someone.  I did that in a big way with a public declaration of my intent and regular updates on this blog.  It’s been a mixed blessing – a source of both motivation and anxiety – and I think a smaller-scale declaration could work as well.

In closing, I’d like to thank everyone who has helped me in any way over the past two years, whether by offering to share their books or learning materials, their time to play and analyse, or their words of wisdom and encouragement in comments on my posts.  You’ve helped to keep me going after bad tournaments, and have fuelled the improvement which I am confident will continue even after I stop posting here.  Although I have not achieved my goal, I hope some of you have nevertheless found some value in my posts.  It may well be that at some point in the future I will once again find the time to pursue chess improvement as a top priority, but until such time, goodbye, and good luck.

With my degree complete, it’s time to look ahead to the next phase of my life, and for the summer at least, that means making another determined effort to improve my chess.  Last September I assessed my progress so far, and concluded that, whilst I had got stronger, my method of study was stopping me from improving as much as I’d like.  This academic year I’ve focused much more on my degree than on chess, and as a result I think that post is still a fair reflection of the state of play.

In it I argued that I was trying to learn too many things at once, with the result being that I didn’t obtain or retain any great depth of knowledge about anything.  Despite having hundreds of hours of practice under my belt, I still don’t have, for example, a strong and consistent opening repertoire, but rather a patchwork thing much of which has been hastily cobbled-together in the lead-up to tournaments, and much of which I don’t understand thoroughly.  I also lack, for example, a solid grounding in many basic rook and pawn endings.

You may already have guessed that my new plan will involve studying just one thing intensively and repetitively – immersing myself fully in it – so that I cannot fail to really learn something about the topic before moving on to another (this is called ‘deliberate practice’, and I talk briefly about it in my September post).

There are a couple of other features I want to work into the plan to force myself to use my brain when studying and not just coast.  One is writing.  I find it all too easy when reading about something to passively agree with whatever the author is saying and not subject it to critical scrutiny.  Writing about a topic (especially for an audience) forces you to formulate your own opinion and think carefully about it.  The second is thinking under time pressure.  There’s nothing quite like a ticking clock to focus the mind.

Tomorrow I start work on a book about the King’s Indian Defence.

Hold your objections for just a second.  I know I’m neither a titled player, nor an openings expert.  However, my co-author, GM Damian Lemos, is both.  Just as importantly, this is not intended to be the latest word on cutting-edge KID theory, but rather an exploration of the process of learning the King’s Indian.  My sincere desire is that, not only will I become an expert on the opening in the process, but that the book will present a clear path for the reader to do the same.

The core of the book will be a number of instructive games, annotated by both myself and Damian.  Damian has selected nine ‘Mar del Plata’ games (the absolute mainline) for me to start with, and I will be playing through approximately one per day with a time limit, trying to ‘guess the move’ and recording my thinking process.  I will post the games here each day, and would welcome your comments.  Between myself, my readers, and GM Lemos I hope to be able to gain some insight into how my thinking (and to an extent that of other amateurs) in King’s Indian positions differs from the masters’.

During the same period I intend to play and analyse lots of King’s Indian games myself.  If you are about as strong or stronger than me, have an ICC or ChessCube account, and play the white side of the KID, you can help with this!  (Just post a comment if you’d like to play.)

My plans for the book will no doubt evolve as I write it, but other features could include a quick repertoire section, or a section on common types of tactic or ending which we uncover.  If at the end of the process I have managed to produce something which could be of value to people, I will make it available for download as an e-book, probably on a ‘pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth’ model, so that people can choose either to have it for free or to support my project financially (which would help me with travel to tournaments, training materials etc.).

I’m excited to start!  As always, your comments, whether supportive or constructively critical, are much appreciated.

I’ve played three competitive games this week (a little over 12 hours including some preparation and analysis) – a Durham league game and the first two rounds of the Northern 4NCL.  I won the first two, and had a very comfortable position in the third when I went a little crazy, eventually managing to lose it.  Here they are, with light annotations for now:

This summer is make-or-break for the ‘road to Grandmaster’.  No, I don’t expect to make GM (or close) in three months, nor is there technically any time limit on my ambitions, but if I don’t make significant progress now then I doubt I ever will.

With that in mind, I intend to dedicate July, August and September largely to chess improvement.  I’m open to suggestions on how best to use that time; in particular if anyone knows of any good chess camps or training opportunities I’d be interested to know.  In the absence of any special opportunities arising, my basic plan is as follows.

Aim for 40 hours’ study per week.  This time will be split roughly evenly between opening, middlegame and endgame training, with plenty of tactics problems.  However, I don’t intend to try to divide the time up too strictly as I think that can decrease productivity.

I also plan to play in several tournaments.  Ones I’m considering include the 11-round British Major Open in late July and early August, the e2e4 Uxbridge International in mid-August, the Paignton Congress in early September, the e2e4 Sunningdale Congress in mid-September and the e2e4 Gatwick Premier at the end of September.  I’m also open to the idea of travelling to a tournament or two in mainland Europe (if my bank balance is healthy enough).

Thoughts?

On the 30th of January I participated in ‘Tough Guy’, as announced here, and the memory of the pain has now faded sufficiently for me to write about it. 😉

I travelled down to Wolverhampton the night before with a number of other Durham students, and we arrived after dark so as to make setting up camp difficult. Here’s this post’s only nugget of chess content: on the coach journey I prepared against the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, which as a King’s Indian Defence player I could still meet via the move order 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 (preventing a Pirc transposition) 3. e4. The night proved to be as tough as I’d imagined Tough Guy itself would be, as the temperature dropped into the minuses and I was unable to keep warm, even whilst wearing two jumpers, a ski jacket, hat and gloves and inside my sleeping bag.

We emerged from our tents at 7 am, having had a few hours’ broken sleep, and in my case to a breakfast of cold pasta. The event didn’t start until 11 am, so I passed the hours in a state of high tension, with my mindset alternating between ‘it can’t be that bad’, and ‘I can’t feel my toes now, so I’ll be frozen solid within the first mile’. From 9 am the excitement really began to build as participants started streaming in, some dressed as ballerinas or superheroes, and a few particularly brave or foolish individuals without tops or wearing only a ‘mankini’. After collecting our race numbers (for which I was made to do pressups on my knuckles), we finally managed to find our way through the crowds and the confusion to our starting position.

I’ll skip quickly over the wait to start, which featured a Scottish band with bagpipes and drums, a rugby ball being kicked around, people peeing in the midst of the crowd in little wooden urinals, a furious duck fight between starting groups separated by a fence (we’d been given little plastic ducks to throw in the first water feature and attempt to find at the end), and occasional glimpses of the magnificently-moustachioed Mr. Mouse, the event’s founder. Finally, at a few minutes past 11, our group was off, letting out a massive roar and shielding ourselves against the redoubled effort of the groups still waiting to pelt us with ducks.

The race began with a slide down a steep, muddy hill, and then we were into the ‘Country Miles’, the portion of Tough Guy that’s essentially just a cross-country run to spread the field out. It did start with a few nasty ditches of icy water to scramble through, but with those over there were several water-free miles which in retrospect were bliss compared to what lay ahead. The ‘Ghurka Grand National’ – a series of barriers to jump over or roll under – and ‘Slalom’ – where the path goes about 10 times up and down a steep hill – were accomplished without too much difficulty, and then began the ‘Jungle Slalom’, the only really objectionable bit of the Country Miles. This consisted of a muddy ditch filled with waist-high cold water, and the path went diagonally back and forth across this ditch, I would guess about ten times (though it felt like more). The water was full of large ice chunks, which hacked up your shins upon each plunge down into the water, and the scramble up the muddy bank on the other side was at times only possible with pushes or pulls from fellow competitors. Finally, a sign announced the start of the ‘Killing Fields’, and my heart sank as I realised that the Jungle Slalom I had just completed had been just a taste of the pain ahead.

The Killing Fields began with a large log climbing frame, and as you ascended the gaps between logs became alarmingly large, with my legs fully extended to bridge the gap, and shorter people really struggling. The ‘safety net’ far below looked less than encouraging, and, while it would probably have been enough to prevent death, I expect you’d still have broken a bone if you’d fallen. Over the climbing frame and into the water again; icy water to your waist or chest punctuated most obstacles, taking your breath away each time, and numbing and cramping your limbs. I’ll skip through the fire, the tire tunnels (which ripped off any exposed skin), and a variety of other obstacles and fast forward to the most hideous of all: The Torture Chamber.

The Torture Chamber was a new attraction for this year’s Tough Guy, so none of the participants knew what awaited them as they wormed their way on their bellies into an underground chamber. As you got further in the sound of grown men screaming all around you made some people hesitate, but there was no turning back now. Upon entering the chamber I paused, crouched, for a few moments, trying to work out what the danger was and avoid it, but all that could be seen in the darkness was the faint outlines of things dangling from the ceiling, and they were too numerous to be missed. I proceeded on hands and knees and soon knew what the screams were about as I was knocked flat on the ground by a powerful electric shock. Onwards, through several rows of electrified tape, and then I was mercifully at the exit, which took the form of ‘Vietcong Tunnels’. These were narrow, pitch-black concrete tunnels, and I chose to lie on my side and push myself along with a leg, in the process sustaining an impressive-looking graze (though I didn’t notice it at the time). A light at the end of the tunnel, and out, headfirst into more freezing water.

So it continued. Climb, wade through water, run, more water, climb, jump off a high plank into water. Then came the head dunks, and for me and I think many people these triggered a worsening of my condition. A number of planks were laid across the surface of the water, and to proceed you had to submerge yourself completely in the icy water, fumble your way to the other side of the plank, breath, and repeat.

Obstacle 26 out of 28 was a large figure-of-eight through a lake, alternating between climbing frames and wades or rope walks. My last memory during the event is either repeatedly trying and failing to pull myself out of the water, or wandering around in a daze asking people which direction to go in. My next is a hazy recollection of a period in a barn with a woman repeating the words ‘severe hypothermia’. Apparently I was pulled out of the race and warmed up by St. John’s Ambulance volunteers, for which I’m grateful, as I was obviously in no condition to continue to the end (but equally had no intention of leaving the course voluntarily). Tough Guy is supposed to be about ‘mind over matter’, but it seems to me that the phrase has little meaning when you have no mind left.

It is frustrating to have come so close to finishing and failed, especially as I was on target to finish in the top two hundred out of over five thousand competitors. I feel obliged to return next year and try again, but in order to succeed and avoid succumbing to hypothermia once more, I will have to get fatter, not fitter.

I said in my last weekly progress report that I’d say something about the general opening work I’m doing at the moment.  I’m trying to decide on an opening repertoire which will serve me all the way up to 2500, and there are a number of decisions I’m having difficulty with.  If you’re an opponent looking to see what I play, then by all means read on – you won’t find too much information that won’t soon be in databases anyway. 🙂

Let’s start with my white repertoire.  1. e4 is ‘best by test’ and I’ve played it all my life, so I see no reason to change that.  My first dilemma comes on move 3, after the common moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6.  I’ve almost always played 3. Bc4, the Giuoco Piano, in the past, but I’m considering switching to the Ruy Lopez with 3. Bb5.  A friend recently offered the opinion that learning all the extra theory associated with this move really isn’t worth it at my level, as the positions I get are unlikely to be significantly better than after 3. Bc4.  I think he’s absolutely right, but what I’m not sure about is whether or not a switch to 3. Bb5 will be desirable/necessary at some point in the future, when I’m higher-rated.  If so, then it would seem to make sense to take it up now, and start getting experience in the positions.  A quick search in MegaBase showed that 3. Bb5 is played almost ten times as often as 3. Bc4 at GM level, presumably for a reason!  Furthermore, I’m not aware of any Grandmasters who play 3. Bc4 exclusively or nearly so.  Rodriguez Vila, Movsesian, Tiviakov, Bologan, and plenty more play it frequently, but all have the Ruy Lopez as either their main or a major secondary weapon.  Thoughts?

A second area of indecision comes as black after 1. e4.  Taking up some sort of Sicilian is a serious possibility, but for now let’s assume I stick with 1…e5, which is of course a perfectly good option all the way up to the highest level.  For the last few years I’ve been meeting the Ruy Lopez with the Arkhangelsk Variation (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Bb7), but this has been played so little at high levels that I’m not sure if it’s a ‘serious’ enough approach to use all the way to GM.  I’m also not a huge fan of the positions after 7. d3, which have become popular and seem to be causing difficulties.  For these reasons I’m thinking about taking up a different defence to the Ruy Lopez; the Marshall appeals in some ways, but it’s very theoretical and I’d probably have to face an anti-Marshall about as often, so the main lines of the Closed Defence (Chigorin, Breyer, Zaitsev, Smyslov etc.) come into consideration.

Finally, my approaches as white against the French and Caro-Kann Defences may be due a rethink.  Against the French I play the Tarrasch variation, with 3. Nd2, and whilst I’m happy enough with the resulting positions it’s not as ambitious as the main lines after 3. Nc3.  Against the Caro-Kann I play the rather rare (though recently quite fashionable) Fantasy Variation with 3. f3; again I’m not really dissatisfied with it, but it is very much a sideline and I feel I should be playing mostly main lines.

I’d be very interested to hear your opinions on the questions raised in this post, but I may not share my conclusions or decisions here in order to keep some things secret from future opponents!

Tomorrow I’ll be taking part in ‘Tough Guy’, which claims to be the world’s most demanding one-day survival ordeal.  As pushing pawns is about the most physically demanding thing I’ve done since leaving school, I expect it to be, well, Tough.

It consists of a cross-country run of about six miles, followed by a two mile obstacle course called ‘The Killing Fields’.  The Killing Fields feature 25 increasingly unpleasant obstacles, which require you to climb, jump from heights, be electrocuted, run through fire, crawl under barbed wire, and swim through freezing cold underwater tunnels.  The frequent submersions in cold water are the bit I’m most scared of.

One possible interpretation of why I’m doing this is that it’s an expression of my determination to become a Grandmaster.  Another possibility is that it’s a result of my lack of sanity (which some argue I sacrificed when starting this blog).  I have been doing some training in an effort to make up for the last two and a half years of inactivity, and you can see me jumping in the River Wear here.  I’m raising money for Tough Guy’s own charity, H.A.W.K, which stands for Heroes, Animals, Wheelchairs, Kids, and as far as I can tell teaches limbless veterans and fully-limbed children to work with animals in a sanctuary.

Wish me luck!