Lack-of-progress report might be a better title for this post, as I’ve done very little chess (~7 hours 10 minutes) over the university exam period.  The good news is that my exams are now over, and I have at least three months to dedicate largely to chess.  Here’s what I’ve done:

Monday 18th of April: 10 minutes playing on ChessCube, 70 minutes playing a 90 30 game

Tuesday 19th: 60 minutes lesson with Blitz-King

Wednesday 20th: 15 minutes playing on ChessCube

Thursday 21st: 10 minutes playing on ICC, 10 minutes playing on PlayChess

Friday 22nd: 20 minutes playing on ChessCube

Saturday 30th: 10 minutes playing and analysing on ICC

Wednesday 4th of May: 20 minutes preparing for the final round of the Durham City Club Championships, ~2 hours 30 minutes playing and analysing the game

Sunday 8th: 25 minutes playing on ICC (15 minutes with derfel)

Saturday 28th: 15 minutes playing on ChessCube

Sunday 29th: 25 minutes playing on ChessCube

This Friday and Saturday I intend to play in the 1st ICC Open.  Another post will follow soon about plans for the summer.

I did 6 hours 20 minutes this week.  There’s no target until after exams, which finish at the end of May.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: 5 minutes playing a game on Playchess, 10 minutes studying an opening from a Teignmouth game, 40 minutes Grivas self-analysis

Tuesday: 30 minutes Grivas self-analysis (it’s going to take a long time to complete), 1 hour lesson with GM Damian Lemos

Wednesday: 40 minutes Grivas self-analysis, 10 minutes playing on PlayChess

Thursday: 1 hour watching PlayChess’s ‘Ask the Experts’ session with Kasimdzhanov

Friday: 10 minutes PlayChess tactics training, 35 minutes playing games on PlayChess

Saturday: 50 minutes playing games on various servers

Sunday: 30 minutes playing on PlayChess

There were two noteworthy items this week: the Grivas-style analysis, which is detailed in an article linked to above, and the ‘Ask the Experts’ session, which was very interesting and definitely worth attending for the next one.

This post (well, the last one really) marks 6 months of recorded study (though the website’s been going a little longer).  I’ve added a couple of new graphs to the rating graphs section to show my progress over this period.  I managed the 12 hour target again this week, doing 15 hours and 30 minutes, a third of which was spent playing a fairly disastrous rapidplay tournament at Teignmouth (2/6 in the Open section).  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: 1 hour 20 minutes playing games in and analysinga specific opening line on ICC

Tuesday: 1 hour lesson with GM Damian Lemos

Wednesday: 1 hour 55 minutes opening work, 55 minutes playing and analysing on ICC

Thursday: ~20 minutes playing on ChessCube, ~20 minutes reviewing the games of the recent Kasimdzhanov-Anand match

Friday: 50 minutes opening preparation, 30 minutes playing on PlayChess and ChessCube

Saturday: ~4 hours 30 minutes playing half hour games at Teignmouth, 30 minutes reconstructing games from the event

Sunday: 5 minutes analysing a game from the day before, 10 minutes playing a game on PlayChess, ~3 hours 15 minutes playing a 90 30 game

From this week until the end of May there will be no weekly target, in a further effort to encourage revision.  However, I’ll definitely be doing some chess, so you can still expect weekly reports.

I exceeded the 12 hour target, doing 14 hours 55 minutes, but some of that time was spent on an unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the Commonwealth Championships.  In the final qualifier on Sunday I gave up in 14th place with 10 minutes to go because 1st place was out of my reach.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: 60 minutes qualifying for the ChessCube Commonwealth qualifier final, 60 minutes playing the day’s 1st 90 30 game, 15 minutes preparing for and 3 hours 20 minutes playing the day’s 2nd 90 30 game

Tuesday: 60 minutes lesson with GM Damian Lemos

Wednesday: 15 minutes PlayChess tactics training, 2 hours 50 minutes playing a Somerset league game and 25 minutes reviewing it, 25 minutes opening work (related to the game)

Thursday: ~2 hours 30 minutes playing friendly games at Sedgemoor chess club

Friday: 15 minutes practice for the Commonwealth qualifier final

Saturday: 20 minutes playing a 15-minute game with imabeast(IM)

Sunday: 50 minutes playing the ChessCube Commonwealth qualifier final

This Saturday I’ll be playing in a rapidplay tournament at Teignmouth on Saturday.  The target remains at 12 hours.

I achieved the 12 hour target again this week, doing 20 minutes extra. A new distraction has cropped up, in the form of ChessCube qualifiers for the Commonwealth Chess Championships.  These take the form of 2 minute ‘Warzone‘ tournaments, with both time and material odds, and whilst I realise that they themselves are certainly not improving my chess, the chance to play in the Commonwealth Championships in South Africa would.  I have qualified for the final of the U2200 section, which is on Sunday.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: ~20 minutes playing blitz on ICC

Tuesday: 65 minutes playing on ChessCube

Wednesday: 1 hour lesson with GM Damian Lemos, 2 hours preparation for the evening’s local league game and 1 hour 40 minutes playing it (unfortunately not against the expected opponent)

Thursday: 15 minutes preparation for 90 30 games later in the week

Friday: ~1 hour playing on ChessCube

Saturday: 1 hour playing on ChessCube

Sunday: 20 minutes solving tactics problems (CT-Art and ICC TrainingBot), 1 hour reviewing old games, 1 hour 10 minutes opening work, 1 hour preparing for various kinds of material odds (for the ChessCube Warzone tournaments), 30 minutes playing on ChessCube

The target remains at 12 hours, and the Warzone chess will continue for better or worse this week until Sunday.

I just managed the 12 hour target this week, with 12 hours 20 minutes.  I’ve restarted lessons with GM Damian Lemos after a break, and I’ve (probably) dropped to second place in the Durham City Chess Club championships after drawing my game on Wednesday.  I’ll write a report about the club championship once it’s over, as it’s been interesting.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: 1 hour lesson with GM Lemos and 10 minutes reviewing the material, 2 hours 20 minutes playing a Team 45 45 league game

Tuesday: Nothing recorded

Wednesday: ~3 hours playing a club championship game

Thursday: ~1 hour analysing the club champs game

Friday: 2 hours lesson with FM David Eggleston, 25 minutes playing on ChessCube

Saturday: 2 hours playing and 5 minutes analysing a Team 45 45 league game

Sunday: 20 minutes playing on PlayChess

Term has now finished, but I will be keeping the weekly target at 12 hours for the holidays in an effort to encourage myself to revise.  I may even have to set myself an upper weekly limit if it doesn’t happen. 😉

Apologies for the delayed weekly progress reports.  I exceeded the 12 hour target in both of the last two weeks, doing 14 hours in the first and 25 hours 40 minutes in the second (most of which was playing and analysing in Blackpool).  Here’s the breakdown:

1st week

Monday: 10 minutes preparing for, 2 hours playing and 15 minutes analysing a Team 45 45 league game, 1 hour 40 minutes opening work

Tuesday: Some time looking at various British Grandmasters’ opening repertoires, but I’m not counting this towards the weekly total

Wednesday: 45 minutes preparation for, 1 hour 50 minutes playing and 15 minutes analysing a Club Championship game (with which I took the lead in the standings – next game tonight)

Thursday: 45 minutes analysing some of my recent game, 3 hours 30 minutes playing a 90 30 game

Friday: 35 minutes opening work

Saturday: University Chess Society, of which I’m only counting the 15 minutes of problem solving I did

Sunday: 2 hours playing a Team 45 45 game

Week 2

Monday & Tuesday: Nothing recorded

Wednesday: 10 minutes preparation for and 3 hours playing a local league game

Thursday: 10 minutes analysing Wednesday’s game, ~2 hours opening work

Friday: 55 minutes opening preparation, 45 minutes preparation for, 3 hours 35 minutes playing and 20 minutes discussing my 1st game at Blackpool, 10 minutes preparation for the next morning’s game

Saturday: 2 hours 30 minutes playing and 20 minutes discussing my 2nd Blackpool game, 1 hour annotating both games (which I will publish in due course), 15 minutes reading a new chess book, 2 hours 15 minutes preparation for the next day’s game

Sunday: 20 minutes preparation for, 5 hours 55 minutes playing and 20 minutes discussing my final two games at Blackpool, ~2 hours reading a new chess book on the train home

The most obvious shortcoming in the last two weeks’ study is that tactics problems have been more or less forgotten in all my opening exploration.  The good news is that I do now have the broad outline of my repertoire worked out.  A report on my weekend’s games at Blackpool will be forthcoming within the next few days.

I did 18 hours and 50 minutes of chess study this week, exceeding my 12 hour target.  Unfortunately that didn’t include playing at the British Universities’ Chess Association team championships, as Durham had to pull out at the last minute because of transport problems.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: 20 minutes CT-Art, 20 minutes playing Chess960 with WGM Merula on ICC

Tuesday: nothing recorded

Wednesday: 2 hours group lesson with FM David Eggleston, 1 hour 10 minutes opening work

Thursday: 3 hours 40 minutes opening work, 15 minutes preparation for the evening’s game, 1 hour 25 minutes playing a local league game

Friday: 1 hour 20 minutes opening work, 1 hour 15 minutes preparation for and 2 hours 30 minutes playing a Team 45 45 league game

Saturday: ~3 hours playing and analysing with a similar-strength player at and after Durham Uni Chess Society

Sunday: 40 minutes opening work, 65 minutes playing 15-minute games on PlayChess

A lot of time recently has been spent on this mysterious ‘opening work’.  Some of this is concrete work on openings and variations I am committed to playing, but most is a general investigation of lines which I might want to take up.  It’s not the most satisfactory use of time in general, but there are a number of gaps or problems with my opening repertoire as it stands which I feel I need to fix as soon as possible.  I’ll write about this in more detail soon.

I managed the 12 hour target comfortably again this week, doing about 20 hours and 50 minutes.  The majority of this time was spent playing and analysing at a 4NCL weekend, as described here.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: 10 minutes CT-Art

Tuesday: 15 minutes playing a 15-minute pool game at ICC, 45 minutes playing and analysing 15-minute games on PlayChess

Wednesday: 2 hour group lesson with FM David Eggleston, ~1 hour solving problems at the city chess club, ~1 hour playing strong opposition at the club

Thursday: 10 minutes preparing for and 2 hours 5 minutes playing a Team 45 45 league game (quite a nice game – rather better than my recent 4NCL efforts!), 40 minutes post-mortem analysis with opponent, 20 minutes analysing the game on my own afterwards, 30 minutes opening work

Friday: 20 minutes CT-Art

Saturday: 2 hours 30 minutes playing a 4NCL game, 20 minutes post-mortem analysis, at least 2 hours 45 minutes preparation for the next day’s game

Sunday: 20 minutes preparation for and 4 hours 50 minutes playing a 4NCL game, 50 minutes analysing the game

Overall, a good week’s work and I hope to be able to keep it up this week.

I easily exceeded the 12 hour target this week, doing 16 hours 55 minutes.  I’ve done some good opening, middlegame and endgame study, the last aided by getting Müller’s rook endgames DVD, and have managed to steer clear of online blitz.  The only thing to improve on for next week is the tactics problems, which I’ve let slip a bit.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: 10 minutes CT-Art 4.0, 20 minutes ICC TrainingBot, 65 minutes watching ‘The Secret To Chess’

Tuesday: 60 minutes opening preparation for Wednesday’s local league game, 30 minutes Chess Tempo problems

Wednesday: 15 minutes preparation for the evening’s league game, 2 hours group lesson with FM David Eggleston, 2 hours 40 minutes playing a local league game (against a different person from expected, so the preparation missed its target this time)

Thursday: ~30 minutes analysing Wednesday’s game, ~20 minutes opening work

Friday: 35 minutes studying Müller’s endgame DVD, 65 minutes studying Ashley’s ‘The Secret To Chess’

Saturday: ~2 hours playing and analysing with players of similar strength at and after the uni chess society, 35 minutes analysing Wednesday’s game, ~15 minutes opening work

Sunday: ~40 minutes opening preparation for a Team 45 45 league game, 90 minutes playing that game, 110 minutes endgame work (based on the Müller DVD), 25 minutes analysing a game from Saturday, 15 minutes analysing another game from Saturday

The target is 12 hours again next week, which I expect to manage fairly comfortably as I’ll be playing in the 4NCL Northern Division at the weekend.