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.