Weekly Progress Report #7

I fell a little short of the ten hour target this week, managing eight and a half – though this was expected as I had uni deadlines to meet. One thing I’ve managed pretty successfully since starting this project is controlling my online bullet games addiction, but this week I’ve encountered a new form of chess distraction: the incredibly fun Chess Cube golden ticket tournaments.  This is a tiered series of 2-minute material-odds tournaments, where the person to rack up the most points in a thirty minute period is the winner.  There’s a fairly healthy prize pool, so I’ll probably play a few more tournaments in the hope of winning some Cubits (the Chess Cube currency) to spend on instructional DVDs.  However, I think the training value of these tournaments is close to zero so I’ll revise my week’s total to 7 hours 10 minutes, and won’t spend too much time on them this week.  Here’s the breakdown:

Monday 22nd: 2o minutes ICC TrainingBot, 1 hour Team 45 45 League game

Tuesday 23rd: 20 minutes Chess Tempo problems

Wednesday 24th: 2 hours group lesson with FM David Eggleston, 1 hour 45 minutes playing a Durham City club championship game

Thursday 25th: 15 minutes PlayChess tactics training + 5 minutes reviewing mistakes, 30 minutes analysing/annotating British Rapidplay games

Friday 26th: 10 minutes TrainingBot

Saturday 27th: 20 minutes Chess Tempo, 1 hour playing 2 Chess Cube golden ticket tournaments (the second of which I won)

Sunday 28th: 10 minutes PlayChess tactics training, 15 minutes Chess Tempo, 20 minutes playing Chess Cube golden ticket level 2 tournament (qualified for level 3)

There are just two and a half weeks left of term, after which I’ll have more free time.  I’ll have a much more intensive training plan in place for the Christmas holidays; look out for details in the coming weeks.

10 thoughts on “Weekly Progress Report #7

  1. hey Will,

    i’ve read something from J.Silman wich could be of use to you. i think you play
    short games relatively often. this could benifit the amount of patterns in your mind…. i cannot see any other benefit!!? ok maybe deal with time constraint….. this can be avoided in other ways

    maybe if you follow the advice of J. Silman and “wizz” over GM games, (in your opening repetiore?! i think) you would even get even more usefull patterns in your mind and improve your intuition.
    http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-part-one

    another thing….
    i understand that long games are difficult to play (online) what comes closer to long games (in my experience) is corrospondence chess… as i suggested to be usesull, earlier, in relation to openings.

    you said earlier calcutation is one of the things you want to improve…. cor.chess realy helped me to make less blunders and take the time i need at essential moments.

    kind greets, jacco

    1. Hi Jacco,

      Looks like an interesting article. I’ve just skimmed it so far, but I’ll read it properly when I get a chance. You may be right that I’m still playing too many fast games, but I’m also playing long games regularly. I have played quite a lot of correspondence chess in the past, but I find it quite difficult to motivate myself to calculate deeply and intensively when I don’t have a ticking clock. I agree that they are potentially useful for opening preparation, as you tend to look up the opening you’re playing in databases/other sources along the way, and so learn a fair amount about it.

      Will

  2. The ChessCube Golden Ticket series is SO awesome! I’ve won my way from Level 1 to Level 4, can’t wait for the final on Sunday! KingsCrusher has a bunch of Warzone tournaments from ChessCube on his channel, he descriped it as “The most thrilling bullet chess experience ever”.

    Good training schedule.. see you in the ChessCube final! 🙂

    P.S. I too have bought their videos with Cubits. The Andrew Martin ones have helped!

    1. I agree with you and KingsCrusher, but once this final is over I’ll be keeping away from Warzone chess for a while. I’ve been unable to play my way to the final, as the level 3 tournaments I wanted to play in kept getting cancelled, but I’ve bought in directly and am looking forward to it. 🙂

  3. Are you playing in the Classic in a couple of weeks?

    Whenever I resolve to study chess I usually end up spending most of my time playing bullet chess. The rest of the time I play blitz. Nothing more satisfying then a cheapo.

    1. Yes, though unfortunately it’s still term time so I can only do the weekend event (but gone for the Open section which is pretty strong). Will you be there?

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