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.
Im looking forward to your Blackpool report . I can remember your 1st , 2nd and 4th games quite well….and await your analysis/move records , so I can have a proper look see !
Blackpool report is up at last.
I think looking at the openings of current British GMs is perfectly valid study. If you reply to 1 e4 with e5 or play the Kings Indian, it can be very useful to research how Mark in particular deals with annoying sidelines.
I agree, but what I was doing was a very general survey of their opening preferences, looking at things like whether they stuck to one line or varied widely, and how (if at all) their openings differed between their formative years and their GM years. I wasn’t really learning any chess, but it was still interesting and probably useful.
Belated Happy St.Patrick’s day to all.
Hi Will, a thought on your possible repetoire change. You said that you were thinking of changing your openings as they would not get you to GM level. I would leave that worry aside until you find it neccessary to change them due to results. When you find yourself giving away too many draws v 2400’s with the e4-e5 and Bc4 lines to get over 2500, then look up the Spanish. Until the there are better uses of your study time. Best wishes,
Dave
Unless you are really good, the sequence 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 is pretty toothless even against 2100 players, never mind 2400. You can meet 3 .. Nf6 with 4 0-0 or 4 d3 but that requires knowledge of the Spanish to make it work.