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.