I managed 12 hours 50 minutes of chess over the past week, which is ok for the last week of term. Here’s the breakdown:
Monday: ~1 hour 40 minutes working through Joe Gallagher’s ‘Starting Out: The King’s Indian’, 15 minutes watching Bazna end-of-round videos
Wednesday: ~3 hours at the City club analysing Bazna and other games and playing a 15-minute game
Friday: ~1 and a half hours playing and analysing with a uni friend
Saturday: ~2 hours 10 minutes working through the Gallagher book, 35 minutes playing 2x 15-minute games on ICC
Sunday: ~2 hours 50 minutes on the Gallagher book, 50 minutes studying Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual
I’m at home now and am finding myself a little distracted by Wimbledon, a Roger Waters gig and meeting old school friends, so I’m unlikely to manage the 40 hour target this week. I’m still undecided about which tournaments to play this summer; my first will probably be either the British Major Open or the Czech Open.
Can’t recommend the Czech Open highly enough – am going this year with 10 others! A small group of us played last year – it’s really well organised, you’ll get some good quality games and there’s nothing like starting at 3 in the afternoon 🙂 Plus a pint of Staropramen costs the equivalent of 95 eurocents and there’s a ‘beer spa’…
Actually checked out your site because Chessbase said you’re (or were?) a Durham University student – I’m going to be studying for an MA there next year. Does the University have a big club or do most of you guys play for City teams?
Yep, still at Durham Uni doing my 4th year next year. The University has a small club which was started by me and another guy a year and a half ago in order to attend the British Universities’ Chess Association Championships, and we meet once a week. I’d imagine you’ll want to join the City club too, as there are stronger players and the uni club doesn’t even have a team in the local league at the moment.
Ah cheers man that’s really good to know! Well I’ve just been assigned my college (Hild Bede) and Google Maps informs me it’s not too far from Durham City club’s venue – hopefully I’ll be able to comfortably balance that with work 🙂 . Either way It’d be great if Durham put a team out for the BUCA championships this year, I wasn’t available to play for Southampton last year and apparently it was a really fun tourn!
I’m Hild Bede too, so if you’re living in college you won’t be more than a minute or two away from a game. It’s about a 15 minute walk to the City club’s venue. Definitely planning to enter a BUCA team next year (we had our transport taken away at the last minute this year, which hopefully won’t happen again).