My apologies for the long gap since my last post, and especially since my last weekly progress report.  This post summarises how I’ve spent my time since then, and I will now resume weekly updates.

In the first half of August I spent a lot of time on chess, doing from 34 hours to a peak of nearly 53 hours per week during my two tournaments (Major Open and Sunningdale).  After that I took a break from chess for a couple of weeks, and then spent a lot of time thinking about my year’s training (which totalled around 630 hours over 52 weeks) and how it might be improved for the coming year.  Since then my training has been somewhat in limbo for a variety of reasons – I’ve been busy starting the new year at uni, I’ve been continuing to have doubts about the best way to proceed, and I’ve been looking for a face-to-face chess coach.

I’ve not played a great deal of over-the-board competitive chess since August, but have played some.  I scored 2.5/6 in the strong Keynsham rapidplay in September, with a performance of about 161 – almost exactly my current ECF grade.  I’ve played two games in this season’s Durham League, losing to a 167 as a result of a bad blunder, and then beating a 165 in a time-scramble (having been under pressure for much of the game).  This coming weekend I will be playing in the first two rounds of the Northern 4NCL, and the following weekend I’m intending to take part in the British Rapidplay.