30 day tactics blitz

Withdrawn

2006-04-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, something has come up and I've had to withdrawn from the tournament. Next tourney will be in early May.

In an unrated club rapid tourney I scored 4/6, losing only to a 2200 and a 2100 player

First 2006 tourney :)

2006-03-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

Finally the first tourney of 2006 approaches and is now just one month away, so its time to dive back into the intensive tactics blitz ;) I have been spending most of my training time on studying chess openings using the very useful Bookup software

So, one month to improve my tactics, and I will again follow the same intensive method I used last time

My goal this time is to get a better performance rating (the one goal that I didnt mage to meet last time). This tourney is a Open Swiss instead of an under 1700 Swiss, which means a tough first round against a high rated opponent, but on the other hand also means a better chance of a good performance rating

Time to get to work!

IM Herman van Riemsdjik vs Smith-Morra fanatic

2006-02-02T00:29:00.000-08:00

After playing at the 2006 Queenstown Class Classic, IM Herman van Riemsdijk gave a simul, which I was lucky to play in .. here is what happened:

[Event "Simul"]
[Date "2006.01.30"]
[White "IM van Riemsdjik, Herman"]
[Black "Smith Morra fanatic"]

1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Be3 a6 5. Qd2 b5 6. h4 h5 7.
Bd3 Bb7 8. f3 Nf6 9. Nh3 Nbd7 10. Ng5 O-O 11. O-O-O e5 12. d5 Bc8 13. Rdg1 Nb6

van Riemsdjik has a great position, my pieces are passive while his are active, it was instructive to see how he played

14. Qe2 Qd7 15. g4 hxg4 16. fxg4 Nxg4 17. h5 Nxe3 18. Qxe3 Qe8 19. Ne2 Nd7 20.
Ng3 Nf6 21. hxg6 Ng4

Finally I try to get active!

22. gxf7+ Rxf7 23. Qe1 Rf2?

... and blunder a piece

24. Nf5 Bxf5 25. exf5 e4 26. Rxg4 Qe5 27. Qxf2

van Riemsdjik doesnt even bother preventing me from having a bit of a king hunt .. on 27. c3 I would have just resigned

Qxb2+ 28. Kd2 Qc3+ 29. Ke2 exd3+ 30. cxd3 Qc2+ 31. Kf3 Qxd3+
32. Kg2 Qxd5+ 33. Ne4

My king hunt comes to nothing, as he knew it would, and the threat of 34. f6 is deadly

0-1

IM Gary Lane vs Smith-Morra fanatic

2006-02-02T00:05:00.000-08:00

1 year ago this week, I had the pleasure of playing IM Gary Lane in a simul shortly after he won the 2005 Oceania Zonal.. here is what happened:

[Event "Simul 2005"]
[Date "2005.02.07"]
[White "IM Lane, Gary"]
[Black "Smith Morra fanatic"]

1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Be3 Nc6 5. Qd2 e5 6. Nge2 f5
7. exf5 gxf5 8. Bg5 Nf6 9. O-O-O Bd7?! 10. dxe5 dxe5 11. Ng3 Ne7?! 12. Bc4 c6

Fritz: white is +4.03 already

13. Rhe1 Qc7 14. Qd6 Qxd6 15. Rxd6 Ng4 16. Nh5 Bf8

Fritz: + 2.53

17. Nf6+ Nxf6 18. Bxf6 Ng6!?

After some pretty poor play by myself I am getting smashed in the centre ... and now Lane goes in for the kill, and after all he *is* the IM and I am the fish .. so he doesnt need to work out the mate, all he has to do is push me about some more and the mate will come

19. Rxd7 ?? ... or will it? :)

19. ... Kxd7 20. Bxh8 Bh6+ ! Fritz says: -0.12 .. black is ahead! I had seen this possibility before playing 18. ... Ng6

21. Kb1 Rxh8 22. f3 Rd8 23. a4 Bd2 24. Rd1 Ke7 25. Ne2
Ba5 26. Rf1 Rf8 27. c3 Bc7 28. Ng3 Nf4

Fritz: -1.20, thats a pawn up vs an IM!

29. Rf2 Nd5 30. Bd3 Ke6 31. Bc4 a6 32.Re2 b5 33. axb5 axb5 34. Bb3 Rb8 35. Nh5 Kf7 36. Rd2 Rd8 37. Ng3 Ke6 38. Nf1
Bb6 39. Re2 Rf8 40. Ng3, with a draw offer from an IM .. I accept :)

1/2-1/2

Rating list finally in...

2005-12-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

1 month late, but its good news: I've gained +72 rating points for a new all time highest rating .. but its still just a few points short of 1500, hopefully I can make it in the next rating period :)

Drills & multiplication tables

2005-11-02T02:05:00.000-08:00

Time to start a new phase of tactics training ... multiplication table style drills.

We learn how to multiply with multiplication tables, but is there an equivalent in tactics? What is the 1 times table, the 2 times? etc... With multiplication we at least know the names of the tables, but how many of us can name all of the tactical themes we should be studying?!

So my plan is to first make a list of tactical themes, and then to learn each one MDLM style. How many themes are there? I have a copy of the Polgar book "Chess Middlegames" which has 77 different tactical themes, and it is probably not the entire list...

But, like multiplication tables, I will start with the easiest and work upwards. Lets say for the sake of argument that back rank mate is our 1 times table. So I went on to google to find examples of back rank mates, and found about 80 .. which is not really enough for any sort of MDLM training!

Does any one know of any good resources that give tactics by theme? Free sources would be a bonus of course! :)

3/6 ... failed

2005-10-21T00:07:00.000-07:00

Score 3/6: 2 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses. Not a good result.

Round 1: Easy win over unrated junior. They really should be put in a seperate sub tournament! I had black, so for my remaining 5 real games, I should get 3 whites which is good...

Round 2: White vs #1 seed. He plays french defence, an opening I dont really have a good answer for. I play a gambit, and after a long struggle, we end up in an end game, and I am 1 pawn down. I made my first real mistake of the game and lost another pawn, and resigned.

Round 3: Fairly easy win over a lowly rated junior - my opponents rating was only 800. My hopes of getting a good performance rating dont look good now. Game was harder to win than it should have been, due to still being tired from the previous round.

Round 4: White against another unrated opponent in rd 4. This time its some guy who has just moved here from England, and he is quite good I think. A long hard game where I again had to go into an ending 1 pawn down. This time I was able to get the pawn back, and the game was drawn.

Round 5: An exact repeat of round 5 of my previous tourney: same opponent, same colours, same round! This is the opponent who cracked under pressure in rd 5 in my last tourney. This time we ended up in a kind of mutual stalemate in the middle game where neither could make any progress. Game drawn.

Round 6: White vs lower rated adult player. I need to win this game! In the opening I miscalculate a Bxf7+ sac and simply go a piece down for nothing (not even a pawn). I resign.

Because my only 2 wins were against lowly rated juniors, this tourney will cost me quite a few rating points, and of course my goal of getting a better perfomance rating was not met...

Showtime again

2005-10-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

Round 1 of my final tournament for the year starts tonite. 1 game friday, 2 on saturday, 2 on sunday and 1 on monday for 6 rounds total.

The tourney is at the chess club I play for, so I have homeground advantage ;) And since its only a few minutes away from where I live, I should be able to give daily updates...

Last year in this tourney I had 3.5/4 with 2 rounds remaining, and lost them both. I havent done much tactics work in the 2 weeks since the last tourney, so once again I'm not feeling very positive about my chances, I just have to try to play as carefully as possible.

The national rating list will come out a couple of weeks after this tourney. Then I can see if my last 6 months of training effort have made a difference :)

Goals, pt 2

2005-10-13T15:28:00.000-07:00

Next weekend swiss tournament is in just 2 weeks time (less really, its already friday) .. I only get to play about 4 or 5 weekend swisses per year, its unusual for them to be so close together.

Goals for this 6 round tourney have to be simple, I dont have much time left to get ready:

Goal 1: Better performance rating

Thats all ;) Might as well take the one goal that wasnt met from the last tourney.

The national rating list will come up shortly after this tourney, so that will be time to see what difference, if any, training has had on my rating.

After that, no more tourneys until April or May next year...

Verdict

2005-10-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

Time now to really consider if the tactics blitz was useful...

On the surface it does look to have been pretty successful, who can argue with a result of 4/5?! :) Using the set of goals that were stated at the start, then there is no question that this has been a success.

On the other hand I have to say, I do not feel that that I have improved my tactical abilities in the slightest! Two reasons firstly, the short timeframe, and secondly the material choosen was too varied.

MDLM is compared to learning multiplication tables, but the collection of tactics I chose was more like trying to lean multiplication tables by being asked "what is 2x3=?, what is 5x8=?, what is 7x9=?" etc, when we all know that the best way to learn multiplication tables is to learn the 1 times table, then 2 times table, then the 3 times table etc, ie start from the easiest and work upwards, and always keep things grouped together.

So I am now going to work out a plan for the next stage of my tactics training, which will be more like learning multiplication, ie start with the easiest, and learn in groups, and steadly move towards the harder tactics.

My next weekend tournement is in two weeks, and I'm trying to catch up at work, so I wont do much tactics for 2 weeks. After this next tourney I will properly formulate my plan for longer term tactics study ..... stay tuned!

Success! :) 4/5, 3rd=

2005-10-09T00:30:00.000-07:00

Fantastic result, 4 wins, 1 loss for 3rd= :)

So how did I do compared to my goals?

Goal 1: Higher performance rating: Fail (!) due to playing too many lower rated opponents
Goal 2: Higher percentage: Pass
Goal 3: Higher placing: Pass

2/3 goals = successful result :)

The tournament had 70 entries, far more than expected, and 5 rounds was probably not really enough to find a winner. However in the end there was a clear winner on 5/5 (the person I lost to), and a clear 2nd with 4.5/5 but nine people were 3rd= on 4/5.

My expected performance, based on my opponents rating was 3.78/5, and I scored 0.22 points more than that so my rating gain will be about 7 points. Yes thats right, 7 measly points for a 4/5 performance! No wonder I cant improve my rating!!

Round-by-round commentary:

Round 1: White vs very lowly rated player (typical swiss system first round mis-match). A complete thrashing, I checkmated my opponent after just 13 moves. My opponent had a rating of just 685 (! yes ratings go that low). This first game pretty much ruins my chance of getting a good performance rating.

Round 2: Black vs an under rated junior. After some not exactly inspiring moves I find myself under huge pressure, and with badly placed pieces. Somehow I manage to swap queens, then play a strange looking follow up move, he misses the point, and I win a knight for nothing. About 10 moves later his king is trapped in the centre and the only way to stop mate is to lose a rook. He resigns.

Round 3: Black again (!) against 4th seed. I quickly get under pressure, and lose a rook for nothing, resigned on move 19. I thought I was only losing the exchange, but was wrong! My opponent went on to win the tourney with 5/5.

Round 4: White, and finally a chance to play my smith-morra! He declines with e6 and b6 and it isnt really a smith morra anymore, just a weird no opening opening. I pile on the pressure, he responds quite well, and the game remains finely balanced. I turn extremely agressive, and get an initiative in return for a couple of pawns. Under time pressure I move my rook to g3, when h3 was far better. He finds the saving move and sacs the exchange to force a queen swap. We are now in an endgame where I have 2 rooks and 3 pawns vs rook, knight and SEVEN pawns! My chances are not good, and I came very close to resigning the move after that queen swap. But I decide to play on, and a few moves later he blunders and loses the knight. Now it is 2 rooks and 2 pawns vs rook and 5 pawns - still could go either way. I manage to slowly grab his pawns one by one until it is 2 rooks vs rook and 1 pawns, and he is threated with mate. He resigns, an absolute swindle.

Round 5: 3rd Black vs another under rated junior, and I need to win to get amongst the prizes. He comes out fighting from the start and I am under huge pressure again. But I resist and defend like an immovable rock. Slowly my pieces get better and better positions, with a beautiful knight outpost on e5 the centrepiece of my position. Finally my queen + knight infiltrate his position and he cracks, dropping a bishop and then resigning a few moves later.

After 2 long days I have emerged with 4/5 and 3rd= place, a very satisfactory result. About 5 or so years ago in the same tourney I got 2nd= place with just 3.5/5, but the huge number of entries means that 4/5 is only good enough for 3rd= this time.

Showtime

2005-10-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, I have survived this far :) There is just 3 days of tactics training left, and the big tourney starts in 4 days... so will the tactics have helped or not?

- Since starting tactics training, my OTB results have not been very good: 3/6, or +2 =2 -2
- I've made bad tactical mistakes in 4/6 games played, and won 2/6 by tactics
- I'm finding it harder to look at the overall situation of a game, due to focussing so much on small tactical details
- I am finding it easier to calculate tactical things such as sequences of exchanges

Overall, I dont feel so positive about my chances, mainly because I have been playing quite badly lately. In any case, I know that to do well I must concentrate more on not making mistakes than on trying to make brilliant moves ... my strategy has to be to wait for my opponent to make a mistake then attack.

Anyway, it will be showtime very soon, and the results will speak for themselves ...

Progress

2005-09-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

Circle 1: 500/500 completed, 458/500 correct = 91.6%
Circle 2: 500/500 completed, 482/500 correct = 96.4%
Circle 3: 500/500 completed, 475/500 correct = 95.0%
Circle 4: 500/500 completed, 483/500 correct = 96.6%
Circle 5: 500/500 completed, 485/500 correct = 97.0%

* Didnt start day 1 until 9pm, got first one wrong! Tired towards the end and got a few more wrong. Wont be home until 9pm again for day 2 - starting to realise what I might have gotten myself into.
* Didnt start day 2 until 10pm, but got 23/25 anyway.
* Day 3: 20/25, day 4: 23/25, day 5: 23/25
* Chess club night tonight, so day 6 is tomorrow
* Lost club game to a tactical blow ... oh the irony!
* Day 6: 23/25. First set of 125 is due today, a wednesday - so schedule is not quite right, sat/sun would have been better!
* Day 7: first group of 125 successfully navigated, 120/125 correct
* Day 8: 24/25, day 9: 25/25 :), day 10: 20/25, day 11: 23/25
* Won my weekend game by means of a strong tactical knockout punch :) Beat a strong junior, which was satisfying.
* Drew my club night game after "seeing" a tactical combination that didnt exist, and not seeing that there was one escape square left...
* Day 12: 21/25, day 13: 22/25, day 14: 118/125, day 15: 23/25, day 16: 23/25
* Drew my club night game after making the wrong move in a winning position :(
* Day 17: 24/25, day 18: 25/25 :), day 19: 122/125, day 20: 23/25, day 21: 25/25 :), day 22: 23/25, day 23: 24/25
* First circle finally complete, with a 91% success rate :) Circle 2 will be completed tonight.
* Second circle completed, with a 96% success rate :) Circle 3 starts tomorrow.
* Day 24: first day of circle 3 and it was pretty hard going, 154/166
* Day 25: 158/166 and much easier than the previous day
* Day 26: First set of 250, with 243 correct, luckily it was a sunday!
* Day 27: 163/168, circle 3 complete with a 95% success rate :)
* Day 28: 240/250 correct, circle 4 complete with a 96.6% success rate :)
* Hmm looks like I will finish one day early, something not quite right.. maybe I missed recording one of the days, will try to figure it out. Circle 5 is due, and I'm taking the day off work tomorrow (friday) so that I can do circle 5 and all my other preparation for the tourney.
* The End! Circle 5 complete, 485/500 correct, 97%. Now I'm just tired ...

Context

2005-09-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

I should put my quest for better results in more context.. studying tactics is not the only thing I am doing, although it is now a major part of my training regime (for the next 30 days anyway)

I am also:

* Studying my openings (and switched to gambit openings for white earlier this year)
* Taking group lessons from a FM once a week
* Taking individual lessons from the same FM about twice a month
* Playing as many rated OTB games as possible (not many round here)
* Analysing my own games (with a little help from my german friend Fritz)
* Doing this tactics blitz thing

So, if I do achieve my goals for my next tourny, it cant be attributed entirely to the tactics blitz - but it should definately help.

Goals

2005-08-31T15:01:00.000-07:00

If I'm going to do this, then there should be a goal in mind at the end.. otherwise how can I measure if it was a success or a failure?

So the goals I've choosen are:

1. Higher performance rating than in my previous tournament
2. Higher percentage result than in my previous tournament
3. Higher position than in my previous tournament

This means I am aiming for:
1. Performance rating higher: was 1473
2. Percentage result higher: was 4/6 = 66%. Since it will be a 5 round tournament this means 3.5/5 or better.
3. Higher position: was 4th=

It is probably wishful thinking to expect that I will achieve all 3 goals so lets define my level of success as:
3/3 goals: Very successful
2/3 goals: Successful
1/3 goals: Somewhat successful
0/3 goals: Fail

Now let the training begin, and we will see what the result is in a very short time....

I'm not going to aim specifically for a higher rating, the rating system here is too slow (new lists every 6 months) - a better performance is a good goal. My rating is 1400, and should go up slowly as a result of better performances. Both my previous tournament and my next tournament are U1700, but the next one should be harder as it is more popular.

A list of my previous results, most recent at the top, oldest at the bottom:

(Performance rating, result, score)
1473, +2=4 -0, 4/6
1688, +3 =2 -0, 4/5
1580, +1 =1 -1, 1.5/3
1473, +2 =0 -3, 2/5
1249, +2 =3 -2, 3.5/7
1311, +3 =0 -2, 3/5
1370, +2 =0 -2, 2/4
1477, +3 =0 -1, 3/4

Going for broke...

2005-08-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

With just 38 days to go until my next weekend tournament, I wondered how much training can you squeeze in if you really tried??! And what would be the result? Would my brain be a lean mean chess playing machine, or would it just turn to mush?!!?!!

I've always liked the idea of the Michael de la Maza method, but havent really tried it, instead I've just slowly plodded thru a couple of tactics collections, doing a few problems every few days. This has definately helped - I just scored an undefeated 4/6 (+2 =4 -0) for 4th= in a weekend tourney a couple of days ago.

So if slowly doing tactics helps, what can results might I see from a tactical training blitz ala MDLM? Its a good question, but there are some immediate obstacles ahead ... I only have 38 days, not 400, and its quite possible my initial burst of enthuisiasm will fade when I really realise what work I've gotten myself into!

First I worked out how many days are available: 38 actual days between now and the next tournament on the 8th of October. Now minus chess club nights between now and then 38 - 5 = 33. Now round down so that there is some free time available just in case: leaving 30 days available for training.

Next thing is to work out how many tactics puzzles to try to solve? A quick blog search reveals someone who tried 256 problems in a month, but I want to try to at least 500(!). It took me many attempts of writing out numbers on a scrap of paper before I figured out a possible method.

The main problem was that, for the first time thru the puzzles, I can realistically only solve 25 per day. And 500/25 = 20 days, just for the first circle! That is most of my 30 days gone already....

In the end I came up with this following plan:

Circle 1: 25 per day times 20 days = 500
Circle 2: 125 per day times 4 days = 500
Circle 3: 166 per day times 3 days = 500
Circle 4: 250 per day times 2 days = 500
Circle 5: 500 per day times 1 days = 500

Phew! I feel tired just thinking about it...

Now the next problem is that 20 days of 25 per day is too long - the repetition should start earlier. By day 20 I will have completely forgotten days 1 to ? 19 maybe, 15 at least! So I had to devise a schedule using my new invention (I havent read it anywhere else regarding MDLM method, maybe someone else has invented it seperately) ... I propose using overlapping circles (tm)

This would make my schedule look something like this:
25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 125
25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 125
25, 25, 25, 25, 125
25, 25, 25, 25, 125
166, 166, 250
166, 250,
500

By mixing circle two amongst circle one, I start the repitition earlier, which should help the pattern recognition start quicker as well (or at least that is my theory!)

Ok, that was longer than I'd expected :) I will post updates ...