@danbock
Thank you for your post, I thought this was quite insightful. I can relate to this, both in age and rating; however, my time is somewhat split among many of life's tasks (work, graduate school, other ridiculous hobbies, etc), so it makes improvement a little more challenging for me. But it seems like a reasonable pattern to follow.
I was curious, if you're willing to share, what sort of other time commitments did you have outside of chess that you were dealing with while on this improvement plan?
Thanks!
Thank you for your post, I thought this was quite insightful. I can relate to this, both in age and rating; however, my time is somewhat split among many of life's tasks (work, graduate school, other ridiculous hobbies, etc), so it makes improvement a little more challenging for me. But it seems like a reasonable pattern to follow.
I was curious, if you're willing to share, what sort of other time commitments did you have outside of chess that you were dealing with while on this improvement plan?
Thanks!
thanks of sharing your experience.. and own ideas about weakness and error characteristics.. the interaction between deep calculation and reduced width awareness (or shallow dynamics near the current position).
Error checking protocol during play seem a bit hard for me to understand... if time control is in effect. width versus depth.. So it helps reading an account like yours.
I have been myself (not OTB at all) more curious about the position characteristics of my errors.. But it is also possible, and more so with time control pressure, that we have a component in our error propensities as a game proceeds, that is not related to the specifics of the position, more about how we think at that given time.
And a well budgeted revision mechanism after some deeper calculation might be a last knocking some wood and non rabbit-hole (like having wasted the energy on deep calculation before going wide on opponent, and then having to recalculate, might have been better to start wide and then spend time... ). Problem with above thiking of mine, is that the position might be the reason in terms of general "criticality" for the need to have some deep calculations... But criticality might be very wide range of position specifics.... so as player, not really about position features weakness.. more about budgeting calculation breadth (or just becoming aware of self doing so, in real time).
It might just be experience kicking in, and using post-game lack of time control, where the actual learning about the specific errors occurred. As complementary or alternative explanation. (one the other or both).
I am curious about error models for human chess play.
Error checking protocol during play seem a bit hard for me to understand... if time control is in effect. width versus depth.. So it helps reading an account like yours.
I have been myself (not OTB at all) more curious about the position characteristics of my errors.. But it is also possible, and more so with time control pressure, that we have a component in our error propensities as a game proceeds, that is not related to the specifics of the position, more about how we think at that given time.
And a well budgeted revision mechanism after some deeper calculation might be a last knocking some wood and non rabbit-hole (like having wasted the energy on deep calculation before going wide on opponent, and then having to recalculate, might have been better to start wide and then spend time... ). Problem with above thiking of mine, is that the position might be the reason in terms of general "criticality" for the need to have some deep calculations... But criticality might be very wide range of position specifics.... so as player, not really about position features weakness.. more about budgeting calculation breadth (or just becoming aware of self doing so, in real time).
It might just be experience kicking in, and using post-game lack of time control, where the actual learning about the specific errors occurred. As complementary or alternative explanation. (one the other or both).
I am curious about error models for human chess play.
The last position is mate in one for black, is there a mistake in the record?
Great post Dan! Amazing progress.
Matthew wrote up a pretty good guide for ''time per move'' as a good time management resource across time controls:
lichess.org/@/MatthewKCanada/blog/basic-time-management-reference/akjU1Tep
Matthew wrote up a pretty good guide for ''time per move'' as a good time management resource across time controls:
lichess.org/@/MatthewKCanada/blog/basic-time-management-reference/akjU1Tep
Great post. Other's experience is as important as ours. I am also struggling to improve my blitz and random chess levels.
I think playing rapid games or classic games also helps since you one has more times to think about the moves and to apply chess principles and rules.
A comment too lichess adminstrators: what is the added value of " I don't like " red button?. I now realize that I pressed it by mistake on a post I loved.
I think playing rapid games or classic games also helps since you one has more times to think about the moves and to apply chess principles and rules.
A comment too lichess adminstrators: what is the added value of " I don't like " red button?. I now realize that I pressed it by mistake on a post I loved.
> I quit playing blitz and... Play a reasonable amount of blitz online. Go to as many OTB tournaments as I could. And analyze every game like a detective trying to answer the question: Why am I so bad at chess?
This is the same recipe I followed to almost hit 2000 USCF; well, that and join a local chess club, read chess books, write a chess engine and dozens of other programs, etc. in addition to correspondence play on Chess.com .
This is the same recipe I followed to almost hit 2000 USCF; well, that and join a local chess club, read chess books, write a chess engine and dozens of other programs, etc. in addition to correspondence play on Chess.com .
@MisterCoffee I have a family and a job. I spend a lot of time on Twitter. I mostly don't watch television.
@pixelatedpr0n Yeah, that was a mistake, playing around in the Lichess study and having it automatically save every move I make. I fixed it.
@TheOnoZone That's very detailed. I'm not sure how to use those tables. Commit the relevant parts to memory so you can refer to them during a game?
@Toadofsky Have you written more about your journey?
@pixelatedpr0n Yeah, that was a mistake, playing around in the Lichess study and having it automatically save every move I make. I fixed it.
@TheOnoZone That's very detailed. I'm not sure how to use those tables. Commit the relevant parts to memory so you can refer to them during a game?
@Toadofsky Have you written more about your journey?
Aside from my 24-part blog series (and counting) I don't think I've written much about my journey, although a journalist made a movie about leagues in which I competed:
www.nctv17.org/documentaries/chess-state-doc/
www.nctv17.org/documentaries/chess-state-doc/
i think the need for blitz might have been about motivation/reward time spans.. one has to keep the motivation steam going on some important part of the chess study budget, if slow deliberate analysis is to be sustained over long periods, as its rewards are likely slow to accumulate and reap... a daily judicious blend of hard thinking attention and enough juice in the motivation tank, and one might have a good chess diet.. just a possibility of explaining. that.. could be wrong. of course.