chess study plan update after week 9

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# rinna's chess study plan

On 13th September 2023, I started following a formal 12-week study plan
from [some website][ChessGoals] that has different study plans for
different skill levels/rating bands.
I'm just doing their plan for beginners right now.

(Note: all books rinna mentions are likely available from your
not-so-local library.)

## Overall structure

The basic structure of the study plan has me do three things each day
(four on the last day of each week, so Tuesdays for me).

Two parts are the same each day:

1. Check on my "daily"[^daily explanation] game.
   That is, a game which allows 1 or more days per move (I went with 3
   days, although so far each player has moved at least once or twice a
   day).
   Once it completes I am to analyze the game and start a new one.
2. Do 5 chess puzzles.
   I've been using lichess's ["Practice" section][lichess practice] for
   this, working my way through the basic tactics puzzles.

The third part varies from day to day and week to week between these
options:

* Play 1 rapid game with a 15+10[^time controls] time control.
* Play 4 blitz games with a 5+5[^time controls] time control.
* Study/practice basic endgames.
  I'm using the book _Silman's Complete Endgame Course_ by IM Jeremy
  Silman for this, and the endgame practice features on lichess and
  chess.com to practice endgames.
  The ones the study plan recommends studying for newbs like myself are
  those involving one or two queens or rooks (+ king) vs. a lone enemy
  king.
* Study openings for 45 minutes.
  The study plan suggests several options to use for this and I'm going
  to be reading _Winning Chess Openings_ by GM Yasser Seirawan for
  this.
  This starts from week 2 and takes place on the same day as the
  endgame practice.
* Read and play through a game from _Logical Chess: Move by Move_ by
  Irving Chernev.

After each game I play, I'm supposed to analyze the game for things I
could improve on and what went well.

## Rating Table

My rating and performance over time (on chess.com):

| Week | Blitz rating |Rapid rating | Blitz win/loss/draw | Rapid win/loss |
|------|--------------|-------------|---------------------|----------------|
|  1   | N/A          | 429         | 3-1                 | 4-1            |
|  2   | 686          | 508         | 6-6                 | 0-0            |
|  3   | 725          | 508         | 1-3                 | 2-0            |
|  4   | 694          | 535         | 3-9                 | 0-0            |
|  5   | 615          | 535         | 2-2 (0-4)           | 2-0 (0-3)      |
|  6   | 588          | 628         | 5-7                 | 5-0            |
|  7   | 590          | 728         | 2-2                 | 4-4            |
|  8   | 587          | 739         | 5-6-1               | 9-3            |
|  9   | 579          | 795         | 3-0-1               | 25-6           |
|  10  | 604          | 935         | 0-0                 | 0-0            |

Notes:

* Each row represents my ratings at the beginning of each week unless
  stated otherwise.
  Game results are for games played during that week.
* I had never played any blitz games prior to starting the study plan.
* Prior to starting the study plan I had mostly been playing on lichess
  rather than chess.com, so improvements from week 1 to week 2 may just
  be my having improved since when I had last been playing on
  chess.com.
* In week 5, I took part in some tournaments on chess.com.
  I've listed those separately in parentheses in the win/loss columns,
  as they were mostly against significantly higher-rated players (and
  in the rapid case, were at a 10+0 time control instead of my usual
  15+10).

## Status report

### Week 1

I've really appreciated having a more structured plan going on.
I have done some extracurricular studying hehe, because the study plan
has helped me get even more excited about chess (also because I have
some spaced repetition stuff going on, so I'm obviously not gonna
abandon that just because I've also got this study plan).

The plan has also helped to ensure I actually play games. :)
The blitz games are helping me learn to use my time more efficiently.

My first daily game has been going really excitingly.
I've included an animated GIF below showing the game so far (up through
move 19 for both white and black).
I have the black pieces.


[![an animated display of the moves from the game][gif versus
TPTCOAT]][daily game versus TPTCOAT]

[gif versus TPTCOAT]:
  https://alicebenighted.neocities.org/misc-images/chess/vs-tptcoat.gif
[daily game versus TPTCOAT]:
  https://www.chess.com/game/daily/561280087

### Week 2

From this week on, the study plan decreases the games played a little
to make room for studying the games from _Logical Chess Move by Move_.
Which is a fun book!
It's a bit of an old book, so some of the analyses are by now
demonstrably erroneous due to further developments in the understanding
of chess (and the advent of chess engines), but it's interesting.
It goes through a bunch of historical master-level games and explains
the ideas behind (and sometimes flaws in) each move.

Yesterday I also got to get started on _Winning Chess Openings_ (okay,
that's a lie, i've been doing a bit of extracurricular reading on it
already. but i did more yesterday).
Which is also a great book.
I've reached the section of the book where it's basically giving a
whirlwind tour of every classical king's pawn opening (which is to say,
ones beginning 1. e4 e5, with both players moving the pawn in front of
their king two squares).
Next it's gonna do the same for classical queen's pawn openings (1. d4
d5), and then for modern king's/queen's pawn openings (where the second
player doesn't mirror the first's move, intending to contest or attack
their position in the center in some other way).

The games this week were all blitz games.
I went 6-6, (3-1, 2-2, and 1-3 across the different days I played
them).
Looking back I notice I went 6-1 with the white pieces and 0-5 with the
black pieces.
Huh.
(And the black games were all in the Caro-Kann, which is how I respond
to 1. e4.)
Gonna need to work on that I guess, hehe.

I won my daily game that was going really excitingly.
Played another game against the same person as well as starting a new
game.
The rematch went in my favor again, and now we're doing another (now
unrated) game.
The new daily game I got a bit reckless and tried a Qa5+ tactic (this
is moving your queen to check the opponent's king with the intention of
then capturing a different piece with the queen when they have to move
to defend; awkwardly I failed to notice that they could both block the
check and defend the piece I was going after by moving their queen)
that hasn't panned out so I had to spend several moves getting my queen
to safety.
I've managed to stabilize the situation so we'll see how that works
out. :)

## Week 3

Blitz games didn't go so hot this week.
My big weakness there was not thinking quickly enough and getting short
on time.
Week 4 will be all blitz games so hopefully that'll help me work on
that.
The rapid games went well, though. :)
Daily games remain fun but have slowed down a bit.

I finished up the Classical King's Pawn Openings chapter in the
openings book. And part 1 of the endgames book!
Next week will be Classical Queen's Pawn Openings time, plus some less
noob-level endgame study.

Outside the study plan per se, I've been working some on my opening
repertoire.
I ended up watching some videos from a chess coach who advocates an
approach based on going deep on a main line (both in the sense of going
all the way into the middlegame, and also in the sense of thoroughly
analyzing the line so as to develop a strong understanding of the plans
and motivations of both sides throughout), then working backwards and
analyzing in similar depth any branches where the opponent might make a
different move. 
It's an intriguing approach, and I want to give it a try.
I've gone deep on one main line in the Ruy Lopez (which is what I aim
to play with the white pieces), though I haven't done the branching
out yet.
I haven't really done similarly on other openings yet either.
I kinda need to decide what defense I want to use against 1. d4.
I've gone back and forth on it (I have played very few games against it
lately tbh), but I think at this point I'm deciding between the
Grünfeld Defense and an approach based on the Nimzo-Indian and either
Queen's Indian or Bogo-Indian.
I might also consider trying to switch from the Caro-Kann against 1. e4
to a Sicilian Defense.
I like the Caro-Kann, but it's hard to find a good source on the
theory, and it doesn't seem too successful or popular at the top-level
lately so I can't look at those games for ideas either.
In contrast the Sicilian is the most common response to 1. e4, and I've
found some great books and such on it.
Anyway, interesting stuff. ^^

That's been week 3.

## Week 4

Once again I've done poorly in blitz, alas (0-4, 1-3, and 2-2 on the
three days I played blitz games).
My big weak points in those games were:

1. Opening unfamiliarity, which isn't necessarily a big deal at my
   level in slower time controls, but in blitz it means I have to spend
   a lot of time thinking about it early on and I suffer from time
   pressure later.
2. Time management (contributed to by the preceding and contributing to
   the following).
3. Blundering my pieces. >.>

I did have some quite effective attacking play in the wins, including
one where I used it to recover from a mistake into a win.
I think I really need to work on thinking faster, though.
Which probably means I should do more tactics puzzles, possibly in a
more structured way.
That won't necessarily help me actually think faster, but it'll train
my ability to recognize important tactical patterns faster anyway.
So that would mean I don't need to expend as much explicit thinking on
that sort of thing.

My daily games have gone well.
Both my rated game and my unrated game against TPTCOAT started out with
me on the back foot a bit, but then I managed to outplay my opponent
and start gradually closing out the game.
After winning both of those, I started another rated game and another
unrated game, and have won the latter already with a somewhat early
checkmate.
The rated game is about to end in my favor.
I experimented with the Sicilian Defense there, though my opponent went
for the Closed Sicilian, which I haven't looked into at all.
I ended up pulling off a [windmill][windmills] that took four of their
pawns for free.
Later I realized that I had gained the ability to checkmate them about
halfway through that, but eh, no harm in grabbing the material just in
case I miscalculated the mate.

My opening study and preparation is getting more thorough now.
I've studied the main lines of the Grünfeld (my defense against 1. d4)
and prepared my preferred response against the Caro-Kann and the
trickier variant of the Scandinavian Defense as white.
I've also studied the main lines of the Najdorf Sicilian (my main
defense against 1. e4, although I'll need to do a bit more studying to
know how to handle a couple of different ways White can play instead of
going into open Sicilian positions).

This week is back to some rapid games, so I think those will go better
for me. :)

## Week 5

Hey, I was right.
This week's rapid games did go better for me!
I also went 2-2 in my blitz games (not counting the tournament where
most of my opponents were much higher-rated than me).
My blitz rating fell quite a bit because of blundering mate-in-1
against the one lower-rated player I played in the tournament, but I'm
satisfied with my performance, especially after noticing that that one
lower-rated player is much higher rated than me in slower time
controls.

I'm getting stronger in aggressive play in rapid and daily games!
Also in blitz games but I still struggle with time pressure at times.

I've begun playing the Sicilian as my response to 1. e4!
It's been fun, and it's been well-suited to playing aggressively.

I did two chess.com tournaments for people rated under 1200 in 5+5
blitz and 10+0 rapid[^time controls].
I lost all my games in both but I'm pretty satisfied with the
experience, especially in the rapid tournament.
The 10+0 time control was rough, though, but a 15+10 tournament would
take something like 3 hours, so... tradeoffs.

In the openings book, I still need next week to finish reading about
the Queen's Gambit Declined.
In my endgame study I finished reading the second part of Silman's
Endgame Course.
Next week I'll do the tests for part 2.

In extracurricular studies, I've tried studying from the series of
comprehensive chess training books from Artur Yusupov.
They're really tough, but the first chapter on Mating Motifs
immediately helped out when I won games using the Arabian mate, and
began noticing the threat of it and other common mates in a lot of my
games as things to defend against.
I achieved a "Good" scored (12/16) on the exercises, which were very
tough.
Chapter 2 is not sticking with me as well so maybe I should re-read
it...

Anyway, week 6 will be a blitz week, so...
it'll be a challenge but hopefully it'll help me get better at thinking
more quickly.

## Week 6

Blitz games this week didn't go too hot for me, though my rating stayed
stable.
Partly I just was really off my game on Sunday at least.
Friday I did do pretty well on time management and went 3-1.
Really I need to improve on consistency I guess, which may partly be a
matter of improving in physical health (mostly in terms of getting
adequate rest, but tbh that'll have to wait for next month at
earliest).

I played some extracurricular rapid games and did quite well in them.
I also played some games against Will when he came up to visit me
before my move.
Our record ended up perfectly even across Saturday and Sunday at 3½-3½.
I think we might have played a game or two on Friday but I don't
remember.

Finished up the coverage of the Queen's Gambit Declined in Seirawan's
openings book, and started on modern king's pawn openings (covered the
Alekhine, Scandinavian, and a bit of the French).
Maybe finishing up the section on the French Defense will help me
finally figure out how I want to play against it with the white pieces.

In my endgame studies, I finished the tests from part 2 in Silman's
endgame book, and did some of the practice problems lichess has for
pawn endgames.
Not sure where I'll go from here for next week, as the further parts of
Silman's book are intended for much stronger players than me.

We'll see how next week goes.

## Week 7

Went completely even in my games this week, which resulted in a slight
drop in my blitz rating and a slight increase in my rapid rating.
Also I caught and mostly recovered from COVID.

Looking back over the study plan so far, I feel confident I've improved
somewhat.
My blitz rating has gone down a bit from what it was after that first
week, but my rapid rating has slowly but steadily increased.
I've also been continuing to do very well in my correspondence games,
though I haven't tracked those in the table.

My main current extracurricular study project is working through the
very basic book of chess puzzles _Manual of Chess Combinations Volume
1a_, with the intention of trying the Woodpecker method with it.
My goal there is to work on calculating simple variations and quickly
recognizing tactical patterns.
That method is a training approach aimed at improving pattern
recognition that was described in a book titled the Woodpecker Method.
The idea is: you spend a four week period solving as many puzzles from
some set of exercises as you can, then take a day or two break before
doing the same exercises again, but faster.
The ideal is you manage to halve the time it takes each cycle and
eventually end up able to solve all of them within a day (possibly a
rather long day hehe).
The problems in the Woodpecker Method book itself are too difficult to
make sense for me to do the method with (if I'm spending ~8 minutes a
problem and still only getting a bit above half the points... idk that
I'm going to get much out of repeatedly solving it hehe), so I'm going
with the much easier book for the puzzles.
Perhaps if I find the methodology helpful I'll give it a try with the
puzzles in the original book someday when I'm stronger!

My beloved Sofía has been helping me with that study project by
checking my solutions for me (the solution pages are very compact in
the _Manual of Chess Combinations_ so it's tricky to avoid accidentally
seeing a glimpse of later problems' solutions), which has been fun. ^.^

My endgame study on those days is a little unfocused at this point
since I finished the level-appropriate bits of Silman's endgame book.
I should probably figure out a clearer plan for those days by the end
of this week.

Opening study has continued to be interesting.
I finished up the Seirawan book's coverage of the French Defense and
started in on the Caro-Kann.
This week I'll continue starting with the Short Variation of the
Caro-Kann Advance Variation and then move on to the Sicilian Defense,
which will probably last at least into the following week.
The Sicilian is an exciting opening, and it's also my current main
response to 1. e4, although I'm considering switching to playing 1. e4
e5 just to see a broader variety of positions and build a broader
variety of skills.

##  Week 8

This was a blitz week for the study plan.
The blitz games did not go super great, although I had my first ever
draw (other than the time I blundered a stalemate in a Queen vs. King
ending against Will).

I did play a bunch of extracurricular rapid games, which went much
better.
Amusingly apparently I played as many rapid games as blitz games.

I'm planning to start studying Jesús de la Villa Garcia's _100 Endgames
You Must Know_ for my endgame study going forward.
This week I only made it through the introduction, but next week I'll
start on the chapter on basic endings, which will mostly be review, but
will hopefully improve my comfort and accuracy with the stuff it
covers.

I've continued working on the puzzles from _Manual of Chess
Combinations, Volume 1a_.
I've done 318 puzzles of 719 in the book after 13 days.
I made it past the simple mate in one puzzles.
After those, it had various "win a [piece]" puzzles, followed by
endgame positions with the goal to secure a draw.
At the spot where I'm at as I write this, it's various themed mate-in-2
problems (first "by means of a double check", then "by means of a Queen
sacrifice").
I really liked the draw puzzles and the mate in 2 problems are also
proving very enjoyable.

## Week 9

This week went well.
I played a lot of games and had 28 wins, 6 losses, and 1 draw.
My rapid rating went up a lotttt, and now I'm higher rated than my
friend Will. :3

I've reached the third (and final) "stage" of the puzzle book.
I'm on target to finish the whole thing in the four weeks, though some
of the remaining days might be a lot of work (I have to do ~28.5
puzzles each remaining day).

There's a chess.com official tournament for correspondence games for
people rated under 1000 that started this morning as I write this (the
morning after Week 9 ended).
I look forward to seeing how I do in that (it'll take ages, as there's
4528 players signed up..., 6 person group size, so it'll take 5 rounds,
at up to 3 days a move).
But that's more of a next week thing anyway!

I started in on the new endgame book's "basic endings" chapter, which
has been covering the basics of King + Pawn v. King endings so far.
It's review for me, although its coverage makes some things clearer or
more explicit than in my previous studies.

I'm still not through the Sicilian Defense coverage from the openings
book, which is more remarkable for the fact that it's being very
summary about some major variations.

As for my own openings, I've continued my experiment with replying
classically to 1. e4 with e5 as black.
I've been having difficulty with some of the sharper openings (the
Vienna Game mostly this week), but it's otherwise been going pretty
well.
I might try learning the Nimzo-Indian and Queen's Indian as my
responses to 1. d4.
They're a bit more flexible and less focused on specific lines compared
the Queen's Gambit Declined, which is kinda nice given that I rarely
actually face 1. d4 openings (and even more rarely the Queen's Gambit).

I've started a spreadsheet (going back to the start of this month,
November) of my performance in different openings.
My big weak spot definitely looks to be the sharper king's pawn (1. e4
e5) openings, so depending on if they improve by the end of the month
I might switch back to the Sicilian or put in a lot of effort next
month on studying those.

All in all, a great week for chess for me.
I'll be writing next week's update from Argentina!

[^daily explanation]:
  "Daily" is just what chess.com calls games with such a time control.
  Chess.com is very popular (and according to the data gathered by that
  site, chess.com blitz rating is most well-correlated with
  over-the-board FIDE ratings, despite the very different time
  controls), so the study plan used that terminology.
[^time controls]:
  Chess time controls (at least in the shorter range) are often written
  as N+M.
  This means that each player starts out with N minutes on their clock
  and gets M seconds added to it for each move.
  Currently I am sticking to 5+5 (5 minutes initially + 5 seconds per
  move) for blitz games and 15+10 (15 minutes initially + 10 seconds
  per move) for rapid games. 
  "Blitz" and "rapid" are just terms that refer to ranges of time
  controls shorter than the classical time controls used in
  most over-the-board tournaments.

[ChessGoals]:
  https://chessgoals.com
[lichess practice]:
  https://lichess.org/practice
[windmills]:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill_(chess)