Lady’s Gitweb - Wiki/blob - Sources/Editor/Rinna/ChessStudyPlan.djot

   1 # rinna's chess study plan
   2
   3 On 13th September 2023, I started following a formal 12-week study plan
   4 from [some website][ChessGoals] that has different study plans for
   5 different skill levels/rating bands.
   6 I'm just doing their plan for beginners right now.
   7
   8 (Note: all books rinna mentions are likely available from your
   9 not-so-local library.)
  10
  11 ## Overall structure
  12
  13 The basic structure of the study plan has me do three things each day
  14 (four on the last day of each week, so Tuesdays for me).
  15
  16 Two parts are the same each day:
  17
  18 1. Check on my "daily"[^daily explanation] game.
  19    That is, a game which allows 1 or more days per move (I went with 3
  20    days, although so far each player has moved at least once or twice a
  21    day).
  22    Once it completes I am to analyze the game and start a new one.
  23 2. Do 5 chess puzzles.
  24    I've been using lichess's ["Practice" section][lichess practice] for
  25    this, working my way through the basic tactics puzzles.
  26
  27 The third part varies from day to day and week to week between these
  28 options:
  29
  30 * Play 1 rapid game with a 15+10[^time controls] time control.
  31 * Play 4 blitz games with a 5+5[^time controls] time control.
  32 * Study/practice basic endgames.
  33   I'm using the book _Silman's Complete Endgame Course_ by IM Jeremy
  34   Silman for this, and the endgame practice features on lichess and
  35   chess.com to practice endgames.
  36   The ones the study plan recommends studying for newbs like myself are
  37   those involving one or two queens or rooks (+ king) vs. a lone enemy
  38   king.
  39 * Study openings for 45 minutes.
  40   The study plan suggests several options to use for this and I'm going
  41   to be reading _Winning Chess Openings_ by GM Yasser Seirawan for
  42   this.
  43   This starts from week 2 and takes place on the same day as the
  44   endgame practice.
  45 * Read and play through a game from _Logical Chess: Move by Move_ by
  46   Irving Chernev.
  47
  48 After each game I play, I'm supposed to analyze the game for things I
  49 could improve on and what went well.
  50
  51 ## Rating Table
  52
  53 My rating and performance over time (on chess.com):
  54
  55 | Week | Blitz rating |Rapid rating | Blitz win/loss | Rapid win/loss |
  56 |------|--------------|-------------|----------------|----------------|
  57 |  1   | N/A          | 429         | 3-1            | 4-1            |
  58 |  2   | 686          | 508         | 6-6            | 0-0            |
  59 |  3   | 725          | 508         | 1-3            | 2-0            |
  60 |  4   | 694          | 535         | 0-0            | 0-0            |
  61
  62 Notes:
  63
  64 * Each row represents my ratings at the beginning of each week unless
  65   stated otherwise.
  66   Game results are for games played during that week.
  67 * I had never played any blitz games prior to starting the study plan.
  68 * Prior to starting the study plan I had mostly been playing on lichess
  69   rather than chess.com, so improvements from week 1 to week 2 may just
  70   be my having improved since when I had last been playing on
  71   chess.com.
  72
  73 ## Status report
  74
  75 ### Week 1
  76
  77 I've really appreciated having a more structured plan going on.
  78 I have done some extracurricular studying hehe, because the study plan
  79 has helped me get even more excited about chess (also because I have
  80 some spaced repetition stuff going on, so I'm obviously not gonna
  81 abandon that just because I've also got this study plan).
  82
  83 The plan has also helped to ensure I actually play games. :)
  84 The blitz games are helping me learn to use my time more efficiently.
  85
  86 My first daily game has been going really excitingly.
  87 I've included an animated GIF below showing the game so far (up through
  88 move 19 for both white and black).
  89 I have the black pieces.
  90
  91
  92 [![an animated display of the moves from the game][gif versus
  93 TPTCOAT]][daily game versus TPTCOAT]
  94
  95 [gif versus TPTCOAT]:
  96   https://alicebenighted.neocities.org/misc-images/chess/vs-tptcoat.gif
  97 [daily game versus TPTCOAT]:
  98   https://www.chess.com/game/daily/561280087
  99
 100 ### Week 2
 101
 102 From this week on, the study plan decreases the games played a little
 103 to make room for studying the games from _Logical Chess Move by Move_.
 104 Which is a fun book!
 105 It's a bit of an old book, so some of the analyses are by now
 106 demonstrably erroneous due to further developments in the understanding
 107 of chess (and the advent of chess engines), but it's interesting.
 108 It goes through a bunch of historical master-level games and explains
 109 the ideas behind (and sometimes flaws in) each move.
 110
 111 Yesterday I also got to get started on _Winning Chess Openings_ (okay,
 112 that's a lie, i've been doing a bit of extracurricular reading on it
 113 already. but i did more yesterday).
 114 Which is also a great book.
 115 I've reached the section of the book where it's basically giving a
 116 whirlwind tour of every classical king's pawn opening (which is to say,
 117 ones beginning 1. e4 e5, with both players moving the pawn in front of
 118 their king two squares).
 119 Next it's gonna do the same for classical queen's pawn openings (1. d4
 120 d5), and then for modern king's/queen's pawn openings (where the second
 121 player doesn't mirror the first's move, intending to contest or attack
 122 their position in the center in some other way).
 123
 124 The games this week were all blitz games.
 125 I went 6-6, (3-1, 2-2, and 1-3 across the different days I played
 126 them).
 127 Looking back I notice I went 6-1 with the white pieces and 0-5 with the
 128 black pieces.
 129 Huh.
 130 (And the black games were all in the Caro-Kann, which is how I respond
 131 to 1. e4.)
 132 Gonna need to work on that I guess, hehe.
 133
 134 I won my daily game that was going really excitingly.
 135 Played another game against the same person as well as starting a new
 136 game.
 137 The rematch went in my favor again, and now we're doing another (now
 138 unrated) game.
 139 The new daily game I got a bit reckless and tried a Qa5+ tactic (this
 140 is moving your queen to check the opponent's king with the intention of
 141 then capturing a different piece with the queen when they have to move
 142 to defend; awkwardly I failed to notice that they could both block the
 143 check and defend the piece I was going after by moving their queen)
 144 that hasn't panned out so I had to spend several moves getting my queen
 145 to safety.
 146 I've managed to stabilize the situation so we'll see how that works
 147 out. :)
 148
 149 ## Week 3
 150
 151 Blitz games didn't go so hot this week.
 152 My big weakness there was not thinking quickly enough and getting short
 153 on time.
 154 Week 4 will be all blitz games so hopefully that'll help me work on
 155 that.
 156 The rapid games went well, though. :)
 157 Daily games remain fun but have slowed down a bit.
 158
 159 I finished up the Classical King's Pawn Openings chapter in the
 160 openings book. And part 1 of the endgames book!
 161 Next week will be Classical Queen's Pawn Openings time, plus some less
 162 noob-level endgame study.
 163
 164 Outside the study plan per se, I've been working some on my opening
 165 repertoire.
 166 I ended up watching some videos from a chess coach who advocates an
 167 approach based on going deep on a main line (both in the sense of going
 168 all the way into the middlegame, and also in the sense of thoroughly
 169 analyzing the line so as to develop a strong understanding of the plans
 170 and motivations of both sides throughout), then working backwards and
 171 analyzing in similar depth any branches where the opponent might make a
 172 different move.
 173 It's an intriguing approach, and I want to give it a try.
 174 I've gone deep on one main line in the Ruy Lopez (which is what I aim
 175 to play with the white pieces), though I haven't done the branching
 176 out yet.
 177 I haven't really done similarly on other openings yet either.
 178 I kinda need to decide what defense I want to use against 1. d4.
 179 I've gone back and forth on it (I have played very few games against it
 180 lately tbh), but I think at this point I'm deciding between the
 181 Grünfeld Defense and an approach based on the Nimzo-Indian and either
 182 Queen's Indian or Bogo-Indian.
 183 I might also consider trying to switch from the Caro-Kann against 1. e4
 184 to a Sicilian Defense.
 185 I like the Caro-Kann, but it's hard to find a good source on the
 186 theory, and it doesn't seem too successful or popular at the top-level
 187 lately so I can't look at those games for ideas either.
 188 In contrast the Sicilian is the most common response to 1. e4, and I've
 189 found some great books and such on it.
 190 Anyway, interesting stuff. ^^
 191
 192 That's been week 3.
 193
 194 [^daily explanation]:
 195   "Daily" is just what chess.com calls games with such a time control.
 196   Chess.com is very popular (and according to the data gathered by that
 197   site, chess.com blitz rating is most well-correlated with
 198   over-the-board FIDE ratings, despite the very different time
 199   controls), so the study plan used that terminology.
 200 [^time controls]:
 201   Chess time controls (at least in the shorter range) are often written
 202   as N+M.
 203   This means that each player starts out with N minutes on their clock
 204   and gets M seconds added to it for each move.
 205   Currently I am sticking to 5+5 (5 minutes initially + 5 seconds per
 206   move) for blitz games and 15+10 (15 minutes initially + 10 seconds
 207   per move) for rapid games.
 208   "Blitz" and "rapid" are just terms that refer to ranges of time
 209   controls shorter than the classical time controls used in
 210   most over-the-board tournaments.
 211
 212 [ChessGoals]:
 213   https://chessgoals.com
 214 [lichess practice]:
 215   https://lichess.org/practice