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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 <table>
54 <caption>Rating and performance over time (on chess.com)</caption>
55 <thead>
56 <tr><th></th> <th colspan="2">Rating</th> <th
57 colspan="2">Win-Loss</th> </tr>
58 <tr><th>Week</th> <th>Blitz</th> <th>Rapid</th> <th>Blitz</th>
59 <th>Rapid</th></tr>
60 </thead>
61 <tbody>
62 <tr><td>1</td> <td>N/A</td> <td>429</td> <td>4-1</td> <td>3-1</td></tr>
63 <tr><td>2</td> <td>686</td> <td>508</td> <td>0-0</td> <td>3-1</td></tr>
64 </tbody>
65 </table>
66
67 Notes:
68
69 * Each row represents my ratings at the beginning of each week unless
70 stated otherwise.
71 Game results are for games played during that week.
72 * I had never played any blitz games prior to starting the study plan.
73 * Prior to starting the study plan I had mostly been playing on lichess
74 rather than chess.com, so improvements from week 1 to week 2 may just
75 be my having improved since when I had last been playing on
76 chess.com.
77
78 ## Status report
79
80 ### Week 1
81
82 I've really appreciated having a more structured plan going on.
83 I have done some extracurricular studying hehe, because the study plan
84 has helped me get even more excited about chess (also because I have
85 some spaced repetition stuff going on, so I'm obviously not gonna
86 abandon that just because I've also got this study plan).
87
88 The plan has also helped to ensure I actually play games. :)
89 The blitz games are helping me learn to use my time more efficiently.
90
91 My first daily game has been going really excitingly.
92 I've included an animated GIF below showing the game so far (up through
93 move 19 for both white and black).
94 I have the black pieces.
95
96
97 [![an animated display of the moves from the game][gif versus
98 TPTCOAT]][daily game versus TPTCOAT]
99
100 [gif versus TPTCOAT]:
101 https://alicebenighted.neocities.org/misc-images/chess/vs-tptcoat.gif
102 [daily game versus TPTCOAT]:
103 https://www.chess.com/game/daily/561280087
104
105 [^daily explanation]:
106 "Daily" is just what chess.com calls games with such a time control.
107 Chess.com is very popular (and according to the data gathered by that
108 site, chess.com blitz rating is most well-correlated with
109 over-the-board FIDE ratings, despite the very different time
110 controls), so the study plan used that terminology.
111 [^time controls]:
112 Chess time controls (at least in the shorter range) are often written
113 as N+M.
114 This means that each player starts out with N minutes on their clock
115 and gets M seconds added to it for each move.
116 Currently I am sticking to 5+5 (5 minutes initially + 5 seconds per
117 move) for blitz games and 15+10 (15 minutes initially + 10 seconds
118 per move) for rapid games.
119 "Blitz" and "rapid" are just terms that refer to ranges of time
120 controls shorter than the classical time controls used in
121 most over-the-board tournaments.
122
123 [ChessGoals]:
124 https://chessgoals.com
125 [lichess practice]:
126 https://lichess.org/practice
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