From: Surinna Curtis <redacted>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2023 13:34:01 +0000 (-0500)
Subject: update chess study plan after week 4
X-Git-Url: https://git.ladys.computer/Wiki/commitdiff_plain/f6811c7d25357659af738b14b2bb68777ec209c7?ds=sidebyside

update chess study plan after week 4
---

diff --git a/Sources/Editor/Rinna/ChessStudyPlan.djot b/Sources/Editor/Rinna/ChessStudyPlan.djot
index 95118f7..eec1ddb 100644
--- a/Sources/Editor/Rinna/ChessStudyPlan.djot
+++ b/Sources/Editor/Rinna/ChessStudyPlan.djot
@@ -57,7 +57,8 @@ My rating and performance over time (on chess.com):
 |  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         | 0-0            | 0-0            |
+|  4   | 694          | 535         | 3-9            | 0-0            |
+|  5   | 615          | 535         | 0-0            | 0-0            |
 
 Notes:
 
@@ -191,6 +192,58 @@ 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. :)
+
 [^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
@@ -213,3 +266,5 @@ That's been week 3.
   https://chessgoals.com
 [lichess practice]:
   https://lichess.org/practice
+[windmills]:
+  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill_(chess)