Chess Notebook Week of 11.23.09

Started new program mid week, so entries will be from Wednesday through Sunday.

Wednesday 11.26.09

Played G/15 5 game against an opponent rated 1687 on ICC (I am provisionally rated 1781 after this game). I plan on playing all of my standard games on ICC so that I can maintain continuity in tracking my ELO rating. ICC rating is approximately 250 points higher than USCF. At 1781 my rating is a bit inflated due to it’s provisional status…it should be more like 1600-1650 IMO.

Solved tactics on Chess Tempo (30m)

Thursday 11.27.09 [Thanksgiving]

Reviewed Wednesday’s game – I won the game, but I came out poorly out of the opening. I have always had issues with the French Defense Exchange variation, so my focus study will be reviewing the French Exchange variation. (1 hour)

Solved puzzles at Chess Tempo (15m)

Friday 11.28.09

Chess Tempo 30 minutes
Focus Study: French Defense Exchange variation (1.30h)

Saturday 11.29.09

Solved (easy non-rated) puzzles on chesstempo (30m)
Played G/15 5 game on ICC against opponent rated 1865 I am still provisionally rated with an ELO of  1768. NOTE: Next game will be a G/30 time control.

Sunday 11.30.09
Reviewed game. Loss stemmed from not calculating all possible candidates and faulty thought process, where I forgot threats I had assessed several moves before. Opponent came out of the opening slightly better. Opening played was the Caro-Kann Exchange variation. Going to focus on Stoyko Exercises to improve calculation skills as well as an intense tactics training session.

Did one Stoyko exercise from a correspondence game I am currently playing. Analyzed the position for approximately 10 minutes. I also did a ‘Guess the Move’ game on chessgames.com. I chose a Capablanca game where Capa played White against the Caro-Kann defense. The chessgames.com exercise took about 30m.

Tomorrow Monday I’ll restart the training schedule.