Chess for Beginners

Month: January 2010

  • Analyzing Your Games

    According to Mark Dvoretsky the analysis of one’s own games is the main means of self-improvement.  In Secrets of Chess Training Dvoretsky offers the following guidelines:

    1. Find the turning points – Decide where mistakes were made, where the evaluation of the position changed or an opportunity was missed.
    2. Seek the reasons for your own mistakes – The objective realization of your own weaknesses is a necessary first step in the work of correcting them.
    3. Seek new possibilities, which you did not notice during the game.
    4. Ponder over the opening stage – Approach the problems you faced during the opening to increase your knowledge and outline new plans.

  • Chess Training Notebook Week of 12/28/09

    First entry of the new year, and it is time to review my Chess goals and resolutions. So far, I’m happy with my progress, and the new training program I am following is finally giving me guidance and improvement.

    This week was the 2nd and final week of the first cycle of Phase I of the Extreme Chess Training Program which I began on 12/21/09.  Next week I start on Phase II, which focuses on the endgame. I am going to use the end of 1 full cycle of ECT, which is 45 days to play a tournament and do a progress report. I will also post more information on the program upon my completion of my first 45 day cycle.

    Monday 12/28 – Chess Trainer at chesstempo.com. Increased standard rating from 1717 to 1725 1hr and 81% accuracy which is much higher than my 57% average.

    Tuesday 12/29  – Played rated game on FICS & reviewed game afterwards.

    Wednesday 12/30  – 2 Stoyko Tactics puzzles from Imagination in Chess using Tactics Checklist . Spent 39 minutes on 1 puzzle! Total training time was 1hr.

    Thursday 12/31  – New years eve, sneaked in 15 minutes of unrated tactics at chesstempo.com.

    Friday 1/1  – Did Speed Tactics from Bain’s Tactics for Students.  Exercises 93 through 197 with 95% accurracy.  Also, to makeup for Thursday I played a standard game against Fritz 5.32 1 ply (Playing against engine due to Internet issues).

    Saturday 1/2  – Core Tactics from Chess Training Pocket Book. 76% accurracy.

    Sunday 1/3  – Open day – Solved Step 3 tests of Step Method scoring 80%, 70% and 72%. Also did 20 minutes of  Tactics Trainer using chesstempo improved rating slightly from 1725 to 1727. Total training time 1 hr.

  • Dumbing Down Fritz

    I’m having issues with my Internet connectivity, so I’ve decided to play my standard game against a chess engine instead of playing my regularly scheduled standard game on ICC. While I have tried playing in sparring or friend mode, this type of play for me is not realistic enough. What I have done is to use an older Fritz engine, in this case Fritz 5.32, and I have reduced the number of ply depth and the use of an opening book. For my first game, I used the following settings: 1 ply depth, no book and engine Fritz 5.32. The engine did not blunder until move 27, and the blunder it made was very human-like. I would say that it played like at 1200-1300 USCF / 1450 – 1550 ICC human player.

    I’ll continue to play around with the settings, and will post more about them as an update to this post.

    Tests

    Fritz 5.32 – 1 ply depth – no book – est. rating = 1200 – 1300