level 20 complete
I completed level 20 last night, finishing with a 97% score. Not bad, but the goal is 100% and there were a few problems I missed that I really should get. A bit over 2 weeks for the first 2 levels is a slow pace. I should be putting more time into this.
After my last update
chesstiger reminded us that solving tactics problems is a little artificial because you know there is a tactic to find and in your games you won't have this cue. True, and of course, solving tactics problems isn't intended as a simulated game experience. Solving tactics problems is about learning patterns and practicing calculation. You can debate and philosophize all you like on whether or not this helps in a game situation, I'll be solving more tactics and hoping it does.
Labels: progress report, tactics
chugging along
I forgot how long some of these levels were. After blowing through level 10 in 45 minutes, I'm just now halfway through level 20. So far I'm at 96%.
Can't really conclude anything from that. But on my last time through this set of problems, I did them at 98%. So I may have dropped off just a little bit, but my guess is that this is specific to this problem set and not a drop in tactical ability in general.
Some of the problems are quite tricky. If you really consider all the defensive resources, you may convince yourself the tactic doesn't quite work. Thinking back, I'm sure I did some of these problems 'correctly' while considering less about them than I am now when I'm not doing them correctly, simply because I knew the solutions by the 4th or 5th repetition. And there's probably very little value in learning the solutions of these problems if the process doesn't help me learn to play better tactics.
But I'll be sticking with it.
Labels: progress report
I'm baaaack
I've decided to use this blog again!
A lot has changed since I last blogged here, but I've come to a point where using this blog makes sense again. For one thing, my rating has gone from 1729 to 1921. This is obviously a big change, so why haven't I been posting on my chess improvement blog what I've been doing to accomplish this ?!? Two primary reasons for that, 1) I wasn't following a regimen that lent itself to periodic updates or keeping a regular log and 2) between moving and changing jobs twice, time for blogging was limited and 2a) I blogged at chess.com.
So why not just continue blogging at chess.com?!? I'm listed as a Top Blogger there and my blog actually gets a fair number of reads. But that blog has never contained the kinds of things this one did and will. This blog is a personal place where I dump my current progress and thoughts. The chess.com blog was too polished, containing only instructive analysis of my games. I'd like to keep the two ideas separate. And there's something nice about a low readership when you're not aiming for quality, and I won't be aiming for quality here -- just spewing.
So what have I been doing the last year and a half while my rating has gone up 200 points?!? Playing a lot of OTB chess. I play at least one tournament every month, and often more. In some months reaching 10 OTB USCF rated games. I have no doubt this has helped a lot. I've used the Tactics Trainer at chess.com, occasionally popped on to Chess Tactics Server (chess.emrald.net), read books, analyzed my games, analyzed games with higher rated players, etc.
And what will I be doing now?!? I have just re-installed CT-Art on my new laptop. At first this did not work, because I'm running Vista. I googled it and a
solution came up. This worked for me. So the plan is to get back to a regime of tactics training using CT-Art. The last time I did this, I got through repetitions up to level 40 with very high success rates. I hope to be nailing some of the higher levels this time as well. I crunched through level 10 today in a total of 45 minutes, 100% success rate.
I'll use this blog to flog myself in my CT-Art training, all results will be posted here.
Labels: progress report
Progress on rep 5
I finished level 20 at 97%. This is down from 98% in rep 4. I think the decrease is due to complacency as I wanted to get through the level as quickly as possible and often did problems when I was tired and not fully focused. Though interestingly, I did focus on problems I had gotten wrong in the past and got many problems right that I got wrong previously.
With the disappointing setback on level 20, I decided to focus properly on level 30. The result: 97%, up from 92% on the previous rep. This is a big move up on a level that used to give me such problems.
I also project that on my current schedule, I'll get to the level 50 problems this time through.
I almost forgot to mention that I've stopped reporting my elo from CT-Art because it doesn't seem like a relevant measure anymore. Incidentally, the max rating achievable on level 20 is 2125 and on level 30 2275.
Labels: progress report
Level 40, rep 4 done at 90%
I finished the 4th rep of level 40 today at 90%. I'm at the end of 3 weeks, so I'm going back to level 10. Since I was out of town for about 4.5 days during these 3 weeks, I don't feel bad about the time taken. However, I need to speed up a bit if I'm going to move beyond level 40 in the 3 weeks.
/------------------------------\
| Level 1 2 3 4 |
|------------------------------|
| 10 97% 99% 99% 100% |
| 20 92% 94% 95% 98% |
| 30 86% 86% 86% 92% |
| 40 77% 77% 84% 90% |
\------------------------------/
Scoring over 90% on the first 4 levels feels like an accomplishment. But I also feel so far away from being able to see the variations fly through my mind for many of the problems. This is what IM Ziatdinov says it should be like after really learning a position.
Does this software exist?
Given that everyone who attacks a set of chess problems seems to find some errors in the set, I wonder about a software that allows the user to edit the problems. Even better would be a program that would accept an entire problem set and score you according to the definitions in the set. That way, someone could work on producing a very good problem set where the user interface and progress tracking are already taken care of. If the length of the problems is unrestricted, you could even make solitaire chess games for it.
Does this exist and I just haven't found it yet?
Labels: progress report
Coffeehouse nuggets
I have a few nuggets that I remember from today's trip to the coffeehouse.
The first position arises from a French defense. I don't usually play 1. e4, but decided what the heck, I'll play it today. I thought we were in an interminable positional struggle where my opponent had a bad bishop and couldn't really break my position. I have good knights, but I don't really see what targets they can hit.
White to move
The knight on f4 holds my kingside and influences the center. I'm planning to play on the c-file and try to get my other knight to d6 or c5, though I'm not even sure what my targets are from there. All that becomes moot when my opponent drops Rhd8 in my lap.
In the next example, I think I was very close to getting run over in an opposite side castling game. I caught a break when my opponent overlooked my only tactical chance.
Black to move
(I just realized, the king should be on c8, not b8 -- will fix the diagram later)
This one obviously takes some deeper calculation, but I've been thinking about the first move of this combination for most of the game so a lot of the lines seemed to come naturally. For a
Temposchlucker plan beta hint -- the first invasion square is f2, the second invasion square is h3.
The game continued 1. ... Ng4+ 2. Kg1 Bxf2+ 3. Kh1 h4 4. Be3 hxg3 5. b5 Qh5 6. Bxf2 Nxf2+ 6. Rxf2 Rxf2 7. Nxd6+ Kd7 8. Nxb7 Rxg2 9. bxc6+ Ke7 10. Qa3+Ke8 11. Kxg2 Qxh3+ 12. Kf3 Qf5+ White resigns.
I believe there are improvements for both sides in that line, but I don't think there is a refutation of black's play. It's a real exercise to calculate all the possibilities and I certainly didn't do that over the board.
Ct-Art update, 94% on level 30. 178 problems done out of 221. Looks like I'm going to have a huge improvement on 86% three times in a row.
Update: Finished level 30, rep 4 today. 92%! Ok, I slipped up a bit at the end, but it's still a big deal to do this much better. I'll go back and review the last 20-30 problems of the level before I move on to level 40.
Labels: coffeehouse, diagrams, progress report, tactics
Level 20, rep 4
I finished level 20 rep 4. Significantly faster than last time through and at a higher percentage -- 98% (up from 92%, 94%, 95%). On to the real test of level 30, the real thorn in my side. I'm out of town Thursday to Monday which will slow me down a little. That's life, no wonder I can't do it the same as DLM.
Some concrete things I wrote down this time through:
-- Exercises 145 and 352 are the same
-- Exercises 217 and 228 are the same
Labels: CT-Art errors, progress report
Improvement!
I've just completed my 3rd repetition of level 40 of CT-Art and finally I have seen a significant improvement in my solving percentage.
Level Rep 1 Rep 2 Rep 3
-------------------------------
10 97% 99% 99%
20 92% 94% 95%
30 86% 86% 86%
40 77% 77% 84%
That is a major improvement on level 40 problems. This isn't from memorizing the problems, I am really calculating better on this level. Incidentally, I also noticed a couple more problems with secondary solutions. Maybe next time through I'll start recording all these.
It is now 20 days since I last restarted on level 10. So according to my 3 week schedule, I'll start back at level 10 rather than move up to level 50. I think my last "3 weeks" to do levels 10 through 40 was actually 22 days. So I am only slightly faster -- though over the last 3 weeks I've spent time playing more games and analyzing them, so I'm not too concerned. I think I'll be much faster over the next 3 weeks.
Update: I just did level 10 for a fourth rep. Finally a perfect score, no mistakes! It took me just under 40 minutes to do the 110 problems of level 10.
Labels: progress report
level 30, rep 3 -- I still stink
I've finished level 30 for the 3rd time. And for the 3rd time I've scored an 86%.
Of course, this is very disappointing for me. I'm not going to change my current plan just yet. I have a little over a week before I start over again at level 10. I'd like to give that idea more time.
Labels: progress report
level 20, rep 3
I finished my 3rd rep of level 20 of CT-Art. I did this level at 95% -- hardly different than rep 2. Disappointing. I'll get 'em next time! By the way, level 20 has a handful of problems that appear twice in the level, quite odd for a level that has far more problems than any other level.
In positive news. I have located the chess club here in my new town. There is a decent size group of players who meet at a coffee house on Saturday afternoons. There are some good players there too. I got some good games last week -- and a couple good whoopings. It's great to have a place to play live chess, invigorating for the chess soul.
Unrelated to my personal chess improvement is the start of the
US Chess League. The team from my old home town, Carolina Cobras, are off to a rough start. They have started blogging and as soon as they settle on the name of their site, I'll have a link to it in the sidebar.
CT-Art rep table:
/==================================\
| Level | Rep 1 | Rep 2 | Rep 3 |
>==================================<
| 10 | 97% | 99% | 99% |
| 20 | 92% | 94% | 95% |
| 30 | 86% | 86% | ?? |
| 40 | 77% | 77% | ?? |
\==================================/
See the last few posts for groaning about my lack of improvement and what I'm doing differently to counter act that problem.
Labels: progress report
New schedule, starting rep 3
I am not happy with my progress in tactical training. I spent about four and a half months doing difficult tactical problems (levels 40 - 90+ on CT-Art). I did the problems with effort and understood the solution. When I went back and re-solved levels 10 through 40, there was no significant improvement in my solving rate.
A lot of people have thought about and written about different approaches to the repetition of tactical excercizes. One thing I'm probably doing wrong is too much time between reps. Lots of other people have made study programs to better allow for repetition to help in learning. I'm hoping that will aid my success.
It took me about 3 weeks to do the second rep of levels 10 through 40. So I have created a new schedule for myself. I'll start at level 10 every 3 weeks. Hopefully I get more problems done every time I go through.
So I've re-re-done the first 250 problems. Once again I missed one problem on level 10 -- a different one this time, I don't know if that's bad or good. Through the first 140 problems of level 20, I'm at 97%, slightly better than the 95% last time through. The real test will be in levels 30 and 40.
Labels: progress report
Level 40, redone
I've finished my second rep of level 40. As with previous levels, there is no significant change in performance. The bottom line is that I'm no better at tactics today than I was a year ago.
My plan is to go back to level 10 of CT-Art and try to really learn the ideas of the problems. I find that when I miss problems it's not because I can't calculate or visualize, it's because I don't see the idea, or can't come up with the right idea.
One of the benefits of the chess blogging community is that I've had a chance to read a lot of other people's blogs. I'm not the first one to struggle with this. Other people have written about how they deal with improving at tactics, so I've got some ideas of how to work on this.
CT-Art level 40 stats:
Rep 1: 77%
Rep 2: 78%
Labels: progress report
Level 30, no improvement
I'm plowing through my second rep of level 30 and if my form holds I will not improve at all on my first rep percentage. Given that my 'improvement' on levels 10 and 20 was pretty small, I'm inclined to think I'm not quite going about this the right way.
My current idea is that my first time through these problems was too long ago. It was 9-10 months ago that I was doing level 30 problems. In the DLM plan, the first rep takes 2 months and the second rep 1 month, etc. So the problems get repeated twice in the first 3 months. I don't know if this is an ideal timescale, but it has worked for other people. In any case, the long break that I had since last doing these problems was too long.
So I have two changes to make. One, I need to complete a program of learning these problems in one shot, starting and stopping and starting again didn't work. Two, if I don't get to the end of the problem set at the end of 2 months, I go back to the beginning no matter how far I've gotten.
CT-Art results for level 30:
Rep 1: 86%
Rep 2: 86% (162 done from 221)
Update: I've finished level 30 at 84%. Looks like I have a lot of work to do if I want to improve my percentages.
Labels: progress report
Level 20 done (rep 2)
I finished the problems of level 20 this morning. The percentage correct was only a little better than the first rep -- I don't know what this means. I did do this level in significantly fewer days, but this is mostly a function of having the time to do the problems and not working on anything else chess related.
CT-Art stats:
/============================\
| Level | Rep 1 | Rep 2 |
|----------------------------|
| 10 | 97% | 99% |
|----------------------------|
| 20 | 92% | 94% |
\============================/
CT-Art elo: 2122
Thanks to Blue Devil for pointing me to who has done a massive CT-Art set all in one day (in the comments of previous post). Even through the end of level 60 in a single day is quite impressive. Adding the last 3 levels would probably extend the time by 2-3 hours.
In the past I used to wonder if I can make it to expert or master level. These are somewhat abstract questions when we don't exactly what it means to play at that level. But something like doing a set of tactical problems is more concrete and hopefully attainable goal.
Labels: progress report
Back in the saddle
I've recently moved and start my new job tomorrow. In the meantime I've gotten back in the CT-Art habit. I'm starting back at the beginning and doing a second repitition of the problems. In the last two days I've re-done the first 250 problems:
CT-Art stats:
/-------.----------.----------\
| Level | Rep #1 | Rep #2 |
|-------|----------|----------|
| 10 | 97% | 99% |
|-------|----------|----------|
| 20 | 92% | 95% |
\-------^----------^----------/
CT-Art elo: 2050
On level 10 I made a mistake on only 1 problem -- perfection will have to wait 'til the next rep. I'm through 140 of the 286 problems of level 20 with minor improvement in the percentage.
Knowing how hard these problems get in later levels, I'm still in awe that De La Maza did the whole problem set in a single day. In his article he says to gather 1000 problems -- does anyone know if he used the first 1000 problems of CT-Art or all 1209? Maybe someone who has read the book knows.
Edit: A quick trip to the book store reveals that De La Maza did all 1209 problems from CT-Art. It is an amazing feat to do them all in a single day and twice in three days. I'd be interested to know if there are other people who have done that.
Labels: progress report
Crash!
I feel like I've seen this post from other bloggers. My hard drive crashed. At the moment it doesn't look like I'll recover any data from it. Everything really important was stored elsewhere, but this does not include CT-Art stats.
As of the crash, I had about 16 problems to go before completing the 1209 problems. What a heart breaker. My percentage on the level 90 and above problems was 69% and my CT-Art elo was 2610. At this point I consider myself having gone through the problem set once. My computer is up and running with a new hard drive. I'll probably re-install CT-Art and do the problems over -- hopefully better.
Labels: progress report
Random positions
Not a whole lot to say lately. Just plugging along. Here are some positions from recent games:
White to play
This is from a blitz game. Here white is losing the b-pawn, so I decided to go for a swindle. Here were the next moves:
g4 Nxb3 g5 and black falls for it,
hxg5??White to play
Now white has a winning tactic. Rf3 threatening mate on h3 and the knight on b3. Phew, I got away with one there!
Here is an example of an un-developed queenside. White has made a bunch of queen moves and has now tried to lock the center with d5:
Black to play
But it turns out the rook on e1 is overworked. Black can break through with Nxe4. White didn't put up the toughest resistance. The game continued Rxe4 Qxc1 Kh2 Qxd2 Nbxd2 etc.
Lastly, an example of breaking open the center. Opening the center is generally better for the better developed side. That's a good rule of thumb for getting ideas, but you also have to calculate quite a bit because a lot of lines will be open.
White to play
White is a little more developed due to the rook on d1. More importantly, white's pieces are actually aimed at targets. The e3 bishop attacks the b6 knight and the d2 queen is lined up on d7 bishop while both of these pieces are defended by the queen. Also important is that the d1 rook is lined up on the queen.
So white opens it up with d5 exd5 Bxb6, the game continued with Qxb6. A better try, but still good for white would have been axb6 exd5 Be8 Qxc4. The game move loses quickly exd5 and now both bishops are under attack.
Lastly, an update on CT-Art progress. The last level is problems with difficulty 90 and above:
Level 90 and above: 74%, 22 problems done, 45 to go.
Ct-Art elo: 2587
1164 problems done, 45 left. Then, who knows, back to the beginning??
Labels: diagrams, progress report, swindle, tactics
Level 80 Done
Happy Independence Day to my fellow USAers.
I've finished Level 80 of CT-Art. No other great insight at the moment, just the facts:
CT-Art stats:
Level 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
------------------------------------
# 110 286 221 204 134 84 59 44
% 97% 92% 86% 77% 76% 67% 70% 64%
CT-Art elo: 2522
So I've completed a total of 1142 CT-Art problems. There are 67 problems at Level 90 and above.
Labels: progress report
Miscellaneous
So this is the weekend I'm missing the World Open. It's a great tournament and if you ever get a chance to play, I encourage you to play. The experience there is not like any other tournament I've played in. On the other hand, it's outrageously expensive and the competition is very tough. But if you're well under-rated, breaking even is not an unreasonable expectation.
Here are a couple of tactics from recent games I've played. First a warm-up:
White to Play
My opponent just played Qd7, sacking the knight on f3. If Kxf3, black wins with Qh3+ Ke4 c5, boxing in the king. But white has a winning tactic instead of Kxf3.
Black to play
Here I missed a pretty mating idea. I sacked a knight a couple moves earlier to get into the king position. I certainly have enough pieces converging, with queen, rook, and bishop all pointed squarely at weak points. I played the winning b3 where Kd2 can be met by Rxc2+ and Qxb2 where black now has 4 pawns for the piece, white's king is still exposed, and the b-pawn is close to promotion.
I think if black realizes that white's only hope is to play Kd2 and escape to the kingside, the mating net is not so tough to find. Black has Bc3! and is now threatening mate. If bxc3 bxc3, mate is still threatened. White can only delay by Qb4 Qa1+ Qb1 Qa3+ Qb2 Qxb2
CT-Art update:
Level 80: 64 % (32 done, 12 to go)
Ct-Art elo: 2510
Labels: diagrams, progress report, tactics
Level 70 done
I've finished level 70 of CT-Art. I don't have a whole lot else for this entry. I've decided not to attend the World Open as life got in the way; so I don't have a tournament goal looming. There is a local tournament in about a month I will try to make it to.
Without further ado, here are the stats through level 70 of Ct-Art.
Level 10: 97% (110 problems)
Level 20: 92% (286 problems)
Level 30: 86% (221 problems)
Level 40: 77% (204 problems)
Level 50: 76% (134 problems)
Level 60: 67% (84 problems)
Level 70: 70% (59 problems)
Ct-Art elo: 2464
Total done: 1098, 111 problems left
To be clear, this is all done in practice mode in sequential numerical order. In practice mode, if you make a wrong move you get hints about important squares, pieces, and lines. Since you also get partial credit for getting the problem right after hints, this is definitely a percentage boost. I think the story would be quite different in test mode.
Labels: progress report
