So this Thursday in round two of the championship of one of the clubs I play at I am paired against an Expert. He's had a relatively long layoff from tournament play, but nevertheless, Experts are Experts for a reason.
I have White, and know that if I play 1. e4 I may very well face a Latvian Gambit. I am ready for that, but not sure how to handle the Sicilian. I have been working on the Grand Prix, but he plays that as White, so no edge there since he'll know those positions better than I.
I could play my childhood favorite Alapin and hope to get an edge, but I haven't played that opening in quite some time, although I do still look at games in it from time to time since I still love it.
So what to do? Well, I could play something else like 1. Nf3, 1.d4, or 1.c4, but should I? I had been playing those things, but decided that it might be a good idea to go back and focus on 1.e4 until I get a better feel for the opening.
So one of life's little mysteries...
Well, the good news is that I don't have to be to work tomorrow until 4pm so I will get hours and hours to study and prepare.
So I guess I'll have to make the most use of the time...
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
A Good Reason to Have a Coach
For a couple of years now I have been taking lessons from NM Nolan Hendrickson off and on.
One of the things that we have been talking about lately is my poor opening preparation. I don't really know the openings I play too well, and it's showing in my games. I get bad positions out of the opening in most games. Even when I win the game I normally lose the opening.
So Nolan and I scheduled a two hour lesson to cover openings. Specifically I wanted to cover the White side of the Italian since that is one of my main openings as White these days.
So I get to his house one evening a few days ago with my Italian stuff in hand. We go sit down at the board and Nolan says "We're not working on openings, we're working on planning. I've been looking at some of your recent games and you are not planning at all." I say "I thought we were going to work on openings." Nolan says "This is a bigger problem, so this is what we're looking at."
Folks, this is exactly why you want a player who is much stronger than yourself to be your coach. If I was studying on my own I would have just worked on openings and not even realized that I have a more serious issue going on right now in my games.
The point of having a coach is that it's a shortcut. You don't have to take lessons every week for a coach to be effective. When Nolan is in town and not at college in St. Louis I average maybe one lesson every 4-6 weeks. Sometimes more, sometimes less. This works out to maybe 10 lessons over a period of about 21 months. Since I take two hours at a time this means that I have had roughly 20 hours of time with Nolan. But that time has saved me months of trial and error.
A coach will tell you where your weaknesses are. Where your strengths are. Where you should spend your time. Where you shouldn't.
The reason that this is such an advantage should be obvious. Let's say that you have a problem with planning (as I do) and it will take say 50 hours of methodical study about planning to fix the issue. A coach will point out the issue right away and you can spend your next 50 hours working on eliminating that weakness.
Otherwise, eventually you are likely to spend 50 hours on planning, but it might take you spending 500 hours on other things that aren't as important before 50 total hours have been spent on planning.
It's the same concept as making a grocery list when you go to the store. If you don't make a list you might still come home with what you need, but you might have to go back to the store five more times before you have everything. Going with a list on the other hand means that you'll come home with what you need on the first try.
So I highly recommend to anyone reading to take lessons.
One of the things that we have been talking about lately is my poor opening preparation. I don't really know the openings I play too well, and it's showing in my games. I get bad positions out of the opening in most games. Even when I win the game I normally lose the opening.
So Nolan and I scheduled a two hour lesson to cover openings. Specifically I wanted to cover the White side of the Italian since that is one of my main openings as White these days.
So I get to his house one evening a few days ago with my Italian stuff in hand. We go sit down at the board and Nolan says "We're not working on openings, we're working on planning. I've been looking at some of your recent games and you are not planning at all." I say "I thought we were going to work on openings." Nolan says "This is a bigger problem, so this is what we're looking at."
Folks, this is exactly why you want a player who is much stronger than yourself to be your coach. If I was studying on my own I would have just worked on openings and not even realized that I have a more serious issue going on right now in my games.
The point of having a coach is that it's a shortcut. You don't have to take lessons every week for a coach to be effective. When Nolan is in town and not at college in St. Louis I average maybe one lesson every 4-6 weeks. Sometimes more, sometimes less. This works out to maybe 10 lessons over a period of about 21 months. Since I take two hours at a time this means that I have had roughly 20 hours of time with Nolan. But that time has saved me months of trial and error.
A coach will tell you where your weaknesses are. Where your strengths are. Where you should spend your time. Where you shouldn't.
The reason that this is such an advantage should be obvious. Let's say that you have a problem with planning (as I do) and it will take say 50 hours of methodical study about planning to fix the issue. A coach will point out the issue right away and you can spend your next 50 hours working on eliminating that weakness.
Otherwise, eventually you are likely to spend 50 hours on planning, but it might take you spending 500 hours on other things that aren't as important before 50 total hours have been spent on planning.
It's the same concept as making a grocery list when you go to the store. If you don't make a list you might still come home with what you need, but you might have to go back to the store five more times before you have everything. Going with a list on the other hand means that you'll come home with what you need on the first try.
So I highly recommend to anyone reading to take lessons.
An Interesting Quandary
"Sometimes you can press a little bit and you're trying to do too much and you're trying too hard. You want to win so bad and you want to help the team so badly that you end up trying too much instead of letting the play come to you." - Ed Belfour
Granted, chess isn't a team sport, but I think that Eddie the Eagle's quote sums up something that I find myself facing.
Last year I had a terrible start to the year. I was at 1711 in the beginning of 2012. By August I was down to 1560, and by January of 2013 I was back over 1700. How did I do it? Well, mostly by not caring about my rating in terms of my performance. In other words, I never let the ratings of myself or my opponent factor in to any decisions I made.
A large part of why I had slid so far from my peak was that I was letting rating issues make too many decisions. i.e. "This position looks drawish, but I can't take a draw against this guy since he's 200 points lower rated than me." Or "I can't play the Sicilian against this guy, he's 300 points higher rated so he'll know the theory way better than I do." etc.
Then one day I decided that I didn't care. I was perilously close to my floor, so why care about the rating at this point. I just needed to fix whatever was wrong. Almost overnight I gained 100 points back. Now I have gained another 100 on top of that and am at my all time peak of 1763.
So you would think that it would be easy to just keep on keeping on and continue to not care at all about the rating. But here's the issue...my goal is to make it over 1800 by the end of the year. And at this point I'm close enough that I can taste it.
The Southwest Chess Club Championship started last Thursday and will run over five more Thursdays. In round one I was paired down with a 981. I had the Black side of a Scheveningen and my opponent actually played book moves for a while and seemed to have an attack coming. Then he managed to drop a piece. At that point I should have simply relaxed and kept calculating as the win should be a simple matter of technique as he had no comp for the piece.
Instead I found myself becoming more tense. I won a pawn, and then another pawn, and with each material gain I felt tighter and tighter. It was then that I realized that I was worrying about the possible rating impact. "What if I blow this? I'll lose dozens of points!" I kept telling myself not to worry, but I kept worrying.
Naturally I easily won the game, but now I find myself worrying that ratings may be once again on the verge of driving my decision making.
So I'm going to have to watch that. I'm not sure how to pull this off, but I feel that if I can the surge will continue.
Here is one of my games played back in Jan 2012 when I was worrying about ratings and results. I build up a ridiculous advantage and then throw it away and draw this game.
Granted, chess isn't a team sport, but I think that Eddie the Eagle's quote sums up something that I find myself facing.
Last year I had a terrible start to the year. I was at 1711 in the beginning of 2012. By August I was down to 1560, and by January of 2013 I was back over 1700. How did I do it? Well, mostly by not caring about my rating in terms of my performance. In other words, I never let the ratings of myself or my opponent factor in to any decisions I made.
A large part of why I had slid so far from my peak was that I was letting rating issues make too many decisions. i.e. "This position looks drawish, but I can't take a draw against this guy since he's 200 points lower rated than me." Or "I can't play the Sicilian against this guy, he's 300 points higher rated so he'll know the theory way better than I do." etc.
Then one day I decided that I didn't care. I was perilously close to my floor, so why care about the rating at this point. I just needed to fix whatever was wrong. Almost overnight I gained 100 points back. Now I have gained another 100 on top of that and am at my all time peak of 1763.
So you would think that it would be easy to just keep on keeping on and continue to not care at all about the rating. But here's the issue...my goal is to make it over 1800 by the end of the year. And at this point I'm close enough that I can taste it.
The Southwest Chess Club Championship started last Thursday and will run over five more Thursdays. In round one I was paired down with a 981. I had the Black side of a Scheveningen and my opponent actually played book moves for a while and seemed to have an attack coming. Then he managed to drop a piece. At that point I should have simply relaxed and kept calculating as the win should be a simple matter of technique as he had no comp for the piece.
Instead I found myself becoming more tense. I won a pawn, and then another pawn, and with each material gain I felt tighter and tighter. It was then that I realized that I was worrying about the possible rating impact. "What if I blow this? I'll lose dozens of points!" I kept telling myself not to worry, but I kept worrying.
Naturally I easily won the game, but now I find myself worrying that ratings may be once again on the verge of driving my decision making.
So I'm going to have to watch that. I'm not sure how to pull this off, but I feel that if I can the surge will continue.
Here is one of my games played back in Jan 2012 when I was worrying about ratings and results. I build up a ridiculous advantage and then throw it away and draw this game.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Update for July
I'd have to say so far so good this month.
Here we are at the not quite mid point of the month and so far I seem to be on track. Let's recap shall we...
My goals this month were to work on:
So far I think that I have done a fair amount of work on each of them.
Opening Prep
I have done some of this on my own the good old fashioned way of just playing through some variations over and over trying to learn them.
However, I have also done something I should have been doing for a long time, which is to take my games and put them in ChessBase, then scroll through the opening book to see who deviated and what the correct move was. If I keep playing the same openings and keep doing this, then I should be able to learn my openings on a deeper and deeper level.
Lastly, I have a two hour lesson scheduled for tomorrow to work on nothing but openings. I need to learn them desperately and it's been hard overcoming years of not studying the opening at all.
Analytical Ability
I have been making more of an effort to analyze my own games lately. Not only have I been analyzing recent games that I have played, but I've also gone back and looked at some that were 18 months old.
What's interesting is that as I look at the older games I am identifying a lot of areas in which I have improved. Also, since I have gotten better in that time it's easy to see progress. It's also easier to identify areas in which I still need to improve when I am looking at these older games.
For example, I know that one of my weaknesses is that I tend to play a large number of "groveling" moves. Defending when I don't need to, etc. As I look at games I played in the past few weeks it's too easy to be defensive about the moves I just played. Especially when I had a good result. i.e. when you are rated 1700 and you draw an expert you don't want to admit that any of your moves were weak. Yet when I look at a game from a year ago it's easier to be objective, regardless of the result.
I don't know if others feel this way, but I certainly do. Perhaps that in an of itself is a weakness I should work on.
Calculating Ability
This is the area in which perhaps I have done the least. I have been working on some tactical exercises and doing some endgame work, both of which serve to help in this area. But I don't feel like I've truly worked hard on calculating.
However, I have a cutesy fix for this...
I am reviewing a handful of books for ChessCafe.com and as I work on the reviews I intend to treat the diagrams as calculation exercises. I think that will help me get two things done at once...my reviews and my calculation skills!
So at the roughly mid way point of the month I'd say I feel good but not great about having stuck to my plan!
By the way, for anyone who is curious, here are the books I am reviewing right now. They are older books which I was asked to look at:
Here we are at the not quite mid point of the month and so far I seem to be on track. Let's recap shall we...
My goals this month were to work on:
- Opening Prep
- Analytical Ability
- Calculation Ability
So far I think that I have done a fair amount of work on each of them.
Opening Prep
I have done some of this on my own the good old fashioned way of just playing through some variations over and over trying to learn them.
However, I have also done something I should have been doing for a long time, which is to take my games and put them in ChessBase, then scroll through the opening book to see who deviated and what the correct move was. If I keep playing the same openings and keep doing this, then I should be able to learn my openings on a deeper and deeper level.
Lastly, I have a two hour lesson scheduled for tomorrow to work on nothing but openings. I need to learn them desperately and it's been hard overcoming years of not studying the opening at all.
Analytical Ability
I have been making more of an effort to analyze my own games lately. Not only have I been analyzing recent games that I have played, but I've also gone back and looked at some that were 18 months old.
What's interesting is that as I look at the older games I am identifying a lot of areas in which I have improved. Also, since I have gotten better in that time it's easy to see progress. It's also easier to identify areas in which I still need to improve when I am looking at these older games.
For example, I know that one of my weaknesses is that I tend to play a large number of "groveling" moves. Defending when I don't need to, etc. As I look at games I played in the past few weeks it's too easy to be defensive about the moves I just played. Especially when I had a good result. i.e. when you are rated 1700 and you draw an expert you don't want to admit that any of your moves were weak. Yet when I look at a game from a year ago it's easier to be objective, regardless of the result.
I don't know if others feel this way, but I certainly do. Perhaps that in an of itself is a weakness I should work on.
Calculating Ability
This is the area in which perhaps I have done the least. I have been working on some tactical exercises and doing some endgame work, both of which serve to help in this area. But I don't feel like I've truly worked hard on calculating.
However, I have a cutesy fix for this...
I am reviewing a handful of books for ChessCafe.com and as I work on the reviews I intend to treat the diagrams as calculation exercises. I think that will help me get two things done at once...my reviews and my calculation skills!
So at the roughly mid way point of the month I'd say I feel good but not great about having stuck to my plan!
By the way, for anyone who is curious, here are the books I am reviewing right now. They are older books which I was asked to look at:
Mastering Tactical Ideas - by Minev
Essential Chess Endings for Advanced Players - by Donaldson
How to Win at Chess Quickly - by Williams
True Combat Chess - by Taylor
Here are some items I have reviewed for ChessCafe already...
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Being Lazy or Recharging the Batteries - You Make the Call
So...the past few days have found me engaging in almost no chess activity. I've solved a handful of tactical puzzles, played through a couple of opening lines, and played through a couple of annotated games.
But considering that I have had four straight days off work that's not a whole lot of activity. I certainly haven't sat down for a good three hour study session or anything like that.
So the question is...is this being lazy, or is this a well deserved and needed rest after working extremely hard for quite a long time?
I think that it is important to take time away from chess at times to get some mental clarity back, but having said that I am on a roll right now and at my peak rating, so why stop now?
Am I afraid of burning out? Am I just tired? Am I avoiding the issue at hand, which is that my goal of reaching 1800 by years end is directly in sight of me?
Something interesting to ponder, that's for sure.
I'd like to think that this is nothing more than just a mini-vacation. I don't play another serious game until the 18th of this month. So that gives me a week and a half to get ready. To make sure that I'm ready to perform at my peak level. To solidify my repertoire at least a bit more than it is now.
So again, I'd like to think that this is just a little break to regain my balance.
Why then is there a nagging thought in the back of my head?
But considering that I have had four straight days off work that's not a whole lot of activity. I certainly haven't sat down for a good three hour study session or anything like that.
So the question is...is this being lazy, or is this a well deserved and needed rest after working extremely hard for quite a long time?
I think that it is important to take time away from chess at times to get some mental clarity back, but having said that I am on a roll right now and at my peak rating, so why stop now?
Am I afraid of burning out? Am I just tired? Am I avoiding the issue at hand, which is that my goal of reaching 1800 by years end is directly in sight of me?
Something interesting to ponder, that's for sure.
I'd like to think that this is nothing more than just a mini-vacation. I don't play another serious game until the 18th of this month. So that gives me a week and a half to get ready. To make sure that I'm ready to perform at my peak level. To solidify my repertoire at least a bit more than it is now.
So again, I'd like to think that this is just a little break to regain my balance.
Why then is there a nagging thought in the back of my head?
Friday, July 5, 2013
Opening Prep
As mentioned in a few recent posts, this is something that I definitely need to work on. However, it's also something that I need to learn how to work on.
I'm sure that most people who are strong in the opening have a system that they use to learn openings relatively quickly and efficiently. I am not one of them. For me the opening is something of a struggle to learn. Oh sure, I can learn the first 8-10 moves of some common lines relatively easily, i.e. the KID Bayonet Attack or the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon, etc.
But those are fairly simple lines that don't tend to deviate too much prior to move 11-12, so that's easy.
When I sit down to work on the Italian, for example, it's a whole different story. There are a relatively larger number of branches that begin earlier, which makes for a different experience.
I haven't quite found a technique that I like to assist with memorizing the lines I need to know and then to be able to work on understanding them once I have them memorized...
So I need to spend some time and develop the proper approach. I'm sure that the payoff will be worth it.
I'm sure that most people who are strong in the opening have a system that they use to learn openings relatively quickly and efficiently. I am not one of them. For me the opening is something of a struggle to learn. Oh sure, I can learn the first 8-10 moves of some common lines relatively easily, i.e. the KID Bayonet Attack or the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon, etc.
But those are fairly simple lines that don't tend to deviate too much prior to move 11-12, so that's easy.
When I sit down to work on the Italian, for example, it's a whole different story. There are a relatively larger number of branches that begin earlier, which makes for a different experience.
I haven't quite found a technique that I like to assist with memorizing the lines I need to know and then to be able to work on understanding them once I have them memorized...
So I need to spend some time and develop the proper approach. I'm sure that the payoff will be worth it.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
The Plan for July
In June (as with every month so far) I started off with a well-defined plan. When all was said and done I feel like I somewhat adhered to my plan. But I don't feel like I nailed it.
One thing that I did in twice in June that I had only done perhaps twice in the preceding year was to take a lesson. I had two lessons with my original coach Nolan Hendrickson. I feel that the most valuable piece of learning that I did all month came in those lessons. What I learned was that I am focusing on the wrong things. I was worrying about certain aspects of technique that aren't that important right now in terms of maximizing performance.
In other words, when I put down that I needed to "Work on Rook Endings" I was not allotting my time where it would be the most useful. Right now the three biggest issues that I have are in this exact order: understanding of openings, analytical ability, and calculation. Those three items come in to play every game, whereas rook endings come in to play maybe one game in ten. That doesn't mean that I don't need to work on rook endings, or that I will stop doing so. What it does mean is that I need to address the real problem since it's been identified. So how to do that...
Step One - Opening Prep
I know that this is one of my biggest areas of concern. I honestly feel like I could gain 200 rating points if I just solidified my openings. I think that most players spend too much time working on openings, but I also feel that I have done the opposite and not spent enough time.
I know that I have made this point before, but now it's time to embrace it. My opening problems aren't that I don't have the latest line of ______ memorized out to move 20, it's that I don't have a basic understanding of the openings I play.
This should be somewhat easy to fix. I need to work on memorizing lines, sure. But I also need to make sure that I understand the positions that arise from the openings I play. This means becoming familiar with the plans and ideas that arise from the pawn structures in those openings.
In order to do that I just need to sit down and start playing through games and analyzing them on my own. I took a step in the right direction yesterday by going over to a friends house and looking at some openings that we both play either one or both sides for. We literally just played around moving pieces, checking the Fritz opening book, and trying to get an idea of the plans and ideas in those lines. This was only for about two hours, and I feel that I need about 20 or so hours per opening to really start to understand this.
So it will take time, but I'm OK with that. After all, improvement by it's very definition takes time.
Step Two - Analytical Ability
My analytical ability is garbage. Absolute garbage. I'm the guy who would try to analyze my games and who couldn't ever see anything other than what was played except for how to improve on the losing move. Going over a game took me perhaps as many as 10 minutes.
In fact, I'm embarrassed about the terrible quality of my annotations that will be published in an article I wrote. They are weak and practically nonexistent.
I've started taking steps in the right direction to fix this issue. I've worked with Nolan to begin to develop this ability. I still think that I'm rather bad at it, but I have also started to feel the seed germinating within me. So I'm feeling like given enough time I can really learn this skill.
One of the things that Nolan has said to me is that I should analyze every game I play from now until I make 2200. I assume that I should continue to do so after that as well. I've tried to take this to heart so much so that I played a game last Thursday that ended in a draw by repetition after 15 moves. I still came home and analyzed that game.
So in order to develop this ability I will not only analyze my own games at depth, but I will try to analyzed the games of others as well. Sure, I won't find the same things that GM's do, but I'll certainly find a lot more than I am now. I also believe that learning to properly analyze openings will be a godsend to my openings.
Step Three - Calculation Ability
My calculation ability is OK, but needs to be much better. I have a tendency to lose the thread of some of the stuff that I calculate, and I have a tendency to spend time calculating stuff that I should dismiss and move on from much sooner rather than waste valuable time on.
I know that those are skills that are easier to talk about than they are to learn, but I also know that as long as I work on developing them I'll improve greatly from where I am now. And that's the real goal here.
I believe in the power of calculation so much that I honestly believe that I could make Expert by doing nothing other than learning to calculate better.
My forcing calculation is decent, but my non-forcing calculation is very bad. I have a tendency to stop calculating a non-forcing line too early, thereby missing out on some prime opportunities.
So how to work on this? Well, Nolan has sent me some calculation exercises which should help quite a bit. And I will get books on calculation as well.
Conclusion
I feel that I am well on my way down the road that I want to take. I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I am starting to truly feel the results of the work that I have put in. I feel like I am getting better on an almost weekly basis.
So let's see how far we can drive this train!
Below are links to some products that would help with calculation and analyzing. If you are interested in purchasing them I would appreciate if you would use these links. Amazon will then give me a couple percent of the money spent and I will use whatever I earn towards chess lessons.
One thing that I did in twice in June that I had only done perhaps twice in the preceding year was to take a lesson. I had two lessons with my original coach Nolan Hendrickson. I feel that the most valuable piece of learning that I did all month came in those lessons. What I learned was that I am focusing on the wrong things. I was worrying about certain aspects of technique that aren't that important right now in terms of maximizing performance.
In other words, when I put down that I needed to "Work on Rook Endings" I was not allotting my time where it would be the most useful. Right now the three biggest issues that I have are in this exact order: understanding of openings, analytical ability, and calculation. Those three items come in to play every game, whereas rook endings come in to play maybe one game in ten. That doesn't mean that I don't need to work on rook endings, or that I will stop doing so. What it does mean is that I need to address the real problem since it's been identified. So how to do that...
Step One - Opening Prep
I know that this is one of my biggest areas of concern. I honestly feel like I could gain 200 rating points if I just solidified my openings. I think that most players spend too much time working on openings, but I also feel that I have done the opposite and not spent enough time.
I know that I have made this point before, but now it's time to embrace it. My opening problems aren't that I don't have the latest line of ______ memorized out to move 20, it's that I don't have a basic understanding of the openings I play.
This should be somewhat easy to fix. I need to work on memorizing lines, sure. But I also need to make sure that I understand the positions that arise from the openings I play. This means becoming familiar with the plans and ideas that arise from the pawn structures in those openings.
In order to do that I just need to sit down and start playing through games and analyzing them on my own. I took a step in the right direction yesterday by going over to a friends house and looking at some openings that we both play either one or both sides for. We literally just played around moving pieces, checking the Fritz opening book, and trying to get an idea of the plans and ideas in those lines. This was only for about two hours, and I feel that I need about 20 or so hours per opening to really start to understand this.
So it will take time, but I'm OK with that. After all, improvement by it's very definition takes time.
Step Two - Analytical Ability
My analytical ability is garbage. Absolute garbage. I'm the guy who would try to analyze my games and who couldn't ever see anything other than what was played except for how to improve on the losing move. Going over a game took me perhaps as many as 10 minutes.
In fact, I'm embarrassed about the terrible quality of my annotations that will be published in an article I wrote. They are weak and practically nonexistent.
I've started taking steps in the right direction to fix this issue. I've worked with Nolan to begin to develop this ability. I still think that I'm rather bad at it, but I have also started to feel the seed germinating within me. So I'm feeling like given enough time I can really learn this skill.
One of the things that Nolan has said to me is that I should analyze every game I play from now until I make 2200. I assume that I should continue to do so after that as well. I've tried to take this to heart so much so that I played a game last Thursday that ended in a draw by repetition after 15 moves. I still came home and analyzed that game.
So in order to develop this ability I will not only analyze my own games at depth, but I will try to analyzed the games of others as well. Sure, I won't find the same things that GM's do, but I'll certainly find a lot more than I am now. I also believe that learning to properly analyze openings will be a godsend to my openings.
Step Three - Calculation Ability
My calculation ability is OK, but needs to be much better. I have a tendency to lose the thread of some of the stuff that I calculate, and I have a tendency to spend time calculating stuff that I should dismiss and move on from much sooner rather than waste valuable time on.
I know that those are skills that are easier to talk about than they are to learn, but I also know that as long as I work on developing them I'll improve greatly from where I am now. And that's the real goal here.
I believe in the power of calculation so much that I honestly believe that I could make Expert by doing nothing other than learning to calculate better.
My forcing calculation is decent, but my non-forcing calculation is very bad. I have a tendency to stop calculating a non-forcing line too early, thereby missing out on some prime opportunities.
So how to work on this? Well, Nolan has sent me some calculation exercises which should help quite a bit. And I will get books on calculation as well.
Conclusion
I feel that I am well on my way down the road that I want to take. I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I am starting to truly feel the results of the work that I have put in. I feel like I am getting better on an almost weekly basis.
So let's see how far we can drive this train!
Below are links to some products that would help with calculation and analyzing. If you are interested in purchasing them I would appreciate if you would use these links. Amazon will then give me a couple percent of the money spent and I will use whatever I earn towards chess lessons.
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