65th Square

Farewell for now

2005-04-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

Due to a recent change, it is time for me to set aside this quest, at least for now. It's really a good/bad news situation.

The Bad: I've been working for the same company for the past 7+ years (my previous record was 2 years) and while it's been a fun and convenient (10 minute commute) place to work, it's been clear that a change was necessary. It's been 4 1/2 years since my last raise and with the rising insurance premiums I have less net pay than when I started out with the company. Though I was one of the lucky few that didn't get laid off so I guess it wasn't all bad. Basically I was one of the remnants of a dying company and it looks like it's only a matter of time before it closes.

The Good: Finally found and landed a new gig late last week. Better pay, cheaper health care and I'll be working with/for an old friend of mine. The down side is that my daily 20 minute round trip will turn into about 2 hours. That combined with the challenges of a new job have convinced me to take a break for awhile.

In the short time I've been on the training regime I've noted a marked improvement in my tactical skill, so if you're reading this and wondering if it's worth the effort... it is. My recommendations, for what they are worth.

Go through a basic tactics book before you start the circles. Even if it's just a quick review.
Don't stress about percentages.
Use random problems for each level.
Warmup for a minute or 2.
Join up with the Knights and take advantage of the support.

All told it's been an enjoyable and educational trip, and one that I'm glad I took. While I'm saddened that I have to step back for awhile, it's nice to be excited about work again.

Thanks and good luck to all. I'll keep reading the blogs as time permits.

--Dave

Days 53-54: 1 down 9 to go

2005-04-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Finished up level 30 Friday evening. Managed to get the percentage up to 60%. The last 3 days I was at about 75% once I started warming up, so I'm felling pretty good about the whole level.

I want to make sure that I thank everyone for their support. As you all know it does help. Dozens of times the last few weeks I was tempted to hang this up or put my fist through the laptop screen. Thanks everyone.

Since I'm done with this circle a few days early, I'm going to do a bit of review and run through the tests in Seirawan's tactics book. I reviewed my level 10 failures today. Still missed 2 of them, but the others seemed quite easy. I think I'll do the tests Sunday.

Day 52: Woohoo!!!

2005-04-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

I think I may have figured out one of the reasons for my recent poor results. Last night I did my normal 10 problems, and scored about 55%. Then later I had some free time a bit later and did 25 additional problems at about 85%. So either the brain genie stopped by for a visit between the 2 sessions, or I need to start "warming up" before I start doing problems. Less than 50 problems left in this circle, but that should be enough to test my warmup theory.

Well anyway it's nice to finally have something positive to report. Also good to see our ranks swell with new members. Welcome all. I'll get around to updating my sidebar soon.

Now for some real fun! Tax time. I was all ready to get it done early this year, but of course I didn't get all of the forms until a few days ago. Cheers

Day 47: Why am I doing this again?

2005-04-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking that maybe it's time for a new obsession. Ye gads level 30 is completely frustrating me. I'm cruising along around 65%. Ah for those days past when I could convince myself that I kinda knew what I was doing...

Not giving up though. It's gotta get better someday.

Day 39: Alive and still kickin

2005-03-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

Still here, still solving, still sucking at solving. Level 20 has not been kind. The frustrating part is that when I miss a move, I've usually examined and discarded it. Though I suppose that's good in a way. I've thought about repeating the level, but since I'm doing the modified 10 circles I'll be back to level 20 in a few weeks anyway.

I should finish up level 20 tonight or tomorrow. Which will leave me just under 3 weeks for level 30. Looks like I may need to adjust the schedule, since I seem to be about a week ahead.

Now for some fun. Tempo and Margriet aren't the only online chess couple amongst us. Figure out my wife's FICS handle and you get your choice of Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies" or a genuine Lance Armstrong Foundation yellow "Live Strong" wristband. If needed I'll add a hint every day or 2. Just add a comment with your guess. And Logis no telling, since I know you know.

Day 30: Level 10 is history

2005-03-21T11:24:00.000-08:00

After a particularly pathetic blitz outing at FICS I decided to solve a few more problems around last night. I ended up finishing the last 35 to complete level 10. Got on a roll and didn't feel like stopping. Anyway this should give me a good head start to this week.

I do want to try and mix in at least one long game a week. If I can keep up with the problems. Guess I'll try my hand at some slow online games. I'm usually way to impatient, but we'll wait and see.

Day 30:
110 problems complete out of 110 for Level 10 Circle One
Time Today: 0:45
Level 10: 93%

Day 29:

2005-03-20T08:44:00.000-08:00

Got the problems out of the way early today. Still cruising through level 10's. Not perfect but better than I'd expected. Trying to work ahead bit, since we're off to visit my mother-in-law, for Easter later this week.

Looks like I forgot to include my stats yesterday. Since I'm a big time stats geek here they are:

Day 28:
30 problems complete out of 110 for Level 10 Circle One
Time Today: 1:15
Level 10: 95%

And now for todays:
Day 29:
75 problems complete out of 110 for Level 10 Circle One
Time Today: 1:30
Level 10: 92%

Day 28: Circles Begin

2005-03-19T19:08:00.000-08:00

Finally the start of the problem circles and it's a welcome change. As days go this one was nearly perfect. A new battery means my laptop is now portable again. The weather was decidedly spring-like. And my first 30 problems were reasonably easy. I was definitely solving better in the afternoon, than I do after 11pm.

Short blog today, time for some zzzz's.

Day 23: Thanks

2005-03-15T12:05:00.000-08:00

First I want to thank Jens for the book and of course the fame and fortune that will surely follow.

Micro drills went very well last night. I'm going to try and force myself to do at least 5 mins a day once I start the circles. I want to try and approach it like any other "sport" by going over the basics until they are truly ingrained.

I know this is one of the mistakes I made in years past with my training. I'd read a chapter or 2 about endings, maybe do a few positions, then move on to something completely different. Never bothering to review. No doubt I learned things, and some of it I even remember... But not without some effort.

It's odd the chess is one of the few competitive endeavors where the specifics of training are never really spelled out. I can't think of any sports that don't have a plethora of "training" manuals. And not just general one's but specific. For example if you want to ride a century (100 miles in a day), you need to ride your bike X miles at X tempo, 6 days a week for the next 3 months. Of course there are no guarantees, but it's likely the athlete that follows a structured training schedule will out perform one that doesn't.

Even if you choose to ignore the "sport" metaphor, you can find similarities in education. Most folks know that 6 * 6 = 36, instantly. Sure we all know how to figure it out, but at some point most of us were forced to memorize it. If you want to continue the analogy, the pattern recognition comes in when you need to multiply 6 * 60 or 60 * 60. Most folks didn't memorize these, but the pattern is familiar enough so that the answer is nearly instant. Much faster than if we had to figure out 60 + 60 + 60 + 60 ...

That is part of what appealed to me with the MDLM approach. I know that I've got to complete X problems in X days.

Ok I've rambled on way too much. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

And of course minutes after posting this I happen across an article very similar to what I talking about at Chessville.

Oh and if any of the knights need Gmail invites I've got 40 some to spare.

Day 21: 3 down

2005-03-13T19:46:00.000-08:00

That's 3 weeks down. I have to admit I never figured I'd last this long.

The concentric squares drill finally paid off in a game. I was extremely short on time and had a Queen vs 2 Rooks. I found the fork nearly instantly. The squares didn't pop out or anything, but I did recognize the pattern to find the tactic. I would have found it before I training, but the speed of recognition really surprised me. Nice to see the work is worth the effort.

If you guys are interested in doing a Knights tourney, we could do it online. FICS might be a logical place and I'm kinda friendly with one of the admins there.

Day 18: Jumpin Ahead

2005-03-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

The knight sight drills went so well that I decided to try a set of the minimal path drill. Seemed to go fairly well. I'm probably having to "think" about it more than I should, but I assume that will change by the end of next week. Also did a partial set on con squares, just to stay fresh.

Day 17: Feeling better

2005-03-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

I skipped the micro drills last night and spent an hour trying some level 10's. Things went much better this time (no more doing problems while watching TV with the kids), I was solidly in the 90% range. I'm feeling much better about the impending circles.

As I was doing the problems I noticed that the more I focused on my thinking technique, the easier the problems became. The biggest tendency for me was to just jump in and look for the tactic. I preformed much better when I followed some structured thinking. Thus far it's kind of basic but this seemed to work for me.

1. Am I attacking or defending?
2. What are the main threats (ie pieces hanging, potential mate)?
3. If I'm about to be mated, look for a stalemate.
4. Identify opponents weaknesses.
5. Look for an "if only" (fantasy) position.
6. Exploit something found in 4 or 5.

Like I said it's not complete nor will it fully transfer into a game situation, but it's a start. I'm looking through several articles and books pertaining to thinking techniques (and of course our own blogs). I'd like to come up with a more complete set of steps and then use that during the first 2 circles. Maybe even printing out checklists for the first few hundred problems, at least until it becomes reflexive.

Congratulations

2005-03-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

Congrats to the MAN. You've been the inspiration for my own quest for chessic improvement. Well that and not wanting to lose to my son just yet... Anyway just wanted to say thanks and cheers.

Days 14-15
The knight site drills are progressing very well. Seems so much easier than the Con Squares. I hope to be able to move on after only a week but we'll wait and see how I do the rest of the week.

CT-Art came yesterday. I know I probably shouldn't have but I cracked it open and took it for a spin. Tried some level 10's and wasn't pleased with my initial results. After about 30 problems I was only 78%. I think I missed every single stalemate problem I got. The rest I was fine with. I think this week I'll go through the stalemate exercises just to get a bit more comfortable with them.

Day 13

2005-03-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

Viva la Difference! Started with the "Knight Sight" drills tonight. Did at least 3 sets of them and then a quick set of the squares. Total time 1 hour. I've been slacking on keeping track of my total time but I'd guess I'm pretty close to a 45-60 mins a day average. We'll have to see if that's enough to burn these drills in. If not I'll just keep working them in during the first circle.

Circle Schedule

2005-03-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

Finally got around to working out the schedule for the circles. This should help keep me on task in the future, plus unless it's online I'd just end up misplacing it.

Circle	Start	End
1	03/19/05	04/20/05
2	04/21/05	05/07/05
3	05/08/05	05/16/05
4	05/17/05	06/18/05
5	06/19/05	07/05/05
6	07/06/05	06/27/05
7	06/28/05	07/06/05
8	07/07/05	07/11/05
9	07/12/05	07/14/05
10	07/15/05	07/15/05

Day 11

2005-03-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

Still here, still running around in circles forking that enemy king. Missed practice Day 11 but 9 & 10 were done. Ok the kids are starting to get bored with the fork the knight game, so at best it's a temporary boredom solution. Did a few more things to change it up a bit. Switched sides on the board, make the whites guys do some running around. BTW if I start naming the pieces somebody please call the guys in white suits.

Started to show my son how to do the drill. Took him a little while but he got it. Seemed to enjoy himself. I think I'll add a few minutes of this to his Fritz and Chesster practice. Still going easy on the chess but I figure it can't be any worse for him than the bass or hockey. As long as he enjoys himself, it's all cool.

Only a couple days till I start the knight micro drills. Variety will be nice, much harder to motivate myself this week.

BTW Welcome to all the new knights, I will get around to adding your links soon.

And a special thanks to Jens. The puzzle was quite engaging. I've been thinking about donating the book to our local library, I'll have to check into that.

Success?

2005-02-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Unless I'm missing something this should solve our challenge from Jens .

You can ignore the black king.

Days 7 & 8

2005-02-28T07:46:00.000-08:00

Nothing much new. Still doing the concentric thing. Finally got around to ordering CT-Art, I was very tempted to try and "roll my own" using the Chess Position Trainer software. In the end it came down to 2 reasons to stick with CT-Art. First it will be far easier to track my progress, with the other Knights that have gone before. Second I guess was just laziness on my part. CPT is a nice piece of software, and I'll be using it for future training, but for now the $23 price tag just wasn't high enough to motivate me to find a "free" or better solution.

If anyone wants to purse the CPT alternative, first make sure you grab the latest beta, which can be found in the beta forum (3.2 beta2 as of this post). Plenty of material can be found at www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/c/tactic.htm . And I'm sure there are others.

Day 6

2005-02-25T22:41:00.000-08:00

Decided to try a bit of experimenting after completing my normal 2 sets. After trying a few different attacking pieces I came up with a little game to keep things interesting. It's pretty simple you need a player (aka me) and an assistant(s). Player closes their eyes while the assistant shuffles the pieces on the board. Same as before 1 black king and 1 of the other minor pieces vs a white attacker. Didn't bother keeping score (accumulated time?), but it seemed like a decent exercise. Maybe next time I'll let them vary my white attacker too... Anyway it was more fun than just going around in circles again.

Pictures

2005-02-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

Not sure if this will help anyone in the future but I created a little graphic to demonstrate what I was talking about the other day with the race tracks. BTW If you could take them to a tourney, you could always whack you opponent upside the head with them. And don't tell me I'm the only one who did that to his little brother with them when we were kids.

For some reason I was missing the d3 square when I started. I think I'm getting them all now.

Day 5

2005-02-24T06:46:00.000-08:00

Ok back on track. 2 more sets of the Con Squares down, 9 days left. I can really tell the difference now after less than a week. Bodes well for the future.

I know I wasn't planning to but, I was still feeling good at 11pm and my wife was asleep, so I started on the WCT final tests. Got through the 1st 2 chapters of them and I've already scored in the "You've mastered basic tactics" level. It's in the middle of the scale so probably like a "C". I've still got the "Professional Tactics" chapter to go, but I doubt I'll score much in that one ... this time. I'm happy with my score at this point. I seem not to be as rusty as I feared.

One of these days I have to get my schedule made... Also I've been thinking on quite a few topics relating to chess training lately, thought process (I see I'm not the only one), why the MDLM process seems to work so well(and the nature of learning/training in general), and software training options. I'll likely tackle the software part first, since that's what I do.

So stay tuned for next another exciting episode, where we learn.... umm ... something? This is fatboy aka Knight of the Round signing off.

Day 4

2005-02-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

Well I made it a whole 3 days before I slipped up. Not totally though. I did manage to get the last 3 chapters done in WCT. Figure I'll add an extra set or 2 tonight of the concentric squares and try to get a decent nights sleep. Then Thurs or Fri I'll give the test a go, figure I can use it as a baseline also. Will be interesting to see how much easier it'll be in a few months.

Day 3

2005-02-22T00:02:00.000-08:00

Completed 2 sets of concentric squares (no race track this time). I'm starting to feel that intuitive sense of the attack squares, not quite squares popping out but I'm sure that'll come in the future. Also finished Chapter 10 in WCT. The WCT chapters are getting thin now, so I should easily finish it up this week.

Played a few quick games with my son (age 9). He's actually one of the main reasons for my desire to return to competitive chess. This past summer he started to learn the game, with the help of "Learn to Play Chess with Fritz and Chesster". Awesome program if you have kids that want to learn the game. Very friendly UI, fun games and challenges and an engaging story (beat the evil King Black).

After completing Fritz and Chesster I got him a few "Kids" chess books. He did about what I do, go through the first few chapters, get bored and put it down. Then this winter I noticed they had made a Fritz and Chesster 2, so I picked that up. Another very well done program, although the story line in this one is much lamer and the navigation isn't quite as nice. The content is excellent, tactics, basic opening ideas, notation and even some thinking techniques.

Anyway the other week he asked if he could watch me play in a tourney. I think he really wants to play, but is nervous about it. Figure in a month or so I should be ready to go. It should give me a nice baseline to measure my progress with the circles.

Ok enough chess for today. Now I'm off to Virginville and then Intercourse for some Shoo Fly Pie 1 2

Day 2

2005-02-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Did 2 full sets of concentric squares in about 1:15. Somewhere towards the end of my first set, I was really dragging and happened to notice that I had previously been missing several forks. Decided to slow down a bit do some double checking.

Then I had one of those, slap on the forehead moments, what I like to call a "blinding flash of the obvious". Anyway went back to the kids play room and grabbed a piece of "Hot Wheels" plastic race track, nice and long and straight. Used it to double check all the squares. My pattern (I assume it's the same as everyone else's) is to look at the diagonals for rooks, straight lines on the bishops and use both for knights (using the black piece as a center point). Not sure if that'll help anyone else but it showed me a few forks I'd been missing.

I'm gonna have to get around to making a schedule this week, so I can start marking the days off. BTW did anybody find a better price for CT-Art than $23 at wholesalechess.com?

Day 1

2005-02-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

One down, 27 more to go. Did 2 rounds of the concentric squares. For anyone else starting out, I wish I'd done the drills in this order Rook, Bishop and then Knight. At least with the pattern I noticed the Knight pattern is a combo of the other 2.

I found the whole 1 1/2 hours oddly relaxing. I also managed to get in a chapter in the Seirawan book. I'd actually started a few days ago so I'm up to chapter 9. It's a nice refresher, and highly recommended.

Thanks for the warm welcome so quickly guys. Glad the join the group, just so long as there's no streaking for the initiation... BTW no rappin going on here, that would make me phatboy.

Preamble

2005-02-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

Having been inspired by the blogs of the ManDe la Maza and the Knights Errant, I to will take up the challenge. Based on the feedback I've seen I'll be using Don's modifed circle schedule.

I've started this blog as way of motivating myself to stick with the program. Even if nobody ever reads this at least I know it's here. Now for the good part, goals. Currently my USCF rating is an meager 1161. I'm shooting for 1350 by August and 1500 by this time next year.

Granted I never really seroiusly worked at improving. Oh I bought the books, paged through them, maybe even finished a few chapters but never completed any of them. That combined with sporadic bursts of activity, have left me in my current lackluster playing state.

I've looked at the 400 points in 400 days several times over the last few years. Always wishing I had the time, but not willing to sacrfice my family time. Well now that our kids are a bit older 9 and 3, I think I can finally commit to a minimal training schedule. Shooting for about 7-9 hours a week, with scheduled rest day(s).

In order to ramp up for the training, I'll be working through Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics, as I go through the first set of exercises. I've been away from competitive chess for a few years so this should help get me back up to speed.

Finally in case anyone's wondering about the nickname, it was an unfortunate choice about 12 years ago on the original ICS, that has stuck with me. Dang 12 years? Long time. Ah those were the days, 4800 baud modems, DOS interfaces, Kermit, prep.ai.mit.edu, queues just to log on. You kids these days have it way to easy.

Training starts tomorrow. I'll be back!