2023: A Year in Review

As I write this I find myself thinking about what I have accomplished this year in chess. I took the last six weeks off from Over The Board tournament chess. Mainly to not have the stress of needing or wanting to perform over the holiday season. I’d rather like to spend this time with my family and take a chance to slow down and reevaluate the things that worked and perhaps did not work from the year. Unfortunate as it may be I seemed to have caught multiple things over this time away that have been going around. It has been challenging to have any motivation to do anything at all during these last few weeks. Even today as I sit down to type this up I struggle to have the energy but I am determined to start 2024 off correctly.

This year I gained many friends and viewers to my online platforms and for that I am grateful for each and every one of you who has joined me in this journey. Joined a few online chess communities. Some have lasted others I have left. Either way it goes without saying I have learned a lot in 2023. Let’s take a closer look at how the year progressed.

Late December 2022 I set some 3 month and 6 month goals for myself. This would be about 6 months into my return to OTB chess and starting my chess content creation journey.

• Play in 3 OTB tournaments

• Reach Class B rating

• Continue English / French / Dutch Opening prep

• Follow a training program (ChessDojo - since have left this program)

• Post more content (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch and Blogs)

• Play in 7 OTB Tournaments

• Grow to over 100 subscribers

• And a myriad of a number of other ancillary and unimportant goals

That is quite a list. How well did we do overall? Well I found numerous cards with goals and completions attached so overall I think I did extremely well for a chess improver. Most of what I set out to do I have achieved over the year which I am rather pleased with. There is one exception to this which was reach Class A (1800) over the board USCF for a rating goal.

My record on the 2023 year is 21-12-15 for a 56.2% score over the coarse of 48 games. To me this is best year I have had playing chess in my life. One I have played more games in 2023 than I have in any other year to date and overall it might not be the best scoring year I have had I have to say percentage wise is most certainly is since I played a lot more games so consistency was far higher than any other given year. Which has obtain me a new peak of 1642 USCF for 2023.

When you are on the improvement path these numbers are what I think any adult would love to see. And even at one point around October time I had raised almost 300 points year to date from that same rating back in 2022. Remarkable if I may say so myself. I also reached a correspondence rating of 1713 coming off three winning tournaments on ICCF.

As for the other goals on my list I met many of them. My content creation goals for the year were shattered. Just obliterated which I am rather ecstatic about though I am certain I could have done a lot more for the chess community. With seeing this I find myself wanting more for my online presence and growth. New things to come in 2024.

When you take some time off and think back as to what worked and what didn’t it is easy to forgot many things. I am no different either. Simply, it is difficult to keep complete track of everything you might have done over the coarse of an entire given year. I believe I have been pretty good about what was working since most of that has stayed in my current study plans.

Let’s take a look at some things I found did not work throughout the year.

1. Following the ChessDojo. I left this community as I believe it helped me take steps backwards in my development. There are a number of other reasons I have left that community but will not get into that here as I do not think it is productive at this juncture. To me it was not a fit and I believe my chess regressed for it as well. If you look at that small down turn in my ratings graph this would be that time period early in the year. I know, I know. I can hear it now, “You did not give the program enough time to work it’s magic” or some other variation of such fan boy argument would be given. I found I simply do not agree with the method of one size fits all approach they take. Their approach is Mate in 1 and 2s are enough of the tactics you need at the 1500 level and I simply do not agree with this.

2. Reading books - This will be a hot take for sure. Some people LOVE books while others despise them. I lie some place in the middle here. Given I am an adult improver, one with a family time is at a limited quantity so sitting and reading a book while I expect is very beneficial, to me, is not nearly as efficient as other options such as Chessable. Will I still use them for OTB training - Yes of course but it will be more limited than others might use - I think I am in the middle of the pack with use here. I did just obtain the Yusupov books so this could be a major change in my training for 2024. We shall see.

3. French and Dutch openings - I left them behind. Not for good no but temporarily. I found I needed a wider spread in opening knowledge so I did something many may not be brave enough in doing - dropped ALL my opening prep to adopt 1.e4 and learned to play for initiative. I found playing to your strengths was not always the best plan. Adopted a less materialistic mindset and played for straight initiative and it paid off deeply in the second half of 2023. Anyone who knows me and my style of play and how it has changed from the first half of 2023 to the second will say its changed drastically. And even yet again it will change again in 2024.

4. More does not equal better usually. This goes the same for chess. Having more things to work on does not usually mean you will gain more knowledge or experience or even study. I found many times I was just straight overwhelmed with the amount of material I put in front of myself for my training plan. It was not conducive to learning but rather counterproductive. Simple for me is better.

Those were a few things I found just did not work for me in 2023. A many number of things did work for me. Rapid Chess Improvement and Pump Up Your Rating both worked well for me. With Pump Up Your Rating I found this was a simplified approach to chess improvement. Finding all my mistakes in my chess games, putting them in a spreadsheet and categorizing them all was extremely eye opening. I urge anyone who has not done this to do it. It’s really jarring to see where your issues are in a single pane of glass. I will make a video about this soon so show how helpful it was for me but I have talked about it in other Blog posts if memory serves. Some screens are below to show what I see.

As you can see from the above its interesting to see where your issues really are if you are being 100% honest with yourself and the reason as to why you lost some games. Your eyes should be wide when you do this properly. Then simply create a plan around those issues that are the biggest areas of mistake. For me it was mainly tactical vision and pawn breaks. My plan was simple.

The above is how I finished my year. I did most of the above and still will continue to work on this as a plan moving forward. I found two other interesting things in my travels this year as well. One was visualization (or rather conceptualization) was lacking. I found from Aiden over at https://dontmoveuntilyousee.it/ there is an easy way to train this and I will be honest I only did this a few times but I found it extremely useful so it will become a staple of my chess study plan in 2024.

Secondly I also found I was not playing enough games. I suffered from, what I believe many older players will, is lack of experience. We love to study and gain MORE knowledge - ultimately thinking that will automatically translate into experience and skill. The sad truth is it does not. You need games. Many games to turn that knowledge into skill with practice. So in the last two months I have played countless blitz games. With focus as if I was playing a real OTB game. I must stress not mindlessly playing quickly just to play but really giving it full on effort as you would OTB. This is helpful. I set a goal for myself to reach 1800 blitz on Lichess. Now I did not quite reach my goal however as I started at around 1500 or so I am sitting around 1760 currently and can say its been a major confidence boost to my play. I can tell much of what I had for knowledge has started to turn into experience. Simply put I found we have to play more games. (with deliberate attention).

I want to take this time to thank each and every one of you who read this and who support my journey on the other platforms I belong to. Its been quite a ride and I look forward to a glorious 2024 where we all meet and reach our chess goals for the year. I ask that you please help me out with growth and if you like this sort of candid content to share it with your chess circles. At the end of the day I want everyone to improve and reach higher. Thanks everyone and have a glorious Happy New Year in 2024!