A Year of OTB Chess: What I Have Learned

Good day reader and chess enthusiast. It has been quite a stint since I was last in front of you writing my thoughts but amidst the soccer coaching and practices along with school starting, I found myself buried in the normal day to day. Family duties after all are most important. Chess blogging must wait at times.

So here we are. I came back to over the board (OTB) chess in June of 2022. It has been a little over a year since I have returned and I have found many new things about chess and my chess jouney along the way. Let’s recap a bit. I started a chess channel on Youtube and Twitch, a switch from the gaming channel I used to run but fell out of favor. I have a chess blog. Tried my hand a few times on Lichess and Chess.com with thier blogging tools before ending up here on Substack which seems to be such a better platform and medium for such an exercise. I joined the Chesspunks community on Twitter. What an amazing group of like minded chess lovers such as myself. I found tools such as Aimchess, Chesstempo, Forward Chess, Chessbook, and Chessable just to name a few. 309 days and counting on Chessable streak for those who are interested in such things. Joined back with my local chess club here in Waukesha Wisconsin. Played in weekly tournaments and weekend tournaments. Made some new friends and chess training partners. I also even gained a US Correspondence Chess rating as well. What an amazing chess year if I must say.

I do have to say special thanks to the Waukesha Chess Club for being such a long term fixture in the chess scene in Wisconsin for us improvers to have a place to play weekely. Much appreciated to Kevin and Jim who main tournament directors and to the Eagle’s Club each week for allowing us to use such a nice facility for us to play chess out of the elements. Without the weekly games I would not be where I am at today.

What can one year do for your chess? Well, depends on how you are spending your time I suppose. Is your time filled with hours of blitz games? Tilting left and right gaining and losing 50-100 points at a whim in an evening going on run after run until you finally passout or decide to call it quits after you get that proverbial “one more” win before you head to bed. Or are you more or a book junkie? Head buried in chess literature trying to find all those nuggets and morsols of chess knowledge to inch out victories over your opponents. Do you find youself with one hundred Chessable courses left unfinished because you were presented with the next new thing that will transform your chess to the ultimate degree. Gaining ALL the ELO?

One thing I can say is if you spend time playing or studying in chess on a regular basis I expect you are most likely better than you were the year prior. Spending time on anything in any facet will usually yeild positive results. Here is what I have achieved in one year of chess at least from a purely chess standpoint. In this last year. October 2022 my rating was 1344. I cameback in June was around 1450 or so but lost 100 points over a few months to level off at the bottom to where my climb begins. Now as of the writing of this post, I am sitting at 1623. Look at that vertical rise!

Some might consider this remarkable improvement over one year. Others have even uttered it is impossible for Adults to make such improvements. Am I am outlier? I doubt it. I worked! Those who know me and who are in my chess circle, namely my training partners, have seen the amount of work I have put in. Everything from deep opening study to massive tactical puzzles to long calculation and endgame work over weeks and months. Almost 300 points in a given year many could only dream of.

Why did I make such a leap? Well I believe it is actually two factors. One is I was not anywhere near where I should be in my chess strength. Two, I think is I put in deliberate effort and practice everyday. Did I take days off? Sure. Were there days I did not want to play or study chess? Absolutely. Those were the days I made sure to show up and do the work. Of course take necessary breaks. I just took one actually. Most of September of this year I took off. Barely any chess other than keeping that Chessable streak alive. Has to be done! Haha. When you seem to have lost the passion or motivation for chess play or study it would most certainly be time for a disengage. Recharge those batteries before continuing. Having another hobby, perferably one that is not competitive would be ideal.

Chess is an enourmous struggle. Not only while playing the game but in your mind when outside of the game. Many questions percolate. What should I study? How long should I study? Should I find a training partner? What are my weaknesses? Why did I blunder? What openings should I play? Why am I not improving? How can I improve? What am I losing my games? Is it true all you need is tactics tactics tactics? Should I read more chess books? What courses on Chessable can I get? There is this psychological battle being played on the constant for many of us. We all want that magic easy route to chess greatness. Well… unfortunately there isn’t a one size fits all approach for every person. We all need to find out what works for ourselves over trial and error.

Those who are close to me in chess know I have gone through a metamorposis of chess changes with regard to my chess study and improvement plan. I have modified and curated this many times over. I pour over it constantly. And depdning on what your weaknesses are you may need to do the same. As an engineer I was taught in school and with experience use the pertinant useful information and discard the rest. In ley terms use what works and throw the rest out. Namely you need to find what works for you. This can be a difficult and challenging process which could take months if not years. However, I think you can start with one thing that could help fast track you. My one main recommendation is to read Pump Up Your Rating by Axel Smith. This to me is the Holy Grail for Adult Chess Improvers. An absolute MUST read.

A few things to consider

• Use process and production based goals over rating goals - ie. 20-30 tactics a day or analyze 2 games per week. Helps keep focus and the losses are not as painful.

• Find your medium - What works best for you - Videos, Chessable, Books, Coaching, Websites Aimchess Chesstempo etc - You may need more than one or all of them

• Learn from your mistakes - Do not repeat such mistakes is a quick way to start improving

• Set aside time for play and study every day. How much time can you devote to chess improvement?

• Keep it simple - Do not over complicate your training - easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis.

• Consistency is paramount.

These are all general guidelines but overall they can be useful to anyone who seems to be lost in what to do. And depending on if you are new player or intermediate player could change what and how much time you would need to spend making it to the next level. As many already know as you increase in strength the time it takes to reach the next level inceases almost exponentially.

What I have learned - well it is a great number of things. Many about chess but some about myself. I found I do best with a plan. So I have spreadsheets with all of my daily tasks to check off. Helps keep me accountable. Works well for me. Stick to the four pillars of chess improvement if you can.

1. List of Mistakes - Analyze your own games then catagorizing the mistakes

2. Tactics - Woodpecker Method, 7 Circles, other tactical courses etc

3. Openings - Study a few and know the middle game plans

4. Theroetical Endgames - mainly for your level

Keeping your study to these areas will be helpful. And this could be a on daily or weekly cycle. You can do all of these things each day or focus on one over another but either way stick to the above. I recently completed number 1 over my last 12 games and found some interesting things.

Out of 12 games you can see where I need the most work. Tactics, Thinking Model (Calculation and Evaluation) and Pawn Levers. So then begins creating a plan around fixing those weaknesses. Always be working on your floor - meaning work on your weakest part of the game and NOT the best part of your game.

This information above is abosultely valuable. Sure you can just study tactics all day and you will improve but if you then find you are not losing your games to tactics you will need to change up your study. With that being said I found I was playing mainly positional openings the entire time I had been studying tactics for months and months. Then wondering why I am not making the gains or seeing a lot of tactics in my games. Playing mainly closed positions in the English did not allow for many open games. I have since dropped the English and moved to 1.e4. I choose now to go for open games as uncomfortable as it may be and what I can say is it has been absolutely transformative for my chess. I now play with initiative and care little for material at this point. Tal said something to the effect of “You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5 and the path leading out if only wide enough for one.” This is now how I play chess.

What does my study plan look like now? Well pretty much just like the four pillars above but more emphasis on Tactics and my thought process and calculation. So I have Art of Attack on Chessable and dove back into the 7 Circles program from de la Maza using CT-ART. I am also reading The Art of Checkmate and The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. I have a thought process form that I wrote up and read it every day and work to put it into practice in my OTB games at this point. I also work on Endgame Strategy from Shereshevsky. Openings 1.e4 for white. Queen’s Indian and O’Kelly Sicilian for black. I really like these 100 Repertoires on Chessable. Much more easiliy digestible over the lifetime repetoires out there with 800 lines. 750 of which you will never see.

“Chess is hard!” I heard many say on a number of ocassions. I try to think of it as chess is difficult to understand at my current level and to understand takes more time. I believe the most important take away I can offer anyone looking to improve is to be consistant. Immerse yourself in chess and develop a thirst for knowledge and curiousity. Find what works. Discard the rest. Keep improving.