A. Team competition is over
My chess club, Rokade Westerlo, has had a good team competition season this year.
Regional team championship
In the regional competition (I think US players can compare this with a state team championship) the first team ended second in first division. The second team, the team I played in, became champion in the third division and promotes to second division. Our third team ended third in the fifth division.
National team championship
Here we only had one goal, namely to promote the first team to second division.
The second and third team played in fifth division. Third team, our youth team, ended seventh. Not a bad result knowing that this was the first time that 3 our of 5 players played games longer then 30 0.
The second team ended fourth. Which is ok, but maybe next year we must think of playing for promotion to fourth division from the start of the competition.
Our first team didn't start that good. Losing 3 matchpoints in the first four rounds didn't give a good feeling. However, from round 5 to 10 all matches were won and so the team stood first after ten rounds. The final round our first team had to play against the second team in the standings. A draw match result was enough for our team. Helas, a draw was never in the books. Our first team didn't look back and got a surprisingly and big win of 5,5-0,5. Promotion to second division is a fact. The celebration party afterwards was fun!
B. Help wanted
Preparing for tournament
Now that the team competitions are over, and I am not playing in the club championship, I have plenty of time to prepare myself for the 40th Eastman Open International chess tournament Ghent in july.
However, I am not sure how one prepares for such tournament. I need your help. Please put your answers on the following questions in the comments.
1. Openings
A. Openings are not important at our level. Only when you have more then 2100 elo it's time to study openings.
B. With the three golden opening rules, development, centre and King safety one get already far at our level.
C. Update the openings you already play with the newest theory.
D. Create an entire new opening repertoire.
2. Endgame
A. Just learn the basic endgames.
B. Learn the book 100 endgames you must know.
C. Learn the book Silman's complete endgame course.
D. I suggest you read ........chess endgame book.
3. Middlegame
A. Play over as much titled player games as possible
B. Play over as much titled player games as possible which start with the openings you play.
C. Read Reassess your Chess or another chess book that learns you a good chess thought proces.
D. Just learn tactics.
4. Playing Games
A. Don't play games while preparing for a tournament.
B. Play blitz games online, 5 a 10 games a day/week.
C. Play rapid games online. 5 a 10 games a day/week.
D. Play only correspondence games online.
Have fun playing chess!
My votes:
BeantwoordenVerwijderen1. Openings
C. Update the openings you already play with the newest theory.
(With two months to go before the tournament, it's a great way to refresh your memory of concepts and also play over recent master games in your lines, to see if there are any better ideas.)
2. Endgame
B. Learn the book 100 endgames you must know.
(At the class level knowing the most important endgames will get you far.)
3. Middlegame
A. Play over as much titled player games as possible
(That you think you will enjoy looking at beyond the ones in your openings.)
B. Play over as much titled player games as possible which start with the openings you play. (You're already doing this for the above part on openings)
C. Read Reassess your Chess or another chess book that learns you a good chess thought proces. (Why wouldn't you be doing this anyway?)
D. Just learn tactics. (Just practice tactics!)
4. Playing Games
(None of the above. If you play fast in training, you'll want to play fast in a tournament. Only to have fun. But that said...)
Have fun playing chess!
Thanks for your answer!
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI hope your path to chess mastery goes smoothly.
Openings are important!! People who know me avoid my openings like the plague!! That includes players even rated in the 2400s!
BeantwoordenVerwijderenAs far as openings not being important up to a certain rating level, what if you are rated in the 1700s, but your opponent is rated in the 2000s. In this case, your opponent is likely to play book moves, so the opening preparation definitely pays off! Anyways, my opponents who know me avoid my favorite openings like the plague, so what does that tell you?
That does tell me that you know certain openings, that is all. Doesn't say anything about your total chess strenght. You just are a theory junky. :-)
VerwijderenP.S. Chris Wainscott has disappeared! He hasn't posted on his blog for 24 days.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenLike you said, "By the way, Where is Chris? He is MIA".
His rating is currently 1790.
He is actually an interesting case study.
He intends to put in the necessary work to achieve a 2200 rating, but he was happy with his progress for 2013 when he got his rating up to 1779.
It's over 3.5 years later, so maybe whatever he has done so far has proven to not be the things to do to get there!
Truth is, some people have talent and most people don't!!
But of course, the people making money by giving lessons and selling you books and videos have to keep that a secret!!
Dont be so harsh. If Chris has fun while trying to get to his goal then all is well and fine. Because having fun is all that counts.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenTalent is only a little part, hard work is the major part. Talent only makes it that you learn things a little bit quicker.
I guess one may call you a pessimist. Seeing the negative directly and dont believe there can be a silver lining.
I don't think I'm a pessimist, just a realist. I've seen it over and over again, people work on their games for 30 years, and yet their rating remains the same!! Chris is just another example of it being almost impossible to show any real progress. In the last 3.5 years, his rating has gone from 1779 to 1790. Apparently, he has been working hard on his game the last 3.5 years, but what good does it really do? I think also, people think of themselves as working on their games, when they are really just doing what they enjoy doing. Going over Grandmaster games and doing tactical puzzles is not really working on your game!! People don't want to put in the actual effort to learn concrete things like openings and basic endgames!!
BeantwoordenVerwijderenBy the way, I personally know a little bit about having talent. I first was introduced to numbers when I was 7 years old. About 1 year later, at the age of 8, I was already better with numbers than way over 99% of people would ever be in the entire lives, and you know what, I didn't even try!!
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