Sunday, November 22, 2009

Reflection, and a New Start

Update - after my success at Foxwoods, my chess went to the crapper. In August, at Sturbridge, I had my worst performance ever (1.0/6.0). I've been recovering somewhat recently at MetroWest CC, and enjoyed myself at the B.U. Open a few weekends ago. At the BU Open I achieved 1.0/3.0 which on paper is not great, but my two losses were to the 1st and 2nd place winners.

I am now earnestly going through Chess Strategy for Club Players" (Grooten) to make sure I file off my rough edges, and knowledge gaps in strategy. In parallel I still seek to improve my tactical ability. I am recently re-energized by Heisman's 4th post at ChessCafe:
I also dug up my old copy of Averbach's "Tactics for Advanced Players" and will pledge to run through it end to end.

Last but not least, I will throw my hat in the ring of the new ACIS, organized by the intrepid BlunderProne. I want to learn how to make my own "blunder-rep" database and so on. The method sounds practical and (hopefully) effective. Actually part of his method reminds me of what Valery Frenklakh always told me - "make copies of positions from your own games...".

BlunderProne's blog can be found in my blog list on the right column of this blog.

I'll report back in a few weeks with my perspectives on the method.