Ok first for a few shouts to my peeps :) (Man I’m getting more street cred every day)
Congratulations to Polly on her excellent results at he Saratoga Open! 5.5/6!!! An impressive result indeed and I have a strong feeling she’s on her way to getting her rating up into the 1800’s again.
Congratulations to Drunknite as well. USCF Expert. WOW an actual no shit title. Great job.
DK informed me in a response to my chapter 3 post that he was adding me to his blogroll. This is an honor indeed. I consider him to be one of the “elder statesman” of the chess blogosphre this has more to do with the age of his blog not him by the way. He is respected and always up for a good conversation/debate. One of those rare souls who can disagree without being disagreeable.
Ok now time to finish up part one of this monster (FINALLY!)
Things I’ve learned this past year in competetive tournament chess.
1. There are far too many of my fellow adult players at tournaments who are social retards. This sounds harsh but there are alot of very strange people out there man. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not 1 in 5 more like 1 in 8 0r maybe 9 but man is that more than enough. Between arguing with kids that are young enough to be theirs, to being rude, to having poor hygiene, well let’s just say there are some folks walking around at tournaments that need some medication, seriously some of these peolple desperately need to get laid. You know the guy, I’m sure every club has one, he spends alot of his time between games mumbling to himself, carries a small treasure trove of books, mostly opening manuals and may even have the entire ECO by his side.
What I haven’t been able to figure out is this; were they always like this and they were drawn to chess, or were they once normal and chess ate their minds? Just in case it is the latter, Chessloser you have my permission to shoot me dead on site if I become one of these folks. I’ve already left a notarized letter for my wife in a safety deposit box. So if it happens she’ll know why, don’t worry, she will thank you.
2. Winning a chess game is really, really hard! Ok so file this one under d for DUH!?! But it is amazing to me how many won games I have seen blown (not just mine either) and how many hopeless situations I’ve seen pulled out to a draw or even a win. This shit just isn’t as easy as all the super GM’s make it look.
3. Chess improvement is really, really, really hard. Ok so this is a double DUH!?! But really I can tell you in my one year of study and tournament experience there is no magical elixir, no one method that is going to make you as strong as you would like to be. To boost my rating by 150 - 200 points in one tournament I’d have to go like 3.5 in one of the monthly tournaments against the standard competition which would likely include 1 class c, 2 class b, and 1 class a player. No small feat (see #2 above). So this is why getting your rating up quickly is difficult.
4. Chessplayers are really good at bullshitting themselves! Look kids, I know you (I) had a great position until x happened, but the bottom line is this, every game you win, is because your opponent made mistake(s) that you capitilized on. So when you lose it’s safe to say that your opponent did the same to you. You lost, accept it and move on with your life.
I no longer give excuses for my losses. I analyze the game and try to learn from it, but I don’t say if only…Well if only I were a better player this shit wouldn’t keep happening to me! I would win won games, and be a super famous chess sex symbol and have lots of hot babes throwing their undergarments at me. But I’m not better, I lose won games and I make alot of mistakes, that’s why I’m studying to get better. (that and the hot babes thing) I do pinpoint my errors so that I can get better, but I don’t make excuses for my losses anymore.
5. I get nervous at tournaments. Ridiculous, with all of my life accomplishments and competing in judo you’d think that a simple game of chess normally played against a child who I could easily take in a fight wouldn’t rattle me. But I have to tell you there is a ten year old out here that scares the Bejesus out of me. He’s tactically brilliant, rated ~1950 and he’s such a cute kid. But man, he’s mean across that chessboard. It also doesn’t help that he’s got a MonRoi. That just adds to the mystique, and scariness.
6. Chess knowledge does not equal chess skill. I’ve got a fair bit of chess knowledge in the ole melon. I’ve even had one Master tell me I understand the game much better than my rating suggests. Problem is, I don’t play the game much better than 1417. so that’s my rating. Understanding might be one key but actually playing the game is what counts see #4 above. Playing and understanding are two different things. Michael de la Maza pointed this out in his book. He was learning about chess, just not how to play better, until of course he developed his study plan.
7. Studying openings are both overrated and underrated. You need a repertoire to get going but spending large amounts of time is unnecessary. Your opponents don’t know anymore than you do. Get something reliable that you like and more importantly know how to play and go with it until you go up a class. When you move up an entire class then add one opening to your repertoire, this should keep any excessive switching to a minimum.
8. Most people don’t define what kind of chessplayer they are. I’m not talking about positional or tactical, I’m talking about what kind of chess do you play? I’m hearing alot of blank stares so I’ll go into more depth…
The type of chess you play will be primarily determined by what’s available to you. For instance there are two clubs in my area that hold tournaments every month of the year. They are both G60. I played in over a dozen tournaments last year. All but one was at G60.
This means that for all intents and purposes I am a G60 player. This is something that I think is missed by alot of authors. Dan Heisman for one recommends that you play in tournaments of G90+. This sounds like excellent advice, problem is there are few tournaments with a time control over 60 that I can realistically make. Don’t get me wrong I believe that Mr. Heisman makes excellent points about improvement when it comes to adult players, and I happen to like alot of what he says and the folks who use him as a trainer are very happy with him. I’m just saying that it’s not possible for everyone to get out to longer time control tourneys. The point is taken though, play at slower time controls whenever possible.
9. Blitz is the devil’s work on earth. It’s fun, gives you the impression that you are actually playing “real” chess. Real being anything that will help you prepare for the chess you actually play over the board, but you’re not, you’re BULLSHITTING yourself. See #4 above yet again.
10. Blogging is FUN! Ok so this one is also fairly obvious but for those of you out there that are new and are thinking about blogging here it is. I’ve had a ton of fun communing with my fellow chess addicts and have felt a little bit more normal for my obsession, seeing as I share it with so many others. Plus I got to meet chessloser in real life, that alone was worth the price of admission, which coincidentally was nothing, blogging is free, which isn’t any kind of testament to how I feel about CL, I like him, he’s a true friend, but, nevermind you get what I’m trying to say. Stop shaking your head at me, it’s getting late over here.
11. Your improvement plan needs to take into account #8 above. I know that technically this should have been #9 for continuity sake, but this is my big finish to this post. My next post will be dealing with this. An honest to goodness look at how I improve and how I prioritize my time for study. This will be how I tackle my second year of competetive chess. I will begin with openings; how I chose my repertoire and how I went about learning my specific openings. Notice I didn’t say How to do these things, I’m merely going to share with you how I did it. Hopefully it will help you out as well. You might think to yourself, “WOW that was really helpful, wang actually knows a thing or two.” Or you might say, “Nah, he’s full of shit, I’ll do it my way.” Either one is fine by me. My wish is that you can take something useful away from it, like I hope you took something away from part 1. 
Well kids I am about out of time, so I will leave you with a See Ya! and good chessing to you all.
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