David's Chess Journey - Installment 57

Training Notes

Doing the Hanging Pieces several times throughout the week was helpful as I am getting a bit better at that tactic in practice. Ironically, I hung several pieces in my games this week. But, I was able to come away with two wins and two draws despite some significant mistakes in the games.

I really enjoyed the Attacking Masterpieces ChessMood course and went ahead and signed up for the year based on the discount that they were offering. Their content is really well done and I think working through all of their courses throughout my journey will be extremely helpful.

The Step Method 3 Mix puzzles continue to be very difficult for me. I'm only getting 33% correct on average. That said, the answer keys are very helpful and this is definitely the most challenging activity on my training schedule.

The playing instructions are helpful as I build out my Chess Operating system. Here is the current state:

• First: Make good opening moves in line with my repertoire.
• Then ask for each move:
  • Can I give a nice check?
  • Can I capture something?
  • Can I make a strong threat?
• If the answer is no to those questions:
  • develop a piece; or
  • improve a piece's position.
• Finally - do a quick blunder check before making a move.

Pretty straight forward, but that is the point for me right now. I'm trying to play as simple as possible. My results have not been very strong on Lichess, but I feel that my though process is evolving and that is good. I'm trusting and enjoying the process and am excited to see where the year takes me.

With a job transition coming up, I am going to have some time to do a couple of OTB tournaments with the first coming up in the middle of this month. It is the MLK Memorial Tournament for the Denver Chess Club. This was my first OTB tournament that really started my journey back in 2022. At that time I had been playing for about a month and barely knew how the pieces moved. I was crushed every game, but absolutely fell in love with the game through the process. So, going back to that same tournament after a couple of years of the journey will be very interesting.

I also want to travel to a couple of tournaments, but am still figuring out what makes the most sense. One dream would be to play the Reykjavik Open from April 9-15. This is a bucket list item that would be challenging to negotiate, but I'm going to see if I can make it work. I would also love to play some games at the Marshall Chess Club while visiting my sister in NYC. I'll continue to build out my schedule and share. Hopefully I will be able to meet some of you at some tournaments this year.

Lesson Reflections

This week's lesson was all about planning for the year ahead. Noël and I crafted a very ambitious goal for 2025 that I am keeping to myself for now because it is so ambitious. We also talked about my goal of playing several OTB tournaments and will develop a schedule of play with works with family obligations over the coming weeks and months.

Here is to a fantastic year for chess for everyone!