David's Dojo Journey - Installment 16

I thought it was time to get back at it last week, but I only got about an hour of tactics in and was just not into Polgar. So, I just played a bunch of rapid this week. You can look at my game history to see the volume:)

The one thing that I am intentionally working on the last few games is blunder checking. There was a great perpetual chess episode (Episode 374 - Chess Improvement Q&A with Noel Studer) that talked about having some tick that serves as a blunder check (writing down your opponent's time when they make their move, for example).

I'm playing around with different ticks as making huge (read avoidable) blunders in 10+5 games is still a big issue for me. An avoidable blunder for me is one that I understand (I still don't understand why several moves are blunders) and would catch if I were more intentional. The current tick that I am working on is touching a certain point on my computer once I have made a decision as to the move I am going to play and then looking as to whether my opponent can do anything in response to that move that is favorable to my opponent or bad for me.

I still struggle to be disciplined enough to do it every move, but that is one intentional practice that I'm going to cultivate this week with another high volume of games. Polgar will have to wait a bit longer!