Challenge 2500 | 5. Structurelessness

Is that title even an existing word? I guess it depends on what it means for a word to exist. Let's better skip this debate and get to the chess.

This past week

I've done:

• Daily: 2x 20 min. of tactics on ChessTempo (Problem set: Blitz, Difficulty: Medium)
• Daily: 4 Blitz games (3+2 pool)
• 4x: 50 min. Lichess puzzles
• not tracked: a bunch of opening work
• a total of 18 blindfold games (5+0)

What I don't like about how training went last week is that I noticed not being fully concentrated during some of it, sometimes even deflated/nerveless. I strongly suspect this is because of not scheduling the training and not creating optimal training conditions. There is not yet much structure to my training in terms of questions of 'when' and 'how' (hence the title).
I'll from now on be a bit more rigorous and do most of the daily routine at the same time every day. This will be in the morning and after going for a brisk walk outside. I feel like that should ensure some level of alertness.
I'd suspect that for any habit that is supposed to be a daily one to improve something over the course of time, doing it early in the day is not a bad idea just for the sake of getting things done, which, by the way, is why I intend to stack the bulk of the daily chess routine together with a couple of non-chess habits into a 2 or 2,5-hour period early in the morning dedicated to improvement in those respective areas.

Regarding the blitz tactics on ChessTempo, I've attempted almost the same amount as last week: 238 in total. Of those, I've solved 178, which is slightly less than 75%. My rating decreased from 2290 to 2284. It did hit 2315 on the way though, which is motivating, but shows how much of a difference being in good versus bad form can make on any given day.
Some fluctuation is natural of course, but still, I hope to be more consistent when I fix the problem of having little to no schedule/structure. Also, I wasn't very consistent with my goal of 4 blindfold blitz games a day, so scheduling those should make it easier to follow through.

Next week / tournament prep

Starting Thursday, I'll be playing a tournament (http://www.chessorg.de/Listen2023/NordWest-Cup-Teil.php), which made me think about how I should train in those couple of days leading up to it.
Should one train differently than usual just before a tournament? Possibly, at least getting in some practice by playing a couple of rapid games against tough opposition surely can't be a terrible idea.
I've indeed scheduled two slow rapid games against a strong 2300+ player. I'll play those on Wednesday, which I hope will be an adequate warm-up for the tournament.
By the way, it also looks like this player could become a long-term training partner of mine, which would be fantastic.
In general, for anyone trying to get better at anything, I suspect that having someone with the same aspirations to practice and strive toward improvement with can make a big difference.

Apart from the additional rapid games, I'll slightly change the daily routine.
I'll do one 50-minute session of puzzles on Lichess and decrease the amount of time spent on blitz tactics on ChessTempo.
Also, of the four blitz games I've been playing every day for a while now, I'll turn two of them into one rapid game, just to accustom myself to longer and more considerate thinking and higher quality chess.
I'll keep the 4 blindfold games in my schedule and do some opening prep as well.

To summarise the daily routine:

• 25 min. ChessTempo
• 50 min. Lichess Puzzles
• 2 Blitz games (3+2)
• 1 Rapid game (10-0)
• 4 Blindfold games (5+0)

Adding to that some openings and those two rapid games on Wednesday.

A beautiful endgame

Many of the puzzles I come across when doing tactics here on Lichess are absolutely fantastic. As this week's blog entry is a bit on the shorter side, I'll include the following endgame.
Feel free to attempt to solve it before going through the solution and the explanations (to do that, you'd have to cover up the notation, since for some reason, hiding the next moves in a blog-embedded study does not seem to work without not being able to click through the moves), but be warned - it is not simple at all. Its rating on Lichess was around 2800.
The original puzzle itself stopped after around 6 moves if I remember correctly, but the ensuing line in my analysis is kind of important (and just a pleasure to click through), as there are many 'only moves' required.

With that, I wish you all the best, I'll be back next week reviewing the upcoming tournament. Cheers!