Road to 1900 #1

I have only recently started playing chess again, after I learned when I was younger, like many people recently. My goal is to one day be a GM, although I seem to have started a bit late, I really have fallen in love with chess and I really want to achieve this goal. This first post might be slightly long, as I will cover some key points in my journey so far, my openings, my study and some other things.

Why and When did I start?

I started playing chess in mid-February of this year, after learning how to play when I was around six years old. It was not because I was hooked after playing a great game, or the prospect that I might have some talent, but because of three things: Bobby Fischer, the Grunfeld Defence and the Najdorf Sicilian. I was fascinated by the opening theory, and wondered what opening theory even was. I also became desperate to learn this opening theory. These three things were essentially the catalyst for my interest in chess.

Opening Repertoire

As previously mentioned, my repertoire as Black includes the Najdorf, Grunfeld (with the occasional King's Indian) and the Ruy Lopez.

My Journey So Far

Well, as I already mentioned, I started playing in mid-February, so the most logical first step was to boot back up the old Chess.com account and play some games, by this point I already knew basic principles (I'll talk more about that later) and began battering some 200 elo players in rapid. I was forever stuck at 200 though, and I knew I was better, so I found Lichess and got to 800 something, and I was still quite annoyed. See, I was, and am, only interested in OTB classical chess, I just adore it. I want to be the best at that, nothing else. And I didn't care about rapid, I was doing everything, reviewing (which will be discussed in-depth later) and puzzles and whatnot, but I felt that this wasn't serving the end goal, utter domination OTB. So I joined a chess club, and bought a board. And I loved it, sitting down to play bots, which is a terrible way to practice, I know. And the National Junior Championships were coming up. So I registered, and I was beaten in all my games. In my games with the Najdorf and Grunfeld I was destroyed in 20 moves, I got to play one Ruy Lopez and lasted for 34 moves, and one Petroff (I was White) which lasted about the same amount of moves. I was playing chess about two months by that point. This remains my one tournament, but I left with a rating of 1317, undeserved in my opinion, but I'll take it.

My Study So Far

So I've been analysing my games in a notebook, taking consideration of my calculations and thought process at key points in my games (particularly blunders) and seeing where things went wrong. I focus mainly on my thought process, as I am not yet skilled enough to calculate many variations and articulately explain the differences between each. I said earlier my favourite player is Fischer, but I do a Botvinnik style analysis. I find his approach to be a bit more instructive to people of my level. I handwrite each of my reviews, as I think this sort of deliberate analysis, will lead to faster improvement than scrolling through Stockfish lines. I will post some of my analysis in incoming posts. I have also been analysing master games from My 60 Memorable Games, I posted a study a while back of my analysis of Fischer - Petrosian Portoroz 1958. This has been helpful to me, particularly in forcing me to sit with positions and evaluate them deeply, and calculate deeply too. Puzzles I hate. With a passion. I do not enjoy the premise of them, you are dropped into a winning position and told to find the win. This I believe is not helpful to the serious tournament player. I think that calculation exercises are much better, so I have chosen to do mostly game analysis and master game study as my training. In terms of books, I own My 60 Memorable Games, My Great Predecessors Part IV, Fischer and Excelling at Positional Chess. Some might say Excelling is above my level, but I really enjoy Aagaard's style and I have found this book highly helpful (Excelling at Chess Calculation is on the way, and I plan to purchase Excelling at Technical play next). I firmly believe these books, combined with good study and regular play will get me to 1900. Perhaps I will also get The Art of Chess Analysis. So, those will form the brunt of my study for the next while.

Final Note

Sorry for the long post, I hope to regularly post to this when I can, and hopefully get to 1900 soon enough, I have a quad coming up this weekend, so I am prepping for that, and I'll hopefully have some insightful analysis to share. Thanks for reading.