My Chess Journey: From 596 USCF to 2055

This post will explain my daily goals, as well as explain what each weekly post will be about.

Daily Goals

These are my goals which I have copy-pasted from a Google Doc I made.

• Goal 1: Games (Choice)
  • 1 Tournament Prep Session
  • Classical Chess Tournament
• Goal 2: Tactics
  • 3 Puzzles on Chess.com
  • At Least 20 Lichess Puzzles
• Goal 3: The Amateur's Mind
  • Learn one game or a few shorter variations
  • Review previous variations

Goal 1

A tournament prep session is something I came up with with help from an article on ChessMood.

1. Play one 10-minute games
2. Wait for a few minutes
3. Repeat until you play four games

Goal 2

I usually don't solve on Chess.com, but I'm trying to get into the habit.
On Lichess, I also usually keep going until I gains some Puzzles rating, but sometimes I don't get the time.

Goal 3

The Amateur's Mind is a book by IM Jeremy Silman that was made into a Chessable course. It has a great structure: it has several chapters over different topics, and it shows a master game displaying it. Then, he gives the position to his students, and they have to explain their thoughts. Then, he bertatres them for being stupid (most of the time), but this also explains the flaws in our own thought processes.

ChessDojo

ChessDojo uses a rating convertor created by NoseKnowsItAll to convert your rating to their own system that is equal to FIDE's system but goes lower. Then, it puts you in a cohort and gives you a structured training plan. I will explain this in-depth in another post, but I can also use it to log my time on chess. It has several other features, and it mainly relies on Discord for much of it.

How Each Post Will Be Structured

Goal 1

I will start by providing an annotated version explaining the 3 most key games I played in that week. I will give you my rating before and after the week for Chess.com, Lichess, and USCF.

Goal 2

I will give you my Lichess and Chess.com tactics rating at the beginning of the week and at the end. I will tell you the daily gain/loss of rating as well.

Goal 3

Finally, I will tell you how far I got into the amateur's Mind. I am currently on the third chapter, Acquisition of Center, Space, and Territory.

More Info

Then I will give my reflections on this week and talk about any OTB tournaments I went to.