Day 10 - Not much happening today

Yeah, it was a very busy day today.  Not much progress.  And 1250 is going to be a very, very unreasonable goal.  I'll need two really good days to hit 200.

edit:  I did win a game on CA at level 4 (white), and start a game with Jakob on Facebook

Day 9 - Won a CA Game

I won a game on CA today, on level 3.  I will slowly start to beat a level 4, and try to get more practice.

A slight loss on CT, closing out on tactics 1161 from 1170.  No progress :-(

Day 8 - Holding pattern

I really just did more of the same today, no real improvements.  My tactics show a slight improvement, but nothing very significant.  I doubt I'll make the 2250 goal, unless I get some significant practice slipped in somewhere...

I was playing a few games on CA today.  That is still a weak point.  I'm starting to get tactics better, but applying them is still difficult.  Maybe I need to watch more analysis's of games, to get a better understanding of how to apply concepts.

Day 7 - Yet Another Tactic Slip

What happens when I try training tactics without really focusing?  I slip 15 points, that's what.  I regained ten, but I'm still under.

Day 6 - Tactics Recovery

I'm back up to 1175 on Tactics at CT, which isn't as high as my highest yesterday, but better than the slump I fell into yesterday.

I haven't listened to my own advice, and started really ramping up my Chessable practices, buying the Scandi book.  It's good because in a way, it's mindless, which is a good break from CT's intense puzzle solving.

Day 5 - Hit Tactics Goal

I hit the CT tactics goal fairly early today, hitting 1175.2, after having a good run last night before going to bed, and a good run this morning.  I'm going to try to hit 1250 by the end of next Saturday, but I'm still getting the hang of the goal setting, so that could be adjusted throughout the week.

Day 4 - Tactic Improvement

Daily Tactic Ratings for This Week

When I decided to set my 1250 tactic goal, it was right after the first two days, when my score was swinging around a bunch.  But I have to give ChessTempo a lot of credit, their system has found the right level of pressure to put on me.  If I keep going at the this rate, having improved by 19.1 17.1 points today, I will reach my revised goal of 1175 by the end of the day tomorrow.  

Finished one video lesson on CA, and am continuing to put a fair bit of time into Chessable.  Still not sure if it's worth it, but rote memorization is a good break from the more mind intensive tactics training.  I also grabbed an endgames lesson, to help learn some of the common end games as well.

edit:  head math wrong.  Would have to also do better than today by a few points to hit my goal

Day 3 - Overly Aggressive with Tactics Goals

Man, I picked way too aggressive of a goal to reach on CT's tactics.  The playing is good, but I really only advance a point or two for every correct answer, and an incorrect answer can set me back as much as eight points.  I'm happy to have recovered most of what I lost, ending up at 1142.6, but that is still 17 points under my high, and 58 points under my goal.  I dropped my goal down to 1175, which is probably still a bit unrealistic.

I think I need to watch more videos.  The problem is that patterns aren't clicking yet.  I try to solve the problems, but it isn't entirely clear what sort of things I'm supposed to be finding.  I can only learn so much solely by solving problems, I also need to see other people's analysis.

Day 2 - Finished CA's Basic Planning and Awareness

I finished the Basic Planning and Awareness track on Chess Academy.  Those last days are always hard.  To graduate, you need to beat the computer two times in a row, and it always seems to take forever.  A large reason for that is because I'm still very bad at giving up blunders, and the AI was relentless at taking advantage of them.

My chess tactics training on CT stunk.  I lost about 24 points today, ending at 1123.9.  I will need to focus on that tomorrow.

I also signed up for Chessable to practice my chess openings.  I'll take a look at it but I won't focus on it for at least another month, after I have a better understanding of tactics.

Day 1 - Beginning to Study Chess

I am setting myself the goal of being rated 2000, the FIDE elo rating for "Expert", on Chess.com by 3/1/2017.  

This is largely a human experiment I'm doing on myself to see how well I can use internet resources and tools to develop and implement a training plan that can take me to an expert status.  I chose chess because there are a ton of resources available online to learn it and measure progress.  

For March 2016, my goal is to learn the fundamentals and lay a good groundwork of tactics.  My top three resources, at this stage, are ChessAcadamy.com, ChessTactics.com and youTube.  

Specific goals for the week of 2/28 - 3/5 are to finish the Basic Planning and Awareness path for CA, reach a tactics training level of 1250 (from a current rating of 1157) on CT and watch John Bartholemew's Fundamentals series on youTube (https://youtu.be/h-JGqEiNs-I?list=PLl9uuRYQ-6MBwqkmwT42l1fI7Z0bYuwwO)

I may start to integrate some blitz games to get some game experience starting next week or the week after, but I think puzzles that drill home the basics are good to go over first, because it will give me study points for when I start to play.