Getting worse and back to the basics

I've been studying chess and playing correspondence games as well as a few live games. I think I'm actually getting worse somehow. I think part of it is I'm actually trying to play strategically and come up with a plan. On top of it my tactic rating isn't getting any better it stays in the same variance. So in order to try and rectify that I am taking my tactics back to the basics. I've set the tactics trainer to 400 - 800 which should be just basic motifs with few extra moves. The idea is to use this upcoming month to burn these patterns into my brain as well as I can. Since I generally do between 50 - 100 tactics a day it should give me quite a few repeats and get those basic motifs under my thumb. Then in November I'll switch back to the usual rated tactics and see if my understanding has improved.

I want to be able to actually find these shots within my games if they come up. I'm starting to look through grandmaster games as well and am trying to improve my understanding of the game. Sometimes I feel I may just be too old to actually get any better, but I am hoping this isn't the case. Ultimately I'd like to get to a 2000 rating. I'd also like to find a way to get some over the board tournaments in, but that looks very unlikely currently.

I need to find someone who has the time to go over my games with me to help understand my mistakes and how to correct them. I don't know if just self study will be enough to help me improve, but I doubt there is anyone close by that is even capable or willing to do that. I guess until things improve I am stuck with self study and hoping beating my head against the proverbial wall is enough to break said wall down. All in all I guess I'm a bit depressed by the lack of progress and the fact that I seem to be getting worse.

Sorry, but I won't be posting a game this week. I highly doubt anyone looks at them anyways so cheers.

An annotated loss

I present to you a game I lost against my brother recently. I have annotated it to show my thought process during the game. It was a good game and I am hoping by annotating my loss I can gain some insight into what I need to work on and fix. I'm interested in any thoughts or criticisms anyone may have.

http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2013/9/3/Game42693437.html

A nice mate during a two minute warzone

Here is a game I played during a two minute warzone. I cam in tenth out of one hundred people which was my best finish yet. This game shows the danger of a far advanced passed pawn and ends in a pretty mate as a result from some tactics around said passed pawn. It was a real pleasure playing this game. Not just because I won, but because of combining some tactical ideas into a pretty mating pattern. I hope you enjoy viewing it.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

viltaire@chesscube.com - prettywoman1@chesscube.com

1-0, 8/22/2013.

[#] 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qe6+ 4.Be2 Qd7 5.Nf3 e6 6.d4 Bd6 7.Be3 Qe7 8.O-O Bd7 9.Ne4 Nc6 10.Nxd6+ cxd6 11.d5 O-O-O 12.dxc6 Bxc6 13.Qd3 d5 14.c4 e5 15.cxd5 e4 16.Qc3 exf3 17.Bxf3 Kb8 18.dxc6 b6 19.c7+ Kc8 20.cxd8=Q+ Kxd8 21.Rad1+ Ke8 22.Qc8+ Qd8 23.Qxd8# [1-0]

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New Everquest Expansion

The twentieth expansion for Everquest was announced during the keynote speech at SOE Live yesterday. The title is "Call of The Forsaken". More details will be given at the Everquest panel this afternoon. Hopefully the panel will be uploaded to twitch.tv/soe like the keynote speech was. It is due for an end of September release which, in my opinion, seems a bit early since the "Heart of Fear" update only went live two short weeks ago.

While I am finished with everything "Heart of Fear" has to offer, it really doesn't give us raiders much time to fully gear up for the upcoming release. I am looking forward to the release since I'm an Everquest junkie, but a November release would be more apropos. It sounds like they will be announcing mercenary alternate advancement points and gear, which was accidentally leaked during the "Heart of Fear" beta. I for one am looking forward to these new features, namely because healer mercs suck sometimes.

Chess has been interesting. I beat a fide master during a correspondence game, which shocked me, but now I seem to be struggling. My tactical training goes up and down, but my percentages for correct answers seems to be going up, although at a very slow rate, which I must assume is good. My positional play I feel is getting better. I don't flat out hang pieces very often, but I do miscalculate. It does take me a while to see a position in my head. I'm attempting to work on visualizing the chessboard every night before I sleep, but I'm not sure it's helping. I still cannot follow game score very well without looking back at a diagram. Three to four moves is about the longest I seem to be able to follow a game score. It's better than the zero I used to be able to do, but if I wish to really improve my calculating ability I need to be able to follow game scores without glancing back to a diagram. I'd be interested in hearing from Paul Crider on his thoughts on this and how he does at following game scores.

Here is my game against the fide master. The second game against him is going rather poorly, but still in progress. This was during a thematic Kings Indian tournament.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

lepongebob - viltaire

0-1, 7/18/2013.

[#] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 Thematic Game - This is the starting position. 4...d6 5.Nge2 O-O 6.Ng3 e5 7.d5 c6 8.Be2 a6 9.a4 cxd5 10.cxd5 Nbd7 11.h4 h5 12.Bg5 Qa5 13.Qd2 Nc5 14.Qc2 Bd7 15.O-O Rac8 16.Rfe1 Ng4 17.Bd2 Qd8 18.Bg5 f6 19.Bd2 b5 20.axb5 axb5 21.Qd1 b4 22.Nb1 f5 23.Bg5 Bf6 24.Bxg4 fxg4 25.Qd2 Nb3 26.Qxb4 Nxa1 27.Qxd6 Qc7 28.Qa6 Ra8 [0-1]

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