So it's the end of Week 2 in my Seven Circles adventure and I must say I'm both excited and also a little ticked off. I'll first explain why I'm excited. It mostly has to do with my over all progress. I've gone from a consistant 1400-1500 rating average to an average of 1550-1650. I consider this to be a HUGE leap in just two weeks! My tactics training is paying off considerably. If you look at some of my games on Chess.com you'll see that I'm putting my training to use in it's fullest extent. Also my games on FICS are getting more and more beautiful. I have played and destroyed a 1968 rated player, and a 2123 player in the last 24 hours. I feel so accomplished. Here are some of my improvements from several websites in the last week with some explanations:
FICS = 1806P -> 1664
Although I've been beating higher rated players on FICS, I find myself in a major bind with the lower rated players. I lost about 4-5 games to players rated lower than 1500 which puts me around 3 games won against players with ratings 1900+ and 4-5 games lost against players with ratings lower than 1500. Maybe it's overconfidence or maybe they simply the higher rated players are overconfident. I guess time will tell but I will for sure put more thought into my games from now on.
Chess.com(sir_nemo) = 1583 -> 1622
I'm very proud of this. I had to beat several higher rated players to get this far and I'm proud of some of the beautiful combinations I've conjured up(sometimes out of nowhere!) in my won games.
Chess.com(rootworm) = 1499 -> 1521
Well I lost a couple games, but made a pretty big comeback in the last 24 hours. I lost two games which took my rating down to 1464 but i sprung right back up with 4 wins in a row against 1550+ players.
RedHotPawn = 1502 -> 1463
Well I was happy about the fact that my rating on RHP was over 1500 but it came right back to bite me in the ass cuz, well, I lost to a much lower rated player.
GameKnot = 1417 - 1443
What can I say. Three beautiful checkmates in a row, two of which were against players who's ratings were 1750+.
USCF = 793(p1)
Ah, the one rating that actually counts for something. I still look at this rating with disgust every day. I know my rating would be much higher than this but it doesn't help that I live in New Mexico and the amount of tournaments per year sums up to the amount of tournaments in a single night in New York City. Tomorrow will be my first time playing a rated game since my horrible loss to an 1190 player in my last rated game. I'll go in with my game face on this time. No more joking around, no more bullshit.
Now for the ticked off portion of my posting. As I've stated before, I'm in Week 2 of my first circle and I'm not at all pleased with my progress in CT-ART itself. My results are what's really ticking me off. I finished "Problems with level difficulty 10" with 91% which was really great, but the level difficulty 20 problems I only scored a measly 70% and I'm on level difficulty 30 now and thus far I'm at 56%. I got so frustrated with myself earlier that I almost didn't want to finish with today's tactics problems. What am I doing wrong? I look at other Knight's blogs and they seem, for the most part, very consistent with their results. One specific Knight had results similar to the following in his first circle:
Problems with level difficulty 10 = 92%
Problems with level difficulty 20 = 81%
Problems with level difficulty 30 = 72%
Am I really that horrible of a chess player? What could I do to improve this? It's obviousl that what I'm learning from my tactics training is showing in my actual games. I just don't know how to improve my results with CT-ART. Perhaps I'm moving too fast through the problems. I'm not calculating right; hell I'm not even thinking about the position or the moves, I'm just moving pieces around. I guess my problem is that I just want to be done with the problems as quickly as possible. What are some of your thoughts on this, and if this has happened to you in your progress, what did you do to overcome it?
That's all for today, wish me luck with my second rated game tomorrow.
4 comments:
You might want to do smaller multiple consecutive circles through each level similar to what I'm doing with my study plan:
http://copelandchess.wordpress.com/study-plan/
If you'll look to the right on my front page which shows my circling results, you'll see how my scores gradually increase as I do this.
I hope this helps ^_^
Different people start these programs at different skill levels. Don't worry absolute comparisons so much as about making progress. Good luck!
Copeland: Thanks, I might try that! It depends on if I have time now. It's hard working full-time and dealing with a pregnant wife-to-be.
Glen W.: I never really thought of it that way. I guess all that really matters is the fact that I really AM using what I've learned in my games now. Thanks!
Thanks for the welcome!
I tried to get an account at FICS but my e-mail and IP aren't allowed =\
I'm doing CT ART level 10, and get them wrong when I don't calculate enough, or wanna rush trough the problems and finish all stuff quickly.
Try to take a deep breath and say to yourself: I'm gonna think in each problem here and make 10 right in a row. Then you go to the kitchen, drink some water, seat, take a deep breath and do more 10...
It works very well for me! =]
Nice electric guitar!
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