Well it's been a little over a week since my last post and since then my rating has shot up to 1539! That officially puts me over the 400 rating points improvement mark. I'm very proud of this result and will continue to work hard to improve even further. As I've pointed out in a previous post, my goal is to reach 2000 USCF by the time I'm 30 yrs old. I'm more than halfway there but I know it's going to be a tough uphill battle to get there... especially with the caliber of players I'm coming up against here in the Colorado area.
The Denver Open is coming up in a little over a month away and I'm doing my best to prepare for this. My study plan is a little sporadic at the moment and it's not very structured but I will work on this tonight. So far this is what I have planned for study/preparation:
- Igor Smirnov's GM Positional Understanding course and tasks: I've gone through the material already, working on the tasks right now. These are tougher than I had previously thought them to be. That's a good thing right?
- Opening's from the ICS Course: My opening study has been quite on the lax of late but I hope to iron this out soon with the help of CTP.
- Physical stamina: I have yet to go on my daily walks. This is all my fault and I have nobody to blame but myself. I'm just too damn lazy :| I need to get out there and walk already...
- Training Games: So far I use my DCC and Taco Bell Club games as training games, but I also plan to incorporate games against the computer for training games. I think this will help me out quite a bit.
On top of all of this I feel like I'm ready to tackle the Circles program that we've all grown to love & hate! I won't be doing it exactly how it was written due to time constraints, so here's my plan:
I will be doing the circles in chunks of 400 problems at a time. I will also be doing them in 4 circles as opposed to 7 circles and will do them in this order...
8 days - 50 problems
4 days - 100 problems
2 days - 200 problems
1 day - 400 problems
If at any point I finish a circle and cannot get a score of 90%-100%, I will do the circle over again. From my studies so far, I'm fairly confident that my first 400 problems won't be a problem to get anywhere between 94%-100%. However, I may have to repeat the second set of 400 problems a couple times before I get such a score and most definitely will have to repeat the last set of 400 problems multiple times to achieve such a result.
Today marks Day 1 of the first set of 400 problems and I've already completed my 50 problems for the day with a score of 100% so far. I will keep you guys updated once I have finished each circle and also when I have a proper study schedule to prepare for the Denver Open.
See you guys soon!
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