Identifying My Chess Weaknesses
What do I need to improve on in 2023?
Before I get serious, I need to quickly immortalize my first ever Rosen Trap, pulled off on New Years Eve. I would like to thank my head cold, for keeping me at home to play in a warm-up arena against streamer FM James Canty III
As a chess player with arthritis level mouse speed, this means more to me than any classical win. Anyways, back to business.
This past year, I’ve made a lot of progress, but my daily study habits were essentially this:
In January of this year, these priorities made sense. I was missing simple tactics, and my openings were commonly getting me into trouble. I spent the past year hammering away at these issues, to great success. In 2023, the question is the same, but the answer has changed:
Q:“ What is the biggest difference between myself, and a Master level chess player”
A:“My Endgames, and d4 pawn structure understanding”
Two games I’ve played recently, made this very clear.
Game 1: Missed Endgame Tactic vs NM Allen Becker
In this game, I had just played Qxc5, followed by dxc5. After this I played h4, and won on time in a drawn endgame I failed at converting. Though, I had missed a win right here!
53.e5 fxe5 54.Rxf7 Kxf7 55.a4! Critical move
Now with the pawns locked on the 3 v 2 side, and connected passers on the right hand side the game is over. I was lucky to win via flag in a game with 30 second increment, but that is a very rare scenario. In 2023, these type of endgame tactics need to be cemented into my brain.
Game 2: Early loss in a London vs Benjamin Durost
Benjamin Durost is a very strong high school player in WI. His rating has gone from 1255, to 1940, just in 2022! I played against Ben this weekend, and I was absolutely destroyed right from the opening. He started with the London, and I immediately was feeling confused. I made a few inaccurate opening moves, and fell flat on my face.
Here the simple Qa5+! wins a critical pawn, and brings my king into open water.
12.Qa4+ Bd7 13.Bxf7+! Kxf7 14.Qxd7 -+
I was able to crawl halfway out of the hole I dug for myself, but it was too little to late. The finishing blow was an absolutely beautiful endgame tactic, kudos to Ben.
The king enters the fray. If Rxd3+, Ke4! Threatening both g5#, and capturing my rook! Once I realized the idea, I let out a ‘tournament volume’ low whistle. Ben went on to correctly use his space advantage and extra pawn to complete the win. It was a psychologically impressive conversion, even after I had fought my way back into the game.
Conclusions:
These are just 2 games, but I believe they are a microcosm of my general weaknesses. Those being:
Theoretical endgame knowledge, and spotting tactics in the endgame
Understanding normal ideas in ‘quiet’ d4 openings. (London, Catalan, Slav, etc.)
How am I going to address them? Starting in 2023, my daily routine will now include:
20 minutes of Dvoretsky’s endgame manual on chessable
Input finished Dvoretzky’s positions into a lichess study, for later training against the computer. (I will be writing a blog post more about this in the coming days)
Practice of my chessable lines against ‘quiet’ d4 lines
All in all, my average daily routine will be as follows:
Aimchess training and tactics
Chessable Dvoretzky
Lichess input of Dvoretzky positions
50 tactics on chesstempo/chess.com survival
Playing rapid games (10/5 to prevent cheap flagging wins rather than endgame practice)
Review rapid games
Then on Sunday, I will be drilling my ‘completed’ Dvoretzky positions, to make sure I truly understand every endgame pattern I’m completing on chessable. After this weekend, just 102 points to go to my goal of National Master. Please let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions to add to my daily routine, to alleviate these weaknesses!
A special thanks to the 50+ new subscribers to the Ocean of Chess Newsletter, it’s an honor and a joy to have fellow chess players as readers of my blog! May all your chess dreams come true!
Follow me on twitter @ChessLobster, or follow me on YouTube @TheChessLobster where I’ll be posting weekly starting in February, along with this newsletter. Have a wonderful 2023!