Immersion 4: Week Three Report
The big news of the week is Say Chess’s new idea for a Tactics Tracker club.
More of that later after I’ve had a moment to reflect on how going back to work has changed things.
Immersion-wise, it’s definitely been a struggle to avoid floating back to the surface. Paid employment has a habit of getting in the way of life, even in relatively easy weeks like this last one.
Positive news ahoy:-
(1) The plan of daily walks has already morphed into regular running
(2) I have made a decent dent in the the Perpetual Chess Adult Improver series of and I’m keeping up with the Chess Pit every week.
Martin Justesen, that’s the same SayChess who will soon be releasing the 100 Blindfold Studies book mentioned in KMKY 9, has just launched a new initiative: Chess Tactics Tracking. Matt Fletcher (@WMILTTI) has put in an assist on the spreadsheet.
It’s a very simple idea. Step 1: Do some tactics on one of the sites. Step 2: Upload your results and see how other people are doing.
Originally, I wasn’t going to take part in this. In the past I haven’t got on well with online tactics programmes. What changed my mind was thinking about my conclusions from KMKY8 (Nasty, Brutish and Not Short), my riff on what getting better at chess is.
In terms of chess improvement it’s certainly true doing what most other people do isn’t going to work. Another uncomfortable reality to face is that doing what we normally do isn’t going to work either.
If you’re steadily improving then all well and good. This doesn’t apply to you. Keep on with what’s working.
For the rest of us, who aren’t getting to where we want to be, we have to face the fact that if what we’re doing isn’t working WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ELSE. Carrying on doing the same things but harder isn’t going to help.
So, in that spirit, I decided to give the online thing a go for a month and see where we get to.
I may find a way to make this sort of training work for me, I may not. I’ll not find that out, though, unless I try it out.
Chess Tracker Results:
https://saychessblog.com/chess-tactics-tracking-results-and-goals/
or you can go straight to the spreadsheet here:
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