Play

  • Rapid Games - My coach gave me a goal to play 30-60 rapid games per month. I’m going to start by trying to play 30 per month. For analysis, I have been trying to write down 1-2 ideas per game after I play them and then looking for trends over the past week. This seems like a good balance between no analysis (which I often do) and full analysis (which makes me not want to play.)

Learn

My goal was to just learn one thing at a time. This list is pretty long of things to learn, but they are things that I can do a little bit of a day.

Lessons

I will have weekly lessons this month with a coach and do all the homework he assigns.

Books

  1. Endgames: I would like to get through Part 4 (1400-1599) of Silman’s Complete Endgame Course.
  2. Strategy: If I get through the endgame book, I will pick back up on Winning Chess Strategies.

Openings

While I do not want to spend a ton of time on openings, there are a few things I would like to keep working on:

  1. Keep up my current (private) Chessable courses for my openings. These are for white and responses to 1. e4 for black. Basically I am just reviewing any lines that are available in Chessable.
  2. I need to figure out something better after 1. d4 for black since my coach told my what I had been doing is junk. I am going to try working on the Keep It Simple for Black quick starter chapter on Chessable.

Solve

  1. Learn Chess the Right Way - Book 1: Must Know Checkmates - review any open puzzles every day
  2. Learn Chess the Right Way - Book 2: Winning Material - review any open puzzles every day
  3. Learn Chess the Right Way - Book 3: Mastering Defensive Technique - I did not make much progress last month, and I am only 53% done with this course (up from 50%). Try to add new lines every day.