Friday 26 January 2018

Mission Accomplished - and Pilgrimage Completed !!!

January is finally upon us and the ECF grades have been published. To my great relief I have discovered that my new chess grade is 142 ECF or the equivalent of 1765 ELO !!!

This news means that my chess pilgrimage is now complete!  :)   I have surpassed the 1750 target that I set myself 4 years ago back in Jan 2014.  I never doubted that I would get there, but I knew it would take quite a while and mean playing quite a few club games ...

My advice for fellow chess pilgrims is to:

1)  Play plenty of blitz games online.  This is a great indicator of how good you 'really' are in my opinion.  It also conditions you to 'play faster' and 'think faster' which are useful chess skills to have.  More importantly you should accept losses as a 'way of life' in the 'chessosphere' ..

2) Keep a record of all games you play.

3) Analyse lost games (preferably with a computer).

4) Keep learning new chess concepts.

5) Play openings you are uncomfortable with.

6) Create a 'to-do' list in the middle game - these lists are effectively your plans.

7) Study the endgame, it's more important than you think ...

8) Study the games of the masters.

9) Don't quit when you are on a losing streak, you will win eventually.

ALL THE BEST !

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