Learning from 4545 - Being Your Own Coach

Pre-season Jitters

Before the season, I was nervous. My team had finished last in the previous season and I had finished on a score of 3.5/9. I wanted to work through those games, picking up on the main reasons I was losing, to hopefully have better results this time around. With that in mind, I picked up on three areas I really wanted to focus on.

Confidence and Mindset

Most of the games I played felt like a chore and I woke up feeling like I didn't want to play. I think this was a big reason I made bad decisions across the board. A lot of games I was underrated compared to my opponent, and one was even against an FM! I feel like this mindset of putting my opponents on a pedestal and seeing games as a chore was hurting my performance. I figured I'd try doing some affirmations and seeing what happened.

Opening Preparation

My openings had always been very hit and miss. I would say they were one of the strongest parts of my game, but after being out prepared, not knowing main lines for my openings or getting too experimental it's clear I needed to change something. After pouring over the games of players like Fischer and Tal, as well as several Naroditsky videos, I thought I'd pick a more sensible "world champion" repertoire that would hopefully see some success.

General Chess Health

As mentioned above, I thought my openings were the strongest part of my game, and they're still quite weak, so what does that say about the rest of my game?! I clearly needed to get stronger across the board and I put together a reading list. To go with the opening work, My 60 Memorable Games and The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal are up there, as well as Secrets of Opening Preparation by Dvoretsky and Yusupov. I frequently reference My System anyway for positional training. The newest addition to me was Amateur to IM by GM Johnathan Hawkins, which focuses on practical endgames and thought processes. Hopefully with all this, I can see some marked improvement to my results.

Personal Goals and Benchmarks

I need some way to measure my results to see if any improvement has been made. The first (and probably most natural goal) is wanting to go 4/8 at least this season, or preferably 4.5/8. I also started the season rated 15 points below my peak, so setting a new peak rating of 2110 or above would be very nice. At the very least, I want to finish the season rated over 2100. If I can achieve all of this, I will consider the season a success. It is worth remembering that results matter, so even if I feel like the games are going better, I won't consider this a true success if I can't achieve the game points and rating goals.

Game 1

Game 1 I had the black pieces against aloo_bhaloo. I was a 40 point rating favourite, which meant I felt more confident and spent the week imagining I'd do quite well. After an early theoretical inaccuracy (10. d5?!) I was starting to feel more confident about the game. I think this bordered on overconfidence and despite a good position, I misplayed and lost my advantage without realising. After a long game, my opponent blunders in the endgame and I went on to win.

Game 2

Game 2 I had the white pieces against an old teammate GoneNowhere. Having played down a board from him on what was a personally rough season, I had to make sure to not put him on a pedestal and still believe I had chances in the game. I had prepared some line in the French Defence but he surprises me on move 3 (3...Nc6!?) so the game was about keeping my head and not getting too worked up over the surprise. I misplayed, but my opponent didn't press the issue and the game was drawn by agreement in 30 moves.

I have set a rule for myself to not offer or accept draws after taking far too many in OTB games, but in this game I was never going to win through the middlegame. I offered the draw thinking it would be a good result for me if he accepted, but expecting him to play on. Thankfully, he accepted and I move to 1.5/2.

Summary

So after the first few games, I'm doing well enough to still hit my targets. I need to make sure to not become overconfident or unrealistic about my positions, which was a danger in both of these games, and I need to sure up some sidelines in my repertoire. Still, it has been a fairly successful start to my season and I should hopefully continue to do well as it goes on.