Rusty

The last time I sign in to Chess Tactics Server was 1 month ago on 27th Mar 2007. Details as shown:
The consequences of being inactive for 1 month is RUSTY and hence I got following rating and success rate:
60 rating points missing, 1664 -> 1604 and 0.1% success rate missing, 80.2% -> 80.1%.

Well, it's terrible as even at some point, my rating drop till below 1600, 1570+ to be exact!! So chess require constant practice~~ Practice make perfect~~

Cheers!!
Eu Hong

New Highest Tactics Rating

It had been exactly 3 months ago when I achieved my highest rating at Chess Tactics Server with 1667 on 20 Dec 06. Today, I done it again to reach 1677 after struggling around 1600~1650 for 3 months. Higher rating come along with high solving speed and of course higher accuracy of solving it. My success rate thus increase to 80.4% after 10,995 tries. This however does not always reflect in actual over-the-board play especially in shorter time control games as I lost all my 5 minutes blitz against Chuah and Khai Boon during PFS open... I think I cannot play blitz... hehehe...

My latest CTS ProfileLatest ranking among Malaysian Tacticians
Top 10 ranking among all active tacticiansand finally I am ranked 207 in the "world".

Cheers!!
Eu Hong

PFS Open 07 tomorrow

PFS Open is tomorrow! I have not play in any tournament since USM Open Team 07 which was 2 months ago. I guess I am kind of rusty consider my amount of time spent with chess lately. No game played for the 2 months' period, only solving puzzles at CTS on irregular basis... too bad...

By the way, my progress at Chess Tactics Server (CTS) for the pass week.
Standing among registered Malaysian tacticians.
Hence, the objective for me on PFS Open 07 is to squeeze into top 10 of final standing. No more no less.

May the force be with me.

Best regards,
Eu Hong

Far off track...

Going near to the end but going far from on track. 9 more days before CNY, 758 tries before 10,000 tries @ Chess Tactics Server but rating stays at 1621 with 80.1% success. It seems like moving my tactics rating over 1700 and 81% success is almost impossible now... It is still possible on paper provided that I manage to score >95% of the 758 tries on time and successful...

Latest profile details

New Library Item

Several reasons and excuses had prevented me from visiting the Borders @ Queensbay Mall and I finally went there yesterday.

I went straight to look for chess books and saw more than 10 titles sitting on the rack and 1 of them being "THE ART OF SACRIFICE IN CHESS by Rudolf Spielmann" which I grabbed instantly.

The book is on list of recommended out of print list by IM Jeremy Silman on his website (http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews/list_recommend_op_bks.html) as on his site he give following comment:

THE ART OF SACRIFICE IN CHESS by Rudolf Spielmann (David McKay Company, Inc.,
198 pages). I picked up a lovely hardcover edition for $10.00, and used
paperbacks are far less. A very nice book.

That cost me RM43.90 for a new and recommended book which is not bad at all. Thus, another new item to my books library and another book on my book_to_read queue...

Cheers!!
Eu Hong

Back on Track @ CTS

Friday is a "long" awaited day of the week for many working people like myself since we are having days off soon...


As usual, its time to review something I had done for the week, especially, chess.


I had been busy with application to further study and hence, I had only did very little on chess. No progress on book reading and analysis of my games but some good progress @ CTS (Chess Tactics Server).

I had managed to recover some lost ground on both rating and success rate after last week's blackout performance and hence end up with rating @ 1634(+37) and success @ 80.3%(+0.1%). Current tries are 8609 and are only 1391 tries from the 10000 tries, 1700 rating and 81% success rate goal. Not far in terms of tries, moderate progress in terms of rating (I had stuck at 16++ for almost 3000 tries) and very far in terms of success rate as gaining 0.7% better success rate is a big step!!

May the force be with me,

Eu Hong

Tactically Blackout!!

Fast Internet connection is not available at my house cause the phone line I am using at home is registered as an business entity so I can only apply for Streamyx with extra payment... As a result I cannot always play online chess and even if I do, I will most of the time, lost on time, get disconnected, etc, etc, thanks to the poor dial up connection. :-(

Chess Tactics Server (http://chess.emrald.net/) is one of the few solutions I can "afford"...
A snapshot of my handle at the server as follow...


My progress over there had been horrible recently. Don't know whether I am getting slower? Tactically blind? But my rating and success rate had dropped from 1667 to 1597 and 80.9% to 80.2% just within 1000 tries... seems like my goal of getting 1700 (rating) and 81% (success) by 10000 tries is moving further away weekly...

Until then,
Eu Hong

Review: Chess Training

First,
Book I am currently reading: Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953
Progress: Kind of slow as I take more than 30 minutes for each games so a full day(6~8 hours) of study only cover 2 or 3 rounds of the tournament and I am kind of busy for these 2 months...

Next,
Tactics, my progress at Chess Tactics Server is terrible with a lot mistake on the puzzles and thus leading to lower rating and lower success rate. Horrible! It seems like my goal of getting 1700 rating and 81% success rate by 10000 tries is going further away from me... More concerntration is required on the section!

Finally,
Analysis of my tournament games is in the queue. I had notated some of my USM (Team/Open) games so I will try to upload them over here after analysing them. They should be up soon...

Conclusion:
More concerntration is needed on the tactics section.

Until then,
Eu Hong

Lazy week...

Last week (10-16 Dec 06) was a lazy chess week for me, namely I'd only make 10 hours of chess related activities... the story started after reading an interesting article from the Internet about getting the IM title(approx. 2450) from a 2200 player within 2 years, I wrote my own "interesting" plan of becoming a 2200 player within 2 years, since I am only 2000+...

Here goes my "interesting" plan:
20~30 hours per week
1~2 hours per working day (Monday~Friday)
4~8 hours per weekends (Saturday and Sunday)

Out of the 20~30 hours, following activities are planned:
- Solving of puzzles
- Studying of Endgame
- Studying of books (mostly on positional)
- Studying of my own games and sort of covering weakness
- Opening Preparation

This plan was started since end of July 06 and after few months of executions, seems that my play was slightly improved (StarWalk Chess Tournament is the evident though it was only a rapid event.

Hopefully I will be more hardworking in the future...

Until next time,
Eu Hong

5000 Tries @ Chess Tactics Server

Training Milestone... Just completed my 5000th try @ Chess Tactics Server on 20061213 (2 days ago)... by taking around an average of 1~2 hours per day for 5 days a week, I had managed to complete my 5000th tries after around a month...

On 20061213,
Current Rating = 1630
Current RD = 17.7
Success = 80.9%
Overall Ranking = 245

There are opinions from various sites where some people strive for high success >85% while some just go for higher rating with low success rate (<70%) with but my objective is to go for a balance between speed, success, and of course rating points...

Review:
Before starting of tactics training, I always get tactical oversight in my tournament games.
After some 4500 tries, I always manage to find tactical improvement OTB during my tournament games, examples are from last week's StarWalk Chess Tournament.

Mission @ Chess Tactics Server:
Success Rate: 80.9% -> 82%
Rating: 1630 -> 1700
Tries: 5041 -> 10000
Work rate: 1~2 hours per day as long as RD remains >20 during the tries.

Until then,
Eu Hong