Another Setback

Okay, it has been a long while since I have posted but some of that has to due with my new child. So, not only am I trying to improve my play, as a new father, well my time is even more spread out and my sleep reduced. However, those are just challenges to this process and challenges that others have to face as well.

Since my last post, I lost over 80 rating points due to some very bad play against some 1100 players. But, I'm still class C and this last tournament has served the purpose as to open my eyes as to what I'm doing.

Current, I'm trying to study my endgame play and to leverage this in my overall game. So far, my knowledge is steadily increasing in this but I think I still have a ways to go before I see the impact in my OTB game.

Secondly, I spent time going over the openings of the games I have played this year to try and understand what my opponents are playing against me. I have found that may people who I play (in my weekly club game) are starting with d4 and my best response has been the KID. So, I have decided to spend some time reviewing that in more detail. In this review, I am using YouTube and the MCO. So, I'm still basic in this understanding but I think I am making progress.

In addition to this, I have decided to move away from playing the Caro-Kann in response to 1. e4. My rational behind this is two fold. First, I haven't been playing it very well. I have a few wins and a few draws but none of the games were extremely good. And I had some very bad loses against players who really used their knights with deadly impact. Simply put, my lack of understanding the key concepts behind this opening as a Black player, put me at a huge disadvantage. And secondly, I'm playing either the Ruy Lopez or the Giuoco Piano as White so I have decided to play the Black side of this as well. This will help me to learn OTB how to both play the white and black side and thus save me some time in my studying as I can center my study time on just two openings.

As a side note, I have been the assistant TD at a few tournaments including one scheduled for this Saturday. As an assistant mainly charged with the doing the pairings, I also play in these events. So, this weekend I have a three game event cumming on and hopefully I will be able to preform well.

Good games to all