Club Update

I won 2 of 3 at the club on two Tuesday's ago and piced up another 40 points. Thats like 227 points in 34 days. I was the lowest rated player at the club due to the low attendance (and my class d rating). I think my rating is probably going to level off a bit now. I am having the same problems against the stronger players that I was having against the weaker players last year in these G30 games. I have to use a lot of my time to get into a winning position but often don't have enough time left to win. I have played a lot of 5 12 blitz over my break from the chess club to train myself to move faster / think faster. The 5 12 games are about half the time of our G30 games. Postitional training has helped alot too. I used to be stuck in quiet or closed positions trying to come up with good moves or a plan. No that I am not just looking for tactics the basic positional stuff really helps out. I also won 2 games due to pattern recognition. One was due to some endgame patterns and the other was due to a mating pattern. I was so short on time in these games that I would have lost if I had to figure it out at the board. That is one big advantage to blitz games. You can play more of them. Some experience is just do to repition. Correspondence play really helped with my endgame studies. Many of my correspondence games went to the end game and I learned many of the basics by studying the postions. The most valueable lesson I learned from the was oppositon and combining that with pawn moves to prevent the enemy king (or other pieces from penetrating my postion).

I got 1 win out of 3 at the club last week playing against one player rated about the same as me and 2 that were higher. This week I won one sloppy game against a lower rated player. Had a won game against another lower rated player and blundered on time. I lost the 3rd game because of touch move. I was looking at (B)d3 and reached down and grabbed my king by accident. I did not pick it up and there is not a player at the club that would make such a retarded move. I looked my oppenent in the eye and he says "touch move". Well I have a new goal now. Now I don't care about my rating as much as the chance to play him again.