Man de la Maza

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Caught up enough to drop back

Did 28 problems last night. Enough to be officially 17 problems behind and thereby drop back a day. Who knows, maybe I'll find time to catch up, but I won't plan on it. I also finished all the Level 40 problems. Will be going on to level 50 tonight. I don't want to break my arem patting myself on the back, but I have to admit that doing 800+ tactical problems in the span of approximatley a month shatters all previous chess efforts. The highlight of my chess student career to date was ... nothing leaps to mind. I have a lot of books. Does that count?

Had a nice run of problems last night. The ones that still give me the most trouble are the mating of the king when I have limited material. This is one area that I obviously don't have the right thinking process for. Perhaps, I should augment my study with a review of the Polgar book, aka the "Door Stop". Reviewing basic mating patterns may help with this.

I'd say the newest weapon in my arsenal is "interference" -- i.e throwing a piece in the way whose capture garbles up defenses. It's not something you usually think of -- "Well, I could just put the bishop here where it would be taken with nothing to take it back". It's so unexpected it almost feels like cheating.

59 Days down, 96 to go
814 probs down, 395 to go in Circle One

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