I’m a brand new dad now, so why the heck am I getting back to chess? Well, I actually want to see how far an adult improver with a fully-packed schedule can go. The motivation is to see what techniques and approaches to study would bring the most value given a limited amount of time. Not only am I helping my wife take care of our kid, I have a full-time job as the Digital Content Manager at Face to Face Games. I’m also 37 years.
But I’m not starting from scratch either. Until the age of about 17 (when I quit), I was rated top 10 in Quebec for my age. I haven’t played an OTB tournament in 20 years, but decided to open an account on Chess.com and Lichess to see where my current level of playing strength is at. I just played a ton of blitz games to get a quick sample. This is where I stand when it comes to blitz:
Chess.com (kyt_gg): 1477
Lichess (kytGG): 1591
Let’s see how much I can improve from here on out!
I plan to share all the tools that I use. I never had a coach, but thinking back, these were the two key resources that I utilized. Maybe some of you old-timers can recognize these. Yes, Radio Shack put out a chess book and it was actually REALLY good.
The Maurice Ashley program was also instrumental to my early rating growth. It provided lots of drills, so to me, it was the original Puzzle Rush. I noticed that someone uploaded the annotated games from the software on YouTube. They are most definitely worth checking out.
If I think about other chess software I’ve used, the one that came with Windows 3.1 and Battle Chess comes to mind.
I have my first tournament in ages (like I said, 20 years!) coming up next week. Wish me luck!