R.I.P. T.C.T.

I am finished with Precircle 1 of the Divine Tragedy. It consisted of the first 1500 problems of Tasc Chess Tutor. It took me 10 months, probably working an average of three hours a week (much less initially, more near the end). I worked through each section 3-4 times, until I got at least 80% correct on every ten-question test. In total, I probably worked through about 4500 problems. Here are the overall results from the Tutor:


Frankly, I have no idea if it helped me, or what I think about it. My ICC rating has gone up about 150 points in the past 10 months, so it may have helped. I am just glad to be done and am looking forward to moving on. In time I will better be able to evaluate the program.

During Precircle 2, I will work through, in parallel, Fine's amazing book Chess the Easy Way, Wolff's the Idiot's Guide to Chess, and Seirawan's Play Winning Chess. I will also earnestly try to apply my thought process, Chessplanner, in long games (40/10). I expect all this to take two to three months.

I'm gonna take a couple of days just to do nothing chess related, unless I feel the urge...