Friday, April 01, 2011

My rating jumped 1000 points in one day!


As most of you know, I haven't been exactly on top of my game as a chess improvement blogger. Since my humiliation at the World Open a couple of years ago, I didn't have much motivation to study chess. I just don't have the talent required, the minimal, basic innate chess IQ to hit 2000 with years of serious study. Basically, after that tournament I came away thinking I was a chess retard.

Or so I thought, until I realized I was simply going about my study all wrong. I've been studying chess without much fanfare for the past three months, and realized the secret to good chess: do three elementary tactical puzzles right before a game. If you do more, you will burn out. If you do less, your brain will not be sufficiently primed, the tactical seeds you planted will not receive enough sunshine. It's that simple. Three problems (and as DK Transform pointed out in private communication, it is no coincidence that this is approximately equal to pi (complete the circle of chess improvement, not by doing seven circles, but pi problems of chess), and also nearly twice the golden ratio (if you want to double your efforts, take the golden ratio, and multiply by two: this is just elementary logic and shouldn't require any justification)).

So, given my newfound secret of chess improvement, I entered the Springfield Heights Intercontinental Tournament of Chess, didn't study any openings, or do any tactics other than the three problems exactly two minutes before my games started. The time controls were 90/5, and because of this newfound technique for tactical prowess I was so confident I decided to enter the Open section, even though I am only rated about 1100 USCF.

This may be hard to believe, but in an Open section of 133 players, including 15 grandmasters, I came in second place (losing only to Gata Kamsky in the fourth and final round)!

I am so excited I can't express it. My rating went from around 1100 to approximately 2000 in *one day*. I will post the games next week, I am presently going over them with that girl on the cover of Lev Albert's pocket chess book. Turns out she is really good at chess.

I am on cloud nine, have given up my dead-end career as a neuroscientist, and decided to devote myself full time to chess. Like all people that have rapid chess improvement based on performance at a single tournament, I am obligated to write a long book full of words with few positions or chess analysis, to inspire the stupid chess masses to follow in my footsteps.

I will offer lessons under the name 'golden_pie_tactics' at ICC for 120 sheckels an hour.

14 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Sign me up for some lessons! I want to be able to say that I was once a pupil of the guy who is pictured leaning on Lev Alburt's shoulder on the cover of The Chess Training Pocket Book, volume III!

Sorry you couldn't get past Kamsky - that must have been a disappointment. :(

-- Hank

4/01/2011 02:12:00 AM  
Blogger HeinzK said...

Wow! I'm impressed and very gullible! Congratulations!

4/01/2011 02:12:00 AM  
Blogger katar said...

Glad have have kicked that dead-end career as a neuroscientist to become a chess professional. Finally your family won't be ashamed of you! cONGRATS.

4/01/2011 01:28:00 PM  
Blogger From the patzer said...

Finally you can compete with the grandmasters. Thanks for sharing this with us. Looking forward to see you appear in one of the super GM tournaments soon.

4/01/2011 04:16:00 PM  
Blogger Polly said...

Happy April Fools. :-)

Nothin' wrong with dreaming. I went with foolish play for my April 1st post.

4/01/2011 09:21:00 PM  
Blogger LinuxGuy said...

"Intercontinental Tournament of Chess"

'Intergalactic' would have been more impressive. :-)

4/01/2011 09:32:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

By the way, was the "Springfield Heights Intercontinental Tournament" something that split off from the "American Strategy Society?"

(I'm bad with acronyms...)

-- Hank

4/02/2011 04:52:00 AM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Hank should get a prize for noticing that :)

4/02/2011 11:11:00 PM  
Anonymous David Korn said...

on April first, most American political, military, legal, financial, educational, scientific, as well as artistic, humanistic, philanthropic, heuristic, and gnostic leaders all came to the same conclusion: that America was a good country, where hard work is rewarded, the democratic process enables persons of all classes and economic backgrounds to have a voice in the process of governance, whereby the upper echelons of major decision makes cannot influence the course of our country, since money cannot buy political influence. On April first, health care was found to not be focused on paperwork and documentation, but of course, committed to generating and fostering health. Also, higher education had no trace of University Chancellors being high, or on dope, and no one with big expense accounts returned home from a golf weekend in Scottsdale with free pens and emblazoned logo sweaters. Police were not over payed, and the coffers of Illinois, California, New Jersey well managed. Social security is well funded. We can afford the latest bread of 6 billion dollar designs of Nuclear powered Nimitz class aircraft carriers as we beat on the rest of the world, that will keep us all safe! Yes it will. These craft, among the single most complex machines ever built, only cost 9 billion to make, and are designed to last well into 2100. Rest assured, all this money is for a useful purpose. And by 2100 the United States will not go the way of Easter Island, The Peking Dynasty, the Incas, Aztecs, or Mayans, not the way of Rome or the Egyptians. We will endure, based on our morals, and regard for human development. Wealth will be distributed, and the rich will pay their fare share. All that is true.

4/02/2011 11:13:00 PM  
Blogger transformation said...

Sorry, my comment deliberately and purposely written on my other ID.

How is that? Well, Google is a massive Juggernaut.

First, I had my old blog, as indicated here, the dk one.

Then I had to make a second Google Account, for my videos, under HeuristicalWorker for professional work with a gmail called davidkorn.specialprojects, etc.

Then the chess club I now most gladly count myself a member of

[
the one which won USATE out of hundreds of teams, but recently lost in the semifinals a week ago to Armageddon (they went all the way, to take the national title, full honors, so no shame on our West Orange Chess Club), and who had a second team taking best team under 1700 (my team average, in no small way leveraging a bunch of 1700 to 1900's with my 1452 provisional rating from 1974 now activated, himmmm?)
]

has a blog which I actively post at now, nothing big to prove, did that here already, just to help them, can post very quick. They have to have a gmail and concomitant blog or profile.

Shall I stop? I am not unique here--my company uses gmail, and some of my professional work uses the Google commercial side including calendar, and so how often do I change or want to change my passwords here.

Details to be disclosed at an indeterminate future time, but substantially now an Executive Vice President of a Technology start up.

best, dk

4/02/2011 11:56:00 PM  
Blogger Temposchlucker said...

Darn, I always used Eulers Constant to calculate my repetions! Which is close to Pi, but apparently not close enough.

4/03/2011 05:15:00 AM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

dk--look forward to you filling in the lacunae....

4/03/2011 02:26:00 PM  
Anonymous Liquid Egg Product said...

Tip of the hat to you, sir. It's now time for you to write a book on how anyone can get to 2000, then mysteriously stop playing chess.

4/04/2011 11:01:00 AM  
Blogger Geoff Fergusson said...

I found this to be a very amusing article. You might be interested in:

http://empiricalrabbit.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/michael-de-la-maza-verdict.html

You will notice from one of the comments to this article that people are still signing up to the Knight's Errant, which you have declared officially dead. It is sad to see your blog fall into disuse. I hope that you return some day.

6/21/2012 02:30:00 PM  

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