Hadn't really properly reflected on it, but it was a great chess year for me. Returned to OTB after a 20+ year break, used the NextLevelTraining plan by Nöel Studer, taught 5 chess lessons and now seem to have a regular student, and beat my first 2000 Elo player (quite a bit stronger than me). Looking forward to your occasional substacks in the future!
Related immediately on the point about neglecting tactics training. In previous years I had done mostly difficult calculation stuff with not too much basic tactics work to back it up - but towards the end of this yr I realized that was actually probably a big mistake (as my results were pretty atrocious in several events).
Good luck with the Japanese YouTube channel Junta, sounds like a fun new project.
Thank you Ben! I'll surface on Substack occasionally.
I really like your content Junta, looking forward to 2024!
Thanks Ben, looking forward to your posts on Substack and X in 2024, happy new year!
Hadn't really properly reflected on it, but it was a great chess year for me. Returned to OTB after a 20+ year break, used the NextLevelTraining plan by Nöel Studer, taught 5 chess lessons and now seem to have a regular student, and beat my first 2000 Elo player (quite a bit stronger than me). Looking forward to your occasional substacks in the future!
That's a great chess year indeed!
Thanks, in the meantime I'll be on X. Let's see if my next post will be a 2024 wrap ;-)
Bad chess joke? More like great chess joke. 😂
Thanks, with jokes you win either way as it's funny or it's funny because it's not funny—turns out this one was a hit. 😂
Related immediately on the point about neglecting tactics training. In previous years I had done mostly difficult calculation stuff with not too much basic tactics work to back it up - but towards the end of this yr I realized that was actually probably a big mistake (as my results were pretty atrocious in several events).
Yeah, took me some horrible blunders from last year to this year to realise these things too, and get back on working on both tactics and calculation!
Hope you're doing tactics now, good luck for the Aus Champs!