Wednesday, November 25, 2009

New Year’s Chess Resolution

The Guru hereby invites all fellow chess improvers to join the New Years Chess Resolution Movement! I strongly believe in simplicity, goals and peer pressure. I kindly invite blogging chess improvers to do the following:

  • State a Long Term Chess Goal (possibly linked to a suitable number of short term goals)
  • State a Chess Promise
  • Defining a penalty for failing the chess promise

Hopefully the members of the movement will blog about their efforts and support fellow improvers with feedback on their blogs. How does that sound?

Farbror the Guru's New Year's Resolution:


  • Long Term Goal: Reach 1400 at ICC
  • Chess Promise: Daily Chess Training (30+ minutes) and Keeping a Weekly Training Log
  • Penalty for Failing: Not to buy any books for a year

Members of the Movement:

ericmittens
deepgreene
Begin Chess
Russ Bastable
PetrS
MidwayChessClub

15 comments:

  1. There already is a movement or have you not been privy to this?

    A.C.I.S of Caissa ( Adult Chess Improvement Seekers)

    http://rlpchessblog.blogspot.com/

    And the innagural post:

    http://blunderprone.blogspot.com/2009/11/adult-chess-improvement-seekers-acis.html

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  2. I have heard about it....I thought that the "resolution" would my my search for A.C.I.S. enlightenment more concrete and it should not be seen as an attempt to compete for lost chess souls

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  3. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

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  4. Thank you, sir! Why don't you chip in a resolution of your own?

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  5. Ok, why not...

    Long Term Goal: Consistently achieve 'strategic vision' (i.e. 'plan') when playing (i.e. develop another winning resource apart from my opponents' errors)

    Chess Promise 1: Weekly Chess Training (6+ hours) and Keeping a Weekly Training Log

    Chess Promise 2: Participate in at least one rated event in 2010.

    Penalty for Failing: A self-deprecating blog post? :-)

    That pretty well accords with my current plans & practices anyway, so no biggie, I guess. I'm a bit on the fence on the question of the extent to which I'll blog about my resolution-manifestation (i.e. training). It's mostly a question of bandwidth. Cheers!

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  6. Good idea! Definitely doing this, need to put some thought into achievable goals, be back later!

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  7. Thank you all for contributions! Yeah, this is serious shit! ;)

    Give it some thought!

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  8. Not gonna do a resolution since i know myself, i never keep it. So why should i punish myself, i am not a masochist. :-)

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  9. Well, I have been Mr 100% with my NYR's the last 30 years. "Stop Smoking" have worked like a spell and gained a lot of support. The fact that I never started smoking in the first place might have helped.

    So, it is just a question of picking the useful promise.

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  10. Chess Goals for 2010:

    Goal:
    *Commit to Improvement

    Promise:
    *Five times per week:
    -Study: 20 minutes daily
    -Play: 40 minutes daily
    *Keep Public Study/Play Log
    *Play 2 Standard Time Control games per week minimum

    Penalty:
    *$20 per failed week to be donated to children's chess charity(s) at year end.
    *Seek matching funds every failed week, post details.

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  11. Chess Goals for 2010:

    Goal:
    *Seriously study endgame and win at least on CICL match this year.

    Promise:
    *Five times per week:
    -Study: 30 minutes daily
    -Play: 40 minutes daily
    *Keep Public Study/Play Log
    *Play 3 Standard Time Control games per week minimum

    Penalty:
    Give away one of my favorite chess sets.

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  12. Penalty:
    "Give away one of my favorite chess sets."

    Ouch!

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  13. Indeed! I think/hope our chess buddy is on the road to goal fullfilment!

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