Musings on law, tech, chess & other topics by a geek

Two days ago I made it public that I am going to become a chess master , well technically a chess player with a master title.  This is the first step on that journey.

After 5 years away from playing competitive chess my chess game has suffered most in the area of chess tactics.  I still remember a lot of strategy and even some basic endgames, but my ability to look at a chess board and instantly see combinatorial patterns has severely degraded.  To remedy this I am adding two tactic quiz books to chess study plan.

For daily tactics practice I will be working my way through puzzles from Combination Challenge! by Lou Hays & John Hall. This is a great book of 1154 intermediate to expert tactical problems.  I have placed my copy in my laptop bag with a notebook so that I can work on problems while on the bus, waiting in line or killing time at a coffee shop.  My goal is to average 10 problems a day with 2 to 5 minutes per problem.  This will get me through to the book in about a 120 days.

The second book I am adding to my tactical diet is  Test you Chess IQ First Challenge by August Livshitz. This book consists of a series of timed tests. The test run 40 to 60 minutes each. I plan to complete two test a week. There are 56 tests in total so this should take me 6 months to work through.

Over all I think this is a manageable program for regaining some tactical competence, the total time commitment is about 40 mins a day on average to tactics. I may have to cut a little time out of playing late night WOW but it is worth it.

note to self: I need to improve the wikipedia chess master page.