Moving Forward?

Week # 4 Day # 2 Rating 1260 up +94 points. 14/15 wins as I start the day.

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend. Come Inside. Come inside!"

First off extra points if you can name the song that starts with these lyrics. If you know that then I am impressed, and I also think we would be friends. And before we go on to discuss chess. One more question about the song. What volume does this song require?  

Opening Theory  Now to chess. Let me say that putting my mind to improving at chess is tiring. I am spending hours and hours of intensive work.  At least an hour every morning going through the opening repertoire, learning variations to the d4 sidelines. When I was a teenager or college I could have learned all these variations like snap. Now that I am an adult learning. It takes more repetition and I need to have understanding. But that's good right? 

Puzzles/ Tactics And once I get done with my opening theory practice I am on to puzzles. Puzzle Rush Survival and the regular puzzles. My best is still 30. Which since I am a 1200 player is not bad, but I would like to hit 40.  My puzzle rating is nearing 1900 again. (best ever 2100) 

Strategy: I keep working through Daniel Rensch's pawn structure series. I am on video 5

• Pawn Structure 101: Caro-Slav 1 by IM Daniel Rensch

Endgame: Anna Rudolph has  a nice series of short videos and lessons on the endgame. 

• Mastering the Endgame by IM Anna Rudolph

Game and then it is gametime. Let's venture onto the 64 squares. 

My 60' game is against Lightness7 from Spain. He has been on chess.com for about a year and a half. He started off about 1000 rated player, but had a nice improvement and then has stabilized in the bottom 1/3 of the 1300's. A significantly better player than myself.  

I had the white pieces. 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5.  The Albin Countergambit

This is my opponent's favorite reply to the Queen's gambit, although he has not had good success with it. Then on the other hand I have not done so well against it either.  What I have to remember is that the best line is dxe5! not cxd5. Come on Excheqquer remember that, would you! 

Anyway here is the annotated game. I managed to hang on. He missed my blunder at the very end of the game which allowed me to scoop up his pawns. 

I had a 92% accuracy with a 59% best move. Not bad at all.

Rating 1269 + 103 points 15/16 wins 

My goal is 1300 by the end of the year. 

Good chess to you my friends!