Starting tomorrow I will play seven games over a five day period. First, tomorrow I will have my regular Thursday night game. Then, this weekend, I will play in the WI State Championship for the first time ever.
I’ve decided to use a technique that I have read about many times, which is the concept of focusing on one thing for a tournament and making that the central theme of the event.
My plan is to focus on targets. I know that this is a weakness of mine. I can recall GM Grivas telling me after beating me in a clock simul that the issue was that he had targets whereas I did not.
So each time I sit down at the board I am going to remind myself to look for targets, both for myself and for my opponent, on pretty much every move.
When I find a target for myself I am going to work out how to best isolate and attack it. When I find a target for my opponent I am going to work out how to best defend it.
The idea with this singular focus tournament is that if you get to the point where you have begun to engage in whatever behavior you are looking to, then you are one step closer to becoming a stronger player.
I’ve been too focused on rating. I need to let go of the rating aspect of things and just focus on my playing strength. If I work on my strength then the rating will come. I just have to trust in my abilities and have some faith in myself.
The truth is that my training has been going well lately. I have been getting in some solid study time every day, and that should hopefully start paying off at some point.
So now I’m going to start working on my issues one by one. Tournament by tournament.
I expect this approach to pay dividends in the very near term.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott