David's Chess Journey - Installment 61

Another Pivot

For those who have been on this journey with me, I think it is fair to say (like is said of corporate America) that the only constant in my journey has been change.

The first stage of my journey was with the great ChessGoals program. It is a fantastic program that helped me take my first steps as a chess player and I highly recommend it to this day.

The next stage of my journey was with the great ChessDojo program. Again, an amazing program that has so many fantastic elements. The community is great, the gamification and tech is unmatched in my view, and the content is excellent. I highly recommend it and think I will eventually land there again one of these days.

This last stage in my journey has been spent with the amazing Noël Studer and NextLevelChess. I can't speak highly enough about Noël as a person and as a coach and NextLevelChess as a program. Noël has a unique and powerful voice in the chess improvement space and I would highly recommend him as a coach and the program. The last few months learning from him and training with him have been some of the most instructive and helpful months of my journey. But, alas, I am making another pivot.

My next stage will be with ChessMood. Noël introduced me to the platform and I really like the structure and content. My daily training program is going to be pretty simple for a while: 1) 30 minutes doing Step 2 of Chess Steps on a board, 2) 30 minutes working through the 7Q Method Class on ChessMood and 3) Playing at least 1 30+30 rated game analyzing it. If I want to play more after, I can (but I have to analyze it). Noël's path of significantly limiting my playing until my habits improved is no doubt the right path if improvement is my primary focus. But, after playing a ton of unauthorized games this past week, I realized that improvement is not my primary objective, the ability to enjoy this great game by playing when I want to play is just more important to me. If it hurts my improvement, so be it! Enjoyment over improvement is the bottom line. This is a hobby that I love and being able to engage with it on my terms, even if they aren't the best terms for improvement, is where I landed. To be honest, it is quite liberating.

I still am keeping my crazy ambitious improvement goal for the year (I'll share at the end of the year), so improvement is still a huge focus and something I desire, but I'm okay if the road to improvement is not the best one as long as it is the one that feels right to me and is the most enjoyable path.

Until the next installment!