David's Dojo Journey - Installment 6

Here are some highlights from this week:

The First Book of Morphy & Changing to 1. e4! and 1. . . . e5

From nearly the first day of my chess journey I have played the English with White and the Caro in response to 1. e4. At the encouragement of my coach to try out new concepts, I focused this week exclusively on the First Book of Morphy and changing from the English to 1. e4. and form the Caro to 1. . . .5 in response to 1. e4. I am really liking having to work from general opening principles and trying to understand the moves rather than moving memorized moves for the first 6-7 moves of the game.

I created a Lichess study working through the Morphy games (I'm only 18 games in, but will keep adding the games and some key notes as I make progress. Here is the link to the study for those interested:

Here is an annotated game where I put 1. e4 to work. I think this may have been my first attempt in a long game format:

No Show on Dojo Classical Tournament Round 5

One of the downsides to doing tournaments where you have to schedule the playing time with your opponent is that some opponents don't show when they say they will. That happened to me this week. We scheduled three slots and my opponent didn't show up to any of them. I can't say I've ever experienced anything like that, but my guess is that it is not entirely uncommon in tournaments like this. Oh well, hopefully that will be the last time I have to face something like that for a while.

Chess Journeys Podcast

This week I had the great opportunity to be on the Chess Journeys podcast! It was a great experience and our conversation touched on a lot of really helpful topics for folks around my rating range: (1) how to find time to work on chess, (2) should I hire a coach, (3) what tactics resources are helpful?, (4) what strategy and endgame sources are helpful?, (5) why Chess Dojo is great, (6) why studies that say adult improvers can only go so far should be looked at with a healthy dose of skepticism, (7) why everyone should listen to Perpetual Chess, (8) should I learn opening theory or just play according to opening principles?, (9) what role should ratings play in my chess goals, and more!

I'm not entirely sure when the episode is going to drop, but I will share it on the installment when it does!

Tactics Time

I have still been grinding Tactics Time:

• In the fifth set of 100 I got 77/100, which is my best result yet.
• In the sixth set of 100 I got 67/100, down a bit from my best result.

Dojo Booklist
Given the number of books that I am going through in the Dojo, I thought it would be helpful to create a list, so I can quickly recall that part of the journey!

• Polgar; Chess:5334 Problems (in process)
• Giannatos, Everyone's First Chess Workbook (completed)
• Polgar S., Learning Chess the Right Way (Vol. 3) (completed)
• del Rosario, First Book of Morphy (in process)
• Brennan and Carson, Tactics Time (in process)
• Chernev, Logical Chess Move by Move (in process)
• Chernev, Most Instructive Games (in process)
• Silman, Complete Endgame Course (in process)

Until the next installment!