2012-13 Season Done, Chess.com, 30/30 Again

I'm starting to play chess more than ever; at least more than I have been playing in the last 10 years ... and I'm enjoying it for now.

The goal of my 52-games per year quest over the last two years was intended to just get myself to play more often.  At first I tried to play 75 5 games, 120 5 games and even 60 5 games; but I have since landed upon the realization that shorter, more frequent games was more enjoyable.  So, these days I'm playing more 30 5 games.

With that said, I was behind in my effort to play 52 games between September 2012 and August 2013.  Over the last few weeks, I really focused on trying to fish for a 30 5 game on FICS.  As was usually the case, it was hit and miss ... sometimes I could find a game, but most times I tried, no one was willing to play.  Also there have been multiple hackings going on over there the last few weeks.  So with that in mind, I decided to give chess.com a whirl.

I downloaded the Android app on my S4 as well as my tablet.  And then, on most evenings, after I fire up the app, I'm able to find a 30 5 game relatively quickly.  The chess.com app and web interface are just fine and quite reliable.  I'm also enjoying the extensive educational content they have on their site.  They have live games as well as correspondence games.  I just started my first CC game over there today.  If ever you want to play me (live or CC), look for me on chess.com.  In summary, my days at FICS may be over as I'm contemplating upgrading from a free account on chess.com to one of the paid accounts.

Anyway - back to the 2012-13 season - I was able to complete playing 52 games.  I have already kicked off my 2013-14 season, again with the goal of playing a minimum of 52 games.  Although, I think I'll end up playing much more than 52 with my preferred 30 5 time control.  I'm keeping tabs on my seasonal progress in the link to the right in the section GAME PLAY STATS.

Lastly, I had another great day at ChessTempo ... going 10/10 in my warm-up problems and then 20/20 in my blitz attempts.  My performance always seems to by cyclical ... I perform great for a while and then out of no where, I come crashing down.  I'm just trying to focus on consistent, good performance.