Wednesday, August 06, 2014

ChessTempo July 2014

Just a follow-up from my June post about my ChessTempo performance.

The three-week vacation made it a bit difficult to consistently keep up with my goal of 20 problems per day.  As such, I found myself doing 60-100 problems per day the last week of July in order to "catch up".  But despite that, I still managed to stay above 1700 per 20 problems.  There were a handful of times when I dipped below 1700, but I bounced right back above 1700.  Also, I hit a new all-time high in July at 1764.3.

I'm still not entirely convinced this improvement in performance is entirely due to the duplicate reduction issue (which was implemented in April 2014).  The fact is I am seeing more 1700+ problems in June and July than I have from January to May this year.

In October 2012, I started tracking how many problems I had that were below 1599, between 1600 and 1699 and above 1700.

For example, in October 2012, CT gave me 456 problems that were rated 1599 and lower; 190 problems that were rated 1600-1699; and 54 problems that were rated 1700 and above.  My respective correct percent for each of those was 85%, 74% and 56%.

2014 January to May monthly averages stats for each of these categories is:
below 1599: avg total probs 324; 89.68% correct
below 1699: avg total probs 205; 78.60% correct
above 1700: avg total probs 92; 62.12% correct

Those same states for June and July 2014 are:
below 1599: avg total probs 216; 90.31% correct
below 1699: avg total probs 231; 82.69% correct
above 1700: avg total probs 175; 64.20% correct

So, CT is serving me fewer lower rated problems (those rated 1599 and lower) and more 1600 problems along with more 1700 and above problems.  The >1700 stat is actually pretty amazing.  I was getting about 90 per month the first 5 months of the year, and then in June and July CT served me an extra 85 higher rated problems and my percent correct when up by over 2%.

Other stats I find interesting is my monthly average of "average recent per problem time spent" continues to increase.  I started tracking this in February this year.  It was 47 seconds in Feb, 50 in Mar, 52 in Apr, 54 in May, 62 in June and 65 for July.

Again, it all may come crashing back down, but this is now two months in a row of "good indications."
rating chart july 2014
blitz non dup rolling avg of gain/loss
fide est rating based on per 20 blitz problems

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

lion of the blogosphere (half sigma) posts on chess (again)

Lion of the Blogosphere (who used to blog at Half Sigma) has posted on chess again.  I share these, because it provides (mostly the comments) feedback about other people's perspective on chess, especially in American culture.

"Is chess prole?" and "Chess tutor: another job being outsourced"