November Update

Fall Training

With the next World Championship match starting in under 12 hours, the chess world is about to change once again, so I figured it was a good time for an update!

Since my last post about the Olympiad, I’ve spent time between Saint Louis and Los Angeles, doing some consistent training while keeping up with Dojo work and content demands.

In case you missed it, here’s my latest appearance on the Perpetual Chess Podcast, where I discussed my recent tournaments in Europe, my experience at the Budapest Olympiad, the latest happenings in the Dojo-verse, and of course my overall GM journey.

I also recorded a couple recaps for my latest tournaments in Portugal and Italy, where I went through the games and discussed my play as a whole:

Since then, I’ve been doing a few things when it comes to training — taking lessons, annotating my games, and working on some openings. Most consistent has been finally working through Aagaard’s Grandmaster Preparation - Calculation, which has been very hard, but also very satisfying when bested!

Black to play and win

---

• Solution
  I was happy to solve this one — 1…Qh1+ 2.Ke2 Qe4+ 3.Kf1 (3.Be3 Nf4+ mates) 3…Rh3!-+ and White can promote with check, but is nevertheless lost.

My routine has been fairly simple, I set up puzzles and solve for about 30-60 minutes, as early in the day as possible. I find I’m freshest in the morning, and once I’ve completed my calculation training for the day, I feel energized and content with my progress.

This is what has worked for me so far. Lately I’ve been more or less obsessed with productivity/motivation, trying out different hacks and apps with varying success.

In fact here’s a couple surprising winners:

1. Heatmap

One of the latest Dojo additions, the heatmap is a simple but powerful visual representation of the work you’ve done. And so far it’s been an absolute game changer for the Dojo Training Program, as we’ve already seen a huge uptick in folks logging their training and putting more hours in.

I’m typically not too bad with “inner motivation”, but ever since the above was introduced, it doesn’t take a lot to get me to put some time in, even if it’s not very much. I just think about what I want my heatmap to look like (bright and vibrant), and what it’ll look like if I don’t train (dark and gloomy). Plus, at least for me, seeing how much work you’ve done over time is a huge confidence builder and motivator to keep going.

If you don’t have something similar tracking your training, I would highly recommend setting one up! Obviously you can get your own by joining the Dojo but you can probably also use one of the popular habit tracking apps or even create your own in Google sheets (ChatGPT is great with this stuff if you need help!).

2. Mechanical Keyboard

This is a specific one, but maybe you can adapt it to your own needs. One of my main tasks is to annotate my games, which is a lot of typing and a lot of self-reflecting.

I recently got myself a nice mechanical keyboard (it was like $60, but it’s got thock), and the difference between that and what I used to type on…is significant. Annotating games, an activity that can feel tedious, is now a chance to use the new keyboard, which is simply a joy, and lo and behold my time spent annotating has since shot up. Get yourself a nice keyboard!

For anyone curious, it’s a Womier SK71 - https://amzn.to/4eJDtkq

Long story short — you want your progress to be visible, and satisfying.

I recently got a new Chessnut Pro board as well, in order to be able to do more over-the-board training on stream, and so far it’s worked great! Will be doing a full review for YouTube very soon. Shout-out to the folks at Chessnut for sending me one! Here’s a review from Dojo’s DMHokie on the Chessnut Evo.

Up next, I’ll be doing coverage for Dojo’s Twitch & YouTube channels for the Ding-Gukesh World Championship match. It’ll be our typical engine-free watch party vibe, so should be fun! It’s also going to be very early, but it’s clear this match is going to get some insane attention, plus it’ll be cool to witness history!

My next tournament is coming up very soon as well, as I’ll be playing the newly announced Saint Louis Masters, which is ridiculously strong and starts December 3. It’s quite an amazing tournament to take place in my backyard, so I’m hoping to really bring it!

Thanks for reading :-)