The Blog of Jonas Martinsson

This post is part of a series describing the process I am using to attempt improvement in chess. The main post gives an overview of the process while this article explains one of the steps in detail. The first step on our chess improvement journey is to understand factually the strengths and weaknesses in our game. I am speaking from lifelong experience when I say that this is difficult to intuit. It is simple to remember recent blunders and draw conclusions that are not aligned with your performance over a longer period of time. The cognitive term for this is  Recency Bias . So, the question we are faced with is: How do you measure your chess ability? There are a great many approaches for this, and my choice is not necessarily the best fit for everyone. My approach is to identify all mistakes from my competitive chess games with a classical time control. Basically, taking the idea of the "List of Mistakes" that Axel Smith describes in the excellent book Pump Up Your Rating,

In my late teens I feel in love with the game of chess. That is way too late in life to have a realistic chance of achieving true mastery of the game. Regardless, this hasn't prevented me from continuing my journey, trying to increase my knowledge and becoming more skillful.   I am now starting a new serious attempt to improve my understanding and execution of chess. Building on my past failures, I will implement a few novel ideas to this approach. My plan is to document the process for my own benefit and accountability, and for others to hopefully get inspiration from. My Hitherto Chess Journey Let's start with briefly recounting my chess journey so far. I can safely state that I've invested my 10,000 hours in chess without achieving anything resembling mastery. I started playing in my late teens. Today I am 47. I have been playing in the Swedish national league, postal correspondence chess, online leagues and been active in computer chess organizations. My FIDE Elo rating