Training Shouldn't Be Fun? Wrong.

Something I have heard many times over the years from many of my fellow adult competitors is various versions of “Training should be real work, and work isn’t fun.”

First, let’s start with the premise that the idea that you can’t have fun while working. The old saw about “If you do something you love you’ll never work a day in your life” is said for a reason.

There is no reason that chess can’t be the same.

Let’s flash back to August 16, 2018. I’m playing a game again another member of my club, Jonathan Hildeman. We have reached this position.

Wainscott-Hildeman 2018 1-0 After Black’s 41st Move

Here my notes say “Here I unleashed the best piece of calculation I have ever done OTB. I spent around 15 minutes then played…”

I won’t give the move here in case you would like to work this one out yourself. You can find the answer after my signoff.

Let’s talk about how the moment above came to be. This was at a time when I had been laid off from my job and I was looking for work. As such, I had a lot of time on my hand.

My wife was also working from home at the time. In an effort to give her space, I would stay in my office downstairs. I’d spend an hour or two looking at possible job leads, then once they were exhausted for the day I would start working on chess.

At that time, I was working on calculation, primarily by solving endgame studies. I would just stare at these things for what felt like years at times with moves sort of flowing through my head. I didn’t really much care for it, and I wasn’t sure it was useful.

Then August 16th arrived. I was confronted by the above position. And I sat. And sat. And sat. Then it hit me, and I was able to work out the winning idea.

This came from discipline that was built up by sitting in front of the board working on solving these damn studies, mostly from Kasparyan’s book Domination in 2545 Endgame Studies.

I can’t pretend I vividly remember August 17, 2018 in and of itself, but I can tell you that immediately after this game I started getting more into solving and working on calculation. It didn’t feel like “work” any longer, it felt like fun.

Since it was fun, I did more of it. That didn’t mean I saw instant results. In fact, my rating crashed quite a bit, dropping to 1621 in October, but then in November, the below happens.

My US Chess Rating Graph June-Nov 2018

That jump from October to November is one tournament. I drew an Expert in round one, then beat one in round two, and beat a master in round three. Sadly, my wife had a health scare, and I didn’t play the fourth week of the event at the club. I was paired against someone rated 100 points above me, so there was a lot of reward with little risk.

You can bet I was inspired to do more training after that.

What is your experience with training? Do you try to have fun, or block those thoughts completely out of the equation?

Til next time,

Chris Wainscott

OK, let’s finish that position above.

“Here I unleashed the best piece of calcualtion I have ever done OTB. I spent around 15 minutes then played 42.g4. My opponent resigned here. White wins after 42…Kg5 43.Kxe5 Kh4 44.Kf5 Kxh3 45.g5 hxg5 46.Kxg5 Kg3 47.Kf5 Kf3 48.Ke5 Ke3. 49.Kd5 Kd3 50.Kc5 a6 51.Kb6 Kc4 52.Ka5. This was the move that took me so long to find in my initial calculation. As it turns out there was another winning move here as well, but this is certainly the most elegant looking solution. 52.a3 also wins.”

Wainscott-Hildeman 2018 1-0 Analysis Position