Thanks guys for the welcome -

Anyway, I said earlier that My quest for chess improvement led me to the delamaza program.. but first to continue with my history -

After seeing that what I had been doing was all wrong, I started researching on the many ways I can improve myself. Of course I realized that chess has many dimensions and that trying to improve simultaneausly on multiple levels would be folly (My previous 2 years attested to that fact). But what to concentrate my time on? What should I try to improve? This question has lingered on my mind. Fortunately I chanced upon something which would prove to be the deciding factor.

"I played a game, and did a nice little combination"

Of course the combination was just a little 3move cheap shot.. and it was not the first time that I made these kind of tactical shot. But it was the first time that I realized why I enjoy playing chess (And why I choose it instead of the guitar - *sigh* maybe I'll
blog on my guitar frustrations later...)

"Combinations" I suddenly realized "Making combinations makes me happy"

Playing over the games of Euwe and Botvinnik made me respect the positional school of chess. But see, I when I carried out that little tactical trick I knew then that the game I love is not the chess of Botvinnik.. Heresy.. yes, and - didnt I told you I was clueless? But I am happier when watching the games of shirov and tal.. and most of all the games of Nezhmetdinov.

And so now I know how I needed to play. I will no longer play to reach the ending. The game will be decided in the middle game - and preferably via a combination. Why not? Some well known playes rely on combinations - Mr. Anderssen and Mr. Zukertort are two prominent examples (And yes, playing this way is fairly one-dimensional.. some serious drawbacks are present - more on this later)

And so realizing this made it easier for me determine what I needed to study. Its so easy really I just needed to study 1. Combinations and 2. How to properly setup combinations.
In relation with this, maybe I also needed a deep calculation ability. So my combinations
are deep enough to work effectively (I read somewhere that the 3move cheap shot can only
get you so far - So how how about a 7move cheap shot then?)

After researching on the net I came up with this..

1. Delamaza-style program
I have a book of maxim blokh - I am doing 3 circles per chapter and after completing the entire book in this way, I will do circles 4-7 on the whole book (Sort of like what CelticDeath is doing)

2. For calculation - Blindfold chess
"A chessmaster can play a single game of chess blindfolded" is what they say. So I am trying to learn this. Although to tell the truth, I haven't notice much improvement in playing strenght due to my learning this. But comes in handily during boring meetings =>

Current Status:
Completed three circles each of the following chapters
1. Annihilation of Defense
2. Distraction
3. Decoying
4. Discovered Attack
5. Opening of file rank and diagonal
6. Clearing the space

A total of 400problems