Progressing Through

After announcing in "Try, Try, Again" my resolve to play through the whole of the games section in Chess Informant 152, I have felt a sense of responsibility. Initially, I was racing through the games as Jeremy Silman appears to advocate, but I slowed down (see "Quality"). My routine has developed into one that satisfies me. I play through the games quickly, but with enough attention that I can write a few words in the margins of the print text for later review. I have also extracted key positions from a number of games that became lessons for my students.

This morning I compiled some data on my progress.

The numbers on the spreadsheet are approximate and low. They were compiled mainly through ChessBase's history feature. They do not include games that I played through on Lichess, Chess.com, or Chessgames.com. I used all of these sites, as well as FICS Database while writing my article yesterday on a Greco game that I know well (see "Following Greco").

Since 7 September, I have been through the first 80 games (there are 201) in Informant 152. With annotations that are full and partial games, that includes at least the opening phase of 113 games. In addition, I have been through 133 other games from books or database search. I have also looked at a considerable number of my own games, although the vast majority was only a specific endgame position in the game.

The principal reason I have not successfully completed the project of playing through all games in any given Informant in the past is that other projects crowd in. The past few days I have again begun a project of playing through all of the games in Irving Chernev, The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (1955).

Last night I downloaded a PGN file of the games in Chernev's book for playing through on my iPad. I play through a game and then read what Chernev wrote. I went through 40 games in this manner last night and another 10 this morning. I expect to create this week's chess lessons for my students from Chernev's collection off miniatures.

After starting with Chernev, I spent half an hour or so going through games 76-80 in Informant 152.

I go through each game without seeing the game score or annotations. Often I am trying to predict the moves. For some games, I then go through the game again with notation visible and play through some or all of the analytical variations. After recording a thought or two in the margins of my print copy, I move on to the next game.

The game Inarkiev -- Sakaev, Russia 2022, 152/80 received my comment, "reminds me of a line by Steinitz". I'm thinking of his comment that the king can take care of himself. The game was drawn.

After 27.Kf3