Sunday, August 12, 2007

What a great finish


It was a pretty eventful weekend for me.

Not only did I finish the seven circles through Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors, but I also did a personal best in the City to Surf fun run. 14km in 74 minutes means I qualify to start with the front-runners in next year's event.

That's not my picture by the way - for those who were curious. I didn't dress like Superman, Batman, Papa Smurf or Borat. Just regular running gear for me.

But you don't want to hear about my mediocre running career. You want to hear about my mediocre chess playing career!

I can confirm that getting through all 534 tactical problems in one sitting was challenging, but it took less time than I thought. Two and a half hours and I was done.

For the record, my accuracy went up, mostly due to recognising the patterns and remembering what the answer was. It felt like cheating ... or is that the whole point?
  • Circle 1 - 65% correct

  • Circle 2 - 69% correct

  • Circle 3 - 83% correct

  • Circle 4 - 91% correct

  • Circle 5 - 95% correct

  • Circle 6 - 98% correct

  • Circle 7 - 99% correct


  • I'll write a few blogs a bit later on some insights I've gained out of completing my second successful "Seven Circles" exercise, but for now I'm just relaxing and steadying myself for the next challenge.

    5 comments:

    Temposchlucker said...

    Congratulations!! Welldone!

    Phil Willis said...

    Thanks.

    That's the second successful "seven circles" exercise for me - so the next few blogs might be aimed at encouraging people, along with some hints that helped me stay on track.

    The big one = don't bite off more than you can chew!

    Glenn Wilson said...

    Congratulations!

    I love that book and have gone through it many times and I still do a few problems in it every day. I have never done a formal circles program with it but it is a great candidate for that.

    Blue Devil Knight said...

    It felt like cheating ... or is that the whole point?

    Exactly! You no longer have to think, but just act.

    Congrats.

    SamuraiPawn said...

    Congratulations!