Jeremy's Chess Ascent · The Master Handbook
Our two-year climb, from 1000 to the 2200 stretch. The plan, the rhythm, and the promises.
Written for you, and with you, by Dad.
A letter before we begin
Jeremy,
This is the book that holds all the others. The six field manuals teach you what to play; the workbook drills it into your hands; this handbook is the map of the whole journey, the two years we are going to climb together, from where you stand now to the summit we have dared to name.
Let me be honest with you about that summit. A rise from 1000 to 2200 in two years would be exceptional, and I will not promise you a number, because no honest coach can. What I promise instead is the climb itself: the habits, the rhythm, the recovery, and a father beside you at every camp on the mountain. Build the habits and the rating takes care of itself; and if it does not reach 2200 exactly on our schedule, you will still have become the kind of player, and the kind of man, who arrives there in the end.
So here is our plan. It is demanding, but it is also careful: it guards your sleep, your schoolwork and your joy. Those are not obstacles to your chess; they are the soil it grows in. My demand is the one you already know: plans beat memory, and habits beat moods.
The summit is worth naming. The climb is what changes you.
Read this with me. Then let us begin to climb.
Dad
Chapter 01 · The goal
We name a bold summit, and then we refuse to lie to ourselves about it. The number is the dream; the habits are the plan.
Two thousand two hundred is our stretch target, son, not a promise, and I want you to hold it exactly that way: as a star to steer by, not a stick to beat yourself with. The goal we can actually control is different and better, to build, this year and next, the daily habits of a strong tournament player, while protecting the things that make the whole climb possible: your rest, your school, and your love of the game. Chase the habits, and the rating becomes a by-product. Chase the rating alone, and you will burn the very fuel the journey runs on.
We will keep two separate scoreboards: your classical, over-the-board rating, and your online rapid. They are different pools that measure different things, and folding them into one number only fools us. Over-the-board classical is the true measure of the player we are building; the rest is training and fun.
Notice that not one of those four is a rating. Hit these, and the number follows.
Chapter 02 · The map
Eight camps on the mountain. Each has a job; we do not leave one until its work is genuinely done, whatever the calendar says.
Two years is a long time to a boy of twelve. It will not feel like a straight line; it will feel like weather. Keep walking anyway. The people who arrive are simply the ones who did not stop.
“Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Not with a sprint, and not with panic, but with the steady endurance that finishes mountains.
Hebrews 12:1
Chapter 03 · The week
Progress is not made in heroic bursts; it is made in a rhythm you can keep. Here is the shape of a strong week, the same most weeks, so the habit carries you when motivation does not.
| Day | Theme | The session |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Calculation and endings | 25 min calculation; 25 min endgames; 20 min recent positions; 10 min opening recall; then journal. |
| Tuesday | Model game and opening | 20 min tactics; 35 min a model game; 20 min position sparring; 10 min recall. |
| Wednesday | A serious game | One 30+20 game or slower. Write down your candidate moves at the critical moments. |
| Thursday | The analysis lab | Analyse yourself first, engine second. Make two exercises out of your own game. |
| Friday | Light and playful | Puzzle accuracy, guess-the-move, opening recall, then optional rapid or Chess960. |
| Saturday | Deep work | A 60+30 game, a full review, and a coached lesson or a tournament. |
| Sunday | Review or rest | Weekly positions, an endgame refresh, and planning. One full Sunday off every month. |
Notice Wednesday and Saturday: you play a real, slow game twice a week, because you learn chess by playing it seriously and then facing what you did. Everything else feeds those two games.
Chapter 04 · The load
The right amount of work is the amount you can repeat for two years without breaking. It grows as you grow, and it bends when life needs it to.
| Level | Weekday time | How the time is spent |
|---|---|---|
| 1000-1399 | 75-90 min | 35% tactics; 20% endings; 20% model games; 15% analysis; 10% openings. |
| 1400-1799 | 90-110 min | 30% calculation; 20% endings; 20% strategy; 20% analysis; 10% openings. |
| 1800-2200 | 100-130 min | 30% calculation; 25% analysis and preparation; 15% strategy; 15% endings; 15% openings. |
Two things about that table, son. First, tactics and calculation dominate at every level, because at your stage games are decided by who sees more, not by who knows more. Second, openings are never more than a tenth of the work; the manuals are there so you can spend the rest of your time on the things that truly win games.
One complete rest day every week, no exceptions. We cut chess right back during school examinations. And if your enjoyment sits below 6 out of 10 for two months, we reduce the workload before we add any coaching. A tired, joyless climber does not reach the top; he just stops climbing.
Chapter 05 · The armoury
A complete repertoire, from both sides of the board, with two answers to everything that matters. Each has its own field manual; this is how they fit together.
| When | Weapon | The idea, in one line |
|---|---|---|
| White vs 1...e5 | Italian Game · Book I | Build slowly behind c3, improve every piece, then break with d4. |
| White with 1.d4 | Queen's Gambit · Book III | Challenge d5, master the Carlsbad and the minority attack, expand with e4. |
| Black vs 1.e4 | Caro-Kann · Book IV | Solid and sound: free the light bishop first, then strike with ...c5. |
| Black vs 1.e4 | French Defence · Book II | Your fighting alternative: attack the base on d4, then challenge e5 with ...f6. |
| Black vs 1.d4 | Queen's Gambit Declined · Book V | The fortress: complete the house, then free the game with ...c5 or ...e5. |
| Black vs 1.d4 | Queen's Gambit Accepted · Book VI | The rapier: take the pawn, hand it back, and fight in the open with fast development. |
Read the shape of it, son. As White you have a weapon against each of Black's two great replies. As Black you have two answers to 1.e4 (the solid Caro-Kann and the fighting French) and two answers to 1.d4 (the patient Declined and the sharp Accepted). That is not indecision; it is choice. It means you can pick your kind of fight, on the day, against the opponent in front of you. Very few players your age carry a repertoire this complete, and you understand every one of these battles from both sides of the board.
Chapter 06 · The bookshelf
Read the rung you are on, and do not read ahead. A book that is too hard teaches you to skim, and skimming is the opposite of what chess reading is for.
| Band | Read these, in roughly this order |
|---|---|
| 1000-1400 | Logical Chess: Move by Move; Winning Chess Tactics; Silman's Complete Endgame Course (only your rating's chapters); Learn Chess the Right Way as needed. |
| 1400-1800 | Build Up Your Chess 1; 100 Endgames You Must Know; The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played; selected chapters of Chess Structures. |
| 1800-2200 | Boost Your Chess 1; Chess Evolution 1; The Woodpecker Method; selected Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual; Pump Up Your Rating. |
Chapter 07 · The lesson
One focused hour a week, together. Not a lecture, but a workshop on your own games, because the fastest teacher you have is the mistake you made on Wednesday.
| Time | What we do |
|---|---|
| 10 min | Commitments and a wellbeing check. How are you, before how is your chess. |
| 25 min | One recent game of yours, walked through together. |
| 20 min | Calculation drawn straight from that game. |
| 15 min | The current curriculum concept for your level. |
| 10 min | An opening or ending review. |
| 5 min | One small, measurable piece of homework. |
We keep only three active corrections at a time, never more. When we lose a point, we name why: tactical vision, calculation, strategy, opening, endgame, time use, or an emotional decision. You cannot fix seven things at once; you can fix three, and then three more.
Chapter 08 · The arena
Tournaments are where the training becomes real. We enter them for the games and the lessons, never merely for the trophy, and we protect you around them.
| Stage | How often you compete |
|---|---|
| Months 1-6 | One rated event or match session a month. |
| Months 7-12 | One or two suitable events a month. |
| Months 13-24 | Aim for 50-80 serious rated games a year, if school and wellbeing allow. |
Prefer classical time controls; they are where real chess lives. Finish the review of every event within seven days, while it is still warm. And move up a section only when you are consistently dominating your current one, never for prestige. A false rating helps no one, least of all you.
You will lose games in this journey, some of them badly, some of them that hurt. Hear me clearly: a loss is information, never a verdict on you. The measure of a competitor is not that he never falls; it is how quickly and how well he stands back up.
“For the righteous falls seven times, and rises again.” It does not say he never falls. It says he rises. Be a boy, and then a man, who always rises.
Proverbs 24:16
Chapter 09 · For the adults
This page is for me and for anyone helping to carry the climb. It keeps us honest about whether the programme is healthy, not just whether the rating is rising.
| Measure | Healthy monthly target |
|---|---|
| Serious games | 4 to 8 |
| Games self-analysed first | 100% |
| Model games studied | 4 |
| Calculation sessions | 12 to 16 |
| Endgame sessions | 6 to 8 |
| Chess-free days | At least 4 |
| Enjoyment | 7 out of 10 or higher |
If the bottom two rows are unhealthy, nothing above them matters. Enjoyment and rest are not the reward for the work; they are part of it.
Chapter 10 · The starting line
Every climb needs a clean start. Here is exactly what we do in the first two weeks, before we worry about a single rating point.
You own this goal, Jeremy. It is yours, not mine, and never something done to you. The adults around you provide the structure, the transport, the coaching, and the perspective; you provide the desire and the work. And we all agree on one sentence above every other: losses are information, not a verdict on your talent or your worth.
A word before we start climbing
Jeremy, you have in your hands now a whole library: six manuals, a workbook, a coach key, and this map of the mountain. It is a lot. But I want you to know what I was really building while I built all of it.
I was not building a rating. I was building you. Every discipline in these pages, finishing the quiet work before the exciting move, holding good things with an open hand, striking at the root and not the leaves, rising after every fall, doing the work when no one is watching, those are chess lessons, yes. Read them again and you will see they are simply how a good man lives. I taught you chess because chess would teach you those things back, and because it gave me two years of evenings beside my son.
So let us climb. Some days will be steep and some will be joyful and most will be ordinary, and the ordinary days are where champions are actually made. I am not afraid of the summit, and you should not be either, because we are not really climbing toward a number. We are climbing toward the man you are becoming, and I already love him.
Whatever the scoreboard says, at every camp on this mountain, I am proud of you, and I am with you. Let us begin.
Dad