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What is your DMP PR?

Posted By: Chase
Date: Friday, 4 September 2015, at 6:38 p.m.

In Response To: What is your DMP PR? (Timothy Chow)

Hey, Tim. I appreciate your thoughtful response. I'm still thinking all this through, but here is where I am at the moment:

1) I agree about the danger of spending forever in "phase 1" of this project and never getting beyond DMP. However, I do think that isolating checker play, then adding in gammons, then the cube, then match play as each gets to a reasonable level is an approach that suits me. The question is what is a reasonable level? My original plan was to get my DMP PR to below 5 before moving on the "phase 2" and introducing gammons. As I'm nearing that goal, I'd like to gauge where I am with respect to what others are doing. It's true that my ultimate measure is against myself, but even a golfer wants to know what "par" is.

2) Opening moves are indeed small potatoes compared to some of the errors I make. But even small potatoes put on the weight if you eat enough of them. XG's opening book makes it pretty easy to tighten up opening play while focusing primarily on larger errors. After reading Stick's comments, I've started clicking through the first few moves of each game I review to see what the opening books says before I check out my blunders -- minimal effort that contributes to my larger goal.

3) I make more mental errors than most people. Due to the concentration issues I mentioned earlier, I can easily miss the key hit that would seal the game, for example. Blunders of that kind are hugely expensive in a 1pt match. I'm getting better with it -- training myself to slow down and look for the "second best play," for example, which may well turn out to be the best play that I've simply overlooked. It's an ongoing challenge. Then there are the other blunders, where I have conceptual holes in my game. If I get into a game I don't understand well, it's easy to rattle off a bunch of errors in a row if you're not following the proper plan.

4) Good point about striving to make permanent improvements to your game. That requires a sound methodology, focus, and discipline in a game where there are a multitude of things to consider. I'm finding that focusing narrowly on DMP play is helping me with all of that. Plus it allows me to study in little "bursts," which suits my personal challenges and habits.

Thanks for your feedback.

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