Finished the level 30s

For the fourth time. Slower than the 20s, but not too bad and I scored 72%. I'm now going to go back over the erroneous ones and repeat them. After that I'll try a few 40s, then maybe cycle back through the 10, 20 and 30s.

I had a bit of a think about where I'm improving. As a number of other knights have observed, there is definitely a pattern recognition thing going on. Especially around sacrificial attacks on the king's pawn shelter! But I'm also improving my look-ahead capability. I can see slightly further than I used to.

I recently subscribed to New In Chess, partly as a result of following (on www.chessbase.com) Toppy win the recent World Championship. The first edition of New In Chess that I received was heavily focused on this event. I am finding it easier to follow annotated games - MDLM said that, didn't he? - not that I really understand what's going on in them though! I was surprised about just how tactical the world championship games appeared. Some of the openings seemed crazy, I would feel very exposed and nervous playing them. The top chess players at the World Championship seem to be able to effortlessly combine tactics with a real mastery of the game. It is not what I would call strategy necessarily (or at least what I think of as strategic play), more exactly knowing when to swap that duff old rook for that knight.