Another recent meaty article from IM Junta Ikeda - "What to do when your chess is going badly" - is very relevant for adult improvers, from both a mindset and skills perspective, who may find themselves in a slump / extended plateau in their performance. (Something which is inevitable over a long enough time period.) While the full linked article is well worth reading, below is a highlighted excerpt about an under-emphasized aspect of the experience of chess improvement, namely retaining the joy of it and worrying less about any (perhaps solely imagined) outside expectations/pressures.
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"Enjoying chess for its own sake. Adult players with limited time are especially prone to making every minute of chess serve improvement. You have work and family, you play a few tournaments a year, and a bad one after weeks of preparation can make you wonder whether you’re simply not good enough anymore. In that state, you can ask a simpler question: what do you actually enjoy about chess?
Then go and do that: go on a blitz binge without worrying about reviewing, play through a hundred games by your favourite player, bring back the opening you like but stopped playing because it’s not objectively the strongest.
Not everything in chess has to be training. The best is when training doesn’t feel like training, and being comfortable with being bad at something for a while helps here. There’s no [more] scary player than one who enjoys every part of chess, on and off the board."
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