Chess Exam

I just finished Igor Khmelnitsky's wonderful puzzle/improvement book. I will calculate results and post them here. If you have also finished this book please post your results. Thanks

I did it last summer (My rating was 1098 USCF at the time)
Category Book Assigned Rating
Overall 984
Endgame 984
Middlegame 977
Opening 974
Calculation 920
Standard Endgame Positions 1018
Strategy 974
Tactics 1053
Recognizing Threats 950
Attack 1000
Counterattack 910
Defense 981
Sacrifice 989


As my rating was 1098, none of these were close to my rating.

overall: 1610
endgame: 1930
middlegame: 1623
opening: 1948
calculation:1353
standard positions: 1828
strategy:1756
tactics: 1771
threat: 1810
attack: 1600
counterattack: 1955
defense: 1890
sacrafice: 1616

this book has been a delight to read. except i know my opeining game is no where at good as what i am given. also i expected to see calculation as a strong point

To be within almost 100 points of your USCF, it seems fairly accurate.

Edit: Sorry, that was for Chesskid.

Yeah that's true, and I misinterpreted what I meant to say. While it was fairly accurate, I was expecting more varied ratings; you know, some higher that my rating and some lower, so that I knew what to work on. But from all that gave me, it just said that I was relatively good at tactics, and uniformly good at the rest, and didn't give me much to start from. So yes, I concede that the ratings weren't far off, but based on the sample result it gave in the book (a 1750 with some significantly higher and some significantly lower) my expectations were different. I just think it's unlikely that my strength would be almost exactly the same in most of those categories.

overall: 2144
endgame: 2117
middlegame: 2056
opening: 2291
calculation:2038
standard positions: 2500
strategy:2198
tactics: 1799
threat: 2191
attack: 2117
counterattack: 2005
defense: 2234
sacrafice: 2056

I spent up to an hour on each test which I guess explains the inflated ratings - I was about 1600 ELO at the time, now about 1750. However the results showed up an unexpected weakness.

I was a little surprised when I saw the results for tactics as I'd always considered them a strong suit. However, practice with CT-Art and the CTS tactics website bore fruit as my OTB rating jumped for the first time in about 10 years. My rapid and blitz levels, where I was bizzarely weak, have improved even more dramatically.

All in all I was pleased with the book - it didn't teach me much about chess but it did allow me to use my time far more wisely.