Road to 1000 - Chess
During winter break I played a lot of chess with my youngest daughter. She just learned how the pieces move and thought it was incredibly fun. Although I have enjoyed playing chess since I was little, I didn’t really get into chess until mid-2020 when quarantine was in its early stages.
What really sparked my newfound interest in chess was the chess tournament PogChamps on the streaming platform Twitch. If you’ve never heard of PogChamps, it’s a competition that had several streamers of varying skill levels (mostly beginner and intermediate) train and compete in a live-streamed chess competition of 10-minute games. The coolest part of this wasn’t necessarily the games themselves, but the lead-up to the competition.
The tournament was set up by chess.com and they had professional chess players, most of whom were GMs, IMs, and WFMs, help train players. It was great watching my favorite streamer, Fuslie, learn from people like Hikaru Nakamura and Nemo. Before this, I would just randomly push my pawns up and kind of try to get my minor pieces out. But now I had options and when they were teaching people the London system, I felt like I had more direction of starting out my games. It’s a nice little system and can almost start out identically no matter what your opponent plays as black - you just have to make that little “bishop’s hat.”
After actually getting an accurate rating on chess.com (they start at 1200 so that was a humbling experience), I was able to have a steady 800 to 900 ELO. Playing with my daughter is fun, but I also like challenging myself, so I started to play more ranked rapid matches with 10-minute games (that means that each player has 10 minutes to complete their moves for a maximum of 20 minutes per game). I kept going up and down but really wanted to reach 1000.
There’s this YouTuber named Michelle Khare who was invited to compete in another PogChamps tournament. On her channel, she showed her process while training with professional chess players and her grind to 1000. That’s when I really decided that I wanted to take chess a little more seriously so that I can consistently rank at above 1000. I think my ultimate goal would be closer to 1200 on chess.com, but that seems like it’s far away.
The other week, I took my first chess lesson online and went over basic strategy and some opening principles. I told her that my preferred opening was the London system. She said that it was fine, but suggested that I try something a little more aggressive like the Italian because the London is so passive. The Italian also lends itself to quicker attacks and more natural movement once everything is developed. I’ve also started studying some other openings and playing more puzzles that aren’t just rated but train a specific skill. In the past week, I’ve risen from mid 900s to a high of 1039. It’s to the point where I’m a little scared about playing more ranked games because I feel like I’ll just lose ELO. But that’s kind of the point. So far, I’ve reached my goal but it’s a matter of if I can sustain it and how much higher I can get. I don’t think I can maintain it without further study and taking it seriously - but sometimes I just want to throw on a game and not think too much. That’s when I put on a Blitz game or Bullet which is like 2|1 meaning 2 minutes for each player plus 1 second added for each move. A little too intense for my taste and not really good for chess but it can be kinda fun.