June Livestream Challenge: Raise Blitz Rating from 800 to 2200

Wow I haven't written one of these blog post things in a while...

Hey everyone!

I am setting up a bit of a challenge for myself during June. The goal is to raise a 2nd account's blitz rating from a starting point of ~800 (non-provisional) to 2200 by the end of the month. The cool part about this challenge? I will be live-streaming ALL of the games I play on the account while explaining my thought process, moves and my opponent's moves throughout each game! I feel that this challenge will help myself as well as the entire chess community in a few different ways:

• I get to improve at explaining/teaching chess to other people/private students while having fun
• You see what it takes to raise your rating from as low as 800 to as high as 2200
• You learn along the way as I explain the mistakes that each specific class of players make
• You get to understand how to take advantage of these mistakes in your own games
• You will improve your chess skills and gain rating points yourself!

Here are a few rules I have set for myself while completing the challenge:

1. The account name is "QuestTo22" (post a note and send me some good vibes!)
2. I will begin on Monay June 1st
3. I must complete the challenge (attain a rating of 2200 or higher) by Tuesday June 30th
4. Each game must be done using the blitz rating on Chess.com (no bullet/standard chess on the 2nd account) but depending on my mood I can vary the length of each game (3|0, 3|2, 5|0, 10|0, whatever I'm in the mood for)
5. I will start at a non-provisional rating of ~800 (this may require me to resign a few games to get my base rating around that point before starting the challenge)
6. I can only play people that are under my rating, up to a max of 100 points above my rating, at the time of the game (this prevents me from playing someone 300+ points higher, beating them repeatedly and gaining a lot of rating points quickly)
7. I will strive to stream ALL of the games I play on the 2nd account at Twitch.tv/mattydperrine
8. While streaming I will explain my thought process, move choices, plans, structures, positions, openings, middlegames, endgames, etc. during the games

I am not doing this just for personal satisfaction. My goal with this challenge and livestream is to help YOU to improve as well! Get a glimpse into the mind of a FIDE Master as I play a TON of games against lower rated players and climb the rating ladder 

The schedule I have set for myself in order to accomplish this challenge is to play and stream every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2-5pm EST during the month of June. At times I may decide to play past 5pm and might even end up playing+streaming on other days occasionally, but the above schedule is the absolute minimum that I will be doing. I will also be trying to put as many of the video recordings as possible on my YouTube channel but I cannot promise this considering I am a pretty big newbie in regards to YouTube production. Make sure to subscribe just in case I end up figuring out how to do this 

Also, I will be bringing back "Friendly Friday" for those of you who remember it from the past! For those of you who are not familiar with it: Every Friday I am going to be taking on all comers in 3|0 blitz games in Chess.com's Live Chess Room and streaming myself playing+commentating all the games at the same time. This will happen on Fridays after I finish playing the 800-2200 challenge for the day, so "Friendly Friday" will probably end up starting around 5pm EST and lasting until at least 7pm EST but probably longer (depending on the number of challenges I get). Be sure to add me as a friend on Chess.com to make participation in "Friendly Friday" easier!

I sincerely hope that everyone enjoys and learns a lot from the 800-to-2200 challenge stream during the month and here's a big good luck to me for successfully completeing the challenge!  Also, don't forget to click the "follow" button below the video player on my stream channel in order to get an email notification when I go live so that you don't have to miss a second of the action. See you all soon! 

Links:

Twitch.tv Stream: Click to view (don't forget to follow!)

NextLevelChessCoaching.com Website: Click to visit