600 Elo - Chess is Hard
I've gone up and down in rating over the last week. I was so excited when I reached 644 with, what felt like, very few losses and thought I would be posting about my 700 rating soon. Just to lose some really simple positions and a few queen 'sacrifices'. I started grinding in frustration which only made me lose more games and before I knew it I was back on 5XX Elo.
I've been here before. Something like this happened when I was around 10 years old and back then, my dad helped me join a chess club to find other kids I could play the game with. Problem was, I was the worst of them all, and no wonder, I was the one who had played the least. Losing over and over was very difficult to accept considering I was so good at other activities and I believe that's what made me quit chess.
Now I'm just older and more stubborn so I refuse to quit over it and decided to look at how I can improve my playstyle without rediscovering the wheel. I started looking for basic chess principles. What simple actionable steps I can start taking to avoid blundering pieces left and right in the middle game? Enter GM Aman Hambleton.
Aman is a GM and Streamer who created a series in Twitch/Youtube about building chess habits for absolute beginners. The rules are:
- Know how all the pieces move
- Control and move towards the center
- Castle as soon as possible
- Don't hang free pieces + take free pieces
- Activate King in endgame + attack pawns
I'm not going to break the whole thing down but in essence, it's a guide of step-by-step improvements, how to build a position, and how to systematically organize your position with a clear goal in mind. It's by no means a secret sauce or groundbreaking territory but you know what, I've found my victories way more rewarding and when I lose, I pretty much know exactly why as opposed to before where games were kind of a race to see who would launch a weird attack forward in hopes of checkmating sooner than the opponent. I think these sorts of very basic learning tools are not as easy to find as they should be and I'll forever be thankful that I found this particular one.
The introduction to the series with the rule breakdown for neophytes to the game
I'm back in the 650s and plan to continue pushing forward until my next wall and eventually the coveted 4-digit Elo which now feels far away, maybe not for long.
