No Haircut Until 2100 FIDE, My Challenge

Inspired by GM Aman Hambleton's challenge in 2017, when he didn't cut his beard until he achieved the grandmaster title, I decided—in my infinite wisdom—to go down a similar route, and I'm still on it. In this post, I'll share with you the background of how I got here, how it's going, and my best game from this period.

To start: a year ago, in October, I looked like this.

At the start of November, a month ago, I looked like this (below). Strangely enough, I had just met the man himself—Aman Hambleton—the guy who shaved his beard when he became a grandmaster. This is me setting up the clock for his casual blitz game with Jonathan Corbblah.

Okay, it doesn't look so long in that one, so here's a selfie I just took to document one more example.

So how did we get here?

I got my last haircut some time around August 2024. A few months later, around the time I would normally get my haircut, I decided to hold off a little. I didn't have a goal in mind; I just wanted to let it grow a bit further, see what I'd look like.

More time passed. I prolonged the haircut month after month. I was curious how I'd look, and I figured at some point I'd hit the point of "Okay, now we really do have to get this cut." This is what I looked like when I traveled to Iceland to play in the Reykjavik Open, still with no specific hair-tied goal just yet.

I was at my then-peak of 2028 FIDE and optimistic. Like many chess players, I considered myself to be underrated, and thought I should get a rating jump if I played outside of the United States, but Reykjavik was a wakeup call. I didn't do too well and lost 18 points. I stewed on it for a few weeks, and that's when I think I landed on this goal. (You can read about my Reykjavik experience here, by the way.) 

You can take a look for yourself how the journey's been going. After even more disappointing months, I really hit my stride in the August and September rating updates, where cumulatively I gained 90 points. This happens from time to time with kids, but less frequently with a 32-year-old. I won 15 games, drew seven, and my only loss in those two months came against GM Mike Rohde—a fighting game where I had my chances. I won two tournaments and hit my all-time peak of 2065.

I was flying high, and I was on such a streak that I expected to win almost every game I played. I thought I'd hit the 2100 rating goal, get my haircut, and be done with it—privately, no blog, no video, no big hurrah.

Which brings me to why I'm writing this now, and it's not just because my boss floated the idea . It's probably a good time. I had a rocky few months since my peak and dropped down to 2010—it's like I just came back from Reykjavik, back in April. I'm almost right where I was when I started. And I've come to appreciate that this is going to be a real challenge, and so it will taste that much more sweet when I reach my goal.

Here is my best game from that hot streak, against Alex Gutnik. He's about 71 years old but still consistently rated in the 2000-2050 FIDE range—a tenacious defender and a skilled counter-attacker. In this case, he never wriggled out of the bad position he got, and I won a must-draw game the next round to win the entire tournament.

There are two directions my next post can take. It will either be another struggle-bus update from an even-longer-haired me, or it will be a celebratory post when I accomplish the goal. Let's see where this goes, and thanks for following along on this journey. Truth be told, I hope it doesn't become a series—or, at least, not a long one!

He who overcomes others has force;

He who overcomes himself is strong.

—Lau Tzu