My Journey To 1000!

To many chess players, getting to a quadruple-digit rating is a big achievement and worth celebrating. I eventually managed to hit the goal after months of hard, but I had a few... walls along the way. So without further ado, here's the story of my journey to 1000 rating!

The Spike
This is where the story starts. The spike was the period where I dropped a bunch of ELO in a short amount of time. I was in the high 900s trying to get to the 1000s so I was playing chess in the bathroom one day because why not, but suddenly, I started getting noticeably bad and I kept losing and I felt sad. I was so determined that I kept going, no matter how many times I lost, but I accidentally went too far. I was losing game after game and one bathroom session turned me from a sort-of-good 900 to a stupid 700 (Not insulting any of you who are 700, you guys have potential). Here's a match I lost during "The Spike". Here, you could see how bad I really was and even Chess.com said so in the analysis because it said I played like a 450 and I got 47% accuracy. Also, take note that I have never been coached in chess. It's one of those things I learn by myself.

Trying To Recover...
A few days after the spike, things weren't looking well for me as my rating wasn't getting any better, so I decided I needed to find a way to learn actual chess. So instead of getting a coach, I got a book and oh boy did it help me. I learned tons of new stuff like Batteries, Skewers, Fianchettos, actual openings, etc. Just in case you're wondering, this is the book:

I got noticeably better after I read the book and I was ready to play again since I am no longer a Scholar's Mate player, and I had some pretty good matches! Here are some of them:

Making A Rating Change
After learning all of those skills, I finally reached a change in my rating by getting to 800! But the opponents definitely weren't getting any easier and I used to think that I'm too good for my rating and this entire rating system is inaccurate! But after watching other people play, I knew I was wrong. Here's the match that got me to 800:

Even though I was still missing a bunch of good opportunities, this was just the start of the climb of the rating ladder, and I was definitely not going to fall off this time!

Just Within Reach!

This was the final hundred before 1000! I was sooooo close but little did I know, things were falling apart... In my opinion, the 800s are worse than the 700s, I mean seriously, I think some of the 800s were either letting me win or were incredibly bad and that didn't happen while I was 700.

This applied for 900 too! I've heard people say that 900s are harder than 1200s and I was shocked because this was definitely going to be a challenge! But during this period, I started to notice something weird: I would have something where I lose a bunch of matches in a row and then immediately after, win a bunch of matches in a row, and it still happens to this day! This must happen to you, right?

At this point, Chess was becoming like an obsession to me! I had to hit that goal of a 1000 rating or else I'd probably be made fun of and also not be considered a noob. But after countless days, I finally did it! I finally completed the mission I had set since day 1 of this journey! I HIT A 1000 RATING! Here's the very match that made my day and I'll always remember:

I was super proud and I immediately tried getting better... but then I got back to 3 digits, and I spent the next half an hour trying to get back to 1000 and I must be blessed because I did! Since I figured out I couldn't go any further, I decided that now, Chess should be a friendly game to relax and not something to stress about.

Advice To Get To 1000.

This is the end of the story, but I just want to share a few tips for those who are stuck in the triple-digit section and want to become a 1000 just like me. If you are already in the quadruple- digit section, this is the end of the blog but if not, here are a few things to learn.

• Basic Tactics - Chess is mostly a game all about capturing pieces, checking and cheering, but that can sometimes be hard to do safely. But if you make use of some tactics, you can force a safe capture of a piece without making a sacrifice. Some tactics include: forks, where you simultaneously attack two or more pieces at once. This is usually done by the knight or queen, pins, where you force a piece to stay in a certain spot or else you win a more valuable piece, skewers, basically the opposite of a pin and discovered attack, where you threaten a piece by revealing a threat. This is a very sneaky tactic and hard to notice and it can screw you up.

• Solve Some Puzzles - You’re not going to learn chess just by watching videos and reading books. You need to complete puzzles to assess your knowledge and find your areas of weakness. I recommend solving the daily puzzle first and then maybe trying a few games of Puzzle Battle.

• Don’t Gamble - Usually, if you lose a few matches in a row, it’s best to take a break, and I learned that the hard way. You should usually only continue if you are very confident that you can win and you are in a better rating than you were before.

• Press Review - Once you finish a game, no matter what happens, you should click that game review button. It will tell you all of the good things you did, when you had the advantage, what mistakes you made etc. In addition, I recommend buying the Diamond membership, as it gives you more stuff, such as explanations for your moves and a better engine to analyse your moves.
• Don’t Get Stressed Out - It is usually good to keep calm during a game of chess. If you rage more often, you are more prone to mistakes such as hanging pieces or not seeing that pesky mate in 1. Also, revealing your emotions in a chess match can be a useful hint to your opponent and they could see through a plan you made.
• Think To Yourself - Thinking to yourself can help you a lot during a game of chess, because not only should you be thinking of the move you will make, but you also have to think about how the opponent would respond, but you have to be quick doing that because you're on a timer and you should try to make the most efficient moves as quickly as possible.

This is the end of the entire blog. I hope you liked it and I hope you learned something and make sure to comment on what you think of the blog!