2000 Blitz! ... Sort of ...
2000 Blitz! ...Sort of ...
2000+ Chess rating in any category seems to be a very special milestone for anyone. I honestly don’t know entirely why. Maybe the “2” in front of the rating is coveted? Perhaps because informally “expert” 2000+ means a little something more? I’m not really sure why 2000 is such a special number. I like to celebrate all of my little advances on my chess journey and enjoy the ride.
Somewhere that is not chess.com, there is a mystical land where ratings seem inflated in comparison. And cut! That is where my movie typically ends. I know that over-the-board (OTB) ratings (mainly USCF or FIDE) are the toughest rating pools, but chess.com seems to be the next toughest rating pool and probably the toughest pool of players for online chess. I never had the ego in me to play anywhere else where I could achieve high ratings that were misleadingly higher than I believe I deserved. That is why probably 90 percent of all my chess is either in-person/OTB, or on chess.com. I do play on several other sites in addition to chess.com, but just casually for fun or perhaps to experiment with various openings and concepts while remaining anonymous.
Yesterday, May 19, 2021 was one of those casual fun times. I ran out of my chess.com allotted puzzle rush survival attempts and didn’t feel like grinding live chess rating. Instead, I decided to do something I haven’t done in a long time: play casual blitz and just enjoy the chess.
I played 5 min chess (no increment or delay) so I don’t run into time scrambles that often and I just started playing unrated games. I started playing several 1900 and 2000 players and doing really well. One 2000 player and I played 4 blitz games in a row and I won all of them. They said some friendly comment after game 4 like “You’re the best” and I politely chat for a little before moving onto more chess.
Then I began accumulating a bit of a spectator crowd. Next thing I know, I was playing 2100s and 2200s with good success. Then a 2300+ rated Candidate Master (CM) accepted my 5 min. open challenge and I won that game too!
It was a fun thrill to be on my game and just playing casual blitz. I stopped after roughly 20 unrated games to get something to eat. Then, it occurred to me…
On chess.com, I’m currently only 1900-ish rapid rating…but if I were to play in an unrated rating pool, would my inflated stats reach 2000+ rating?
After playing chess for most of the day and then 20-ish blitz games, I didn’t really feel mentally at my best in the moment. I thought, I’ll try to play some rated blitz there and boost it a bit until I feel tired and then I’ll see if I can grind up to 2000+ for the sake of it.
I finished eating and then played several more blitz games - this time rated blitz. Before going to bed, I brought my rating up a decent amount and felt like I might be able to push for 2000 blitz the next day.
May, 20, 2021: I was busy with other things until roughly 6 pm, so I didn’t get a chance to play any chess. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking about chess the whole day; but then when I sat down at my computer, I remembered the night before.
I played some more speed chess in one sitting and grinded my way over 2000 blitz!
I kind of like my setup. I play mostly OTB and on chess.com, but have other places to go if I need a confidence boost with their inflated ratings lol.
Am I really 2000+ rating in chess ability? Probably not yet. I feel like I’m getting there, but I’m humble enough to realize just how good 2000+ rated chess players are and I don’t think I’m quite there yet. Maybe one day soon, but not yet. For what it is worth, this is my first-time reaching 2000+ chess rating anywhere! Well, except for my temporary 2350 inflated USCF rating when I was getting my provisional rating, but perhaps that is a story for another time. That hardly counts as it was a provisional rating after I beat a 1950-ish chess player in one of my first OTB rated tournaments, but my rating rightfully stabilized back around 1600 which I think was accurate to where I actually was at that time.
Is 2000 rating on chess.com, or OTB a goal of mine? Um…not really. I value every little step along the way, but I’m not really thinking about 2000 rating in any special way yet. Right now, most of my chess time is working towards my goal of reaching 50+ chess.com Survival score and then after that we’ll see. I might begin playing more rated chess on chess.com again after that.
I think one of my chess.com friends cares more about me reaching 2000+ rating than I do, but I guess I’m just more in the moment and just taking things one step at a time. (I might mention their username in future comments, but I didn’t ask permission to mention them by name, so I won’t say usernames yet).
It was kind of an impromptu idea for me to grind up to 2000+ rating on there. I don’t think it was really a speedrun, since I didn’t even know if I’d ever reach it, but I guess it took me two real sittings of chess plus whatever stray rated games I played before then. It was kind of fun to try something as a change of pace like that, but now I’m eager to get back to working towards 50+ chess.com Survival again.
Good luck with your chess everyone 
