Today Is The Day, 2000 Rapid!
Today Is The Day, 2000 Rapid!
Thank you for the kind words and support everyone; I’ve just crossed the chess.com Rapid 2000+ rating barrier for my first time! I suppose this makes November 22, 2021 a special date for me, but naturally: there were a few key moments and games leading up to it which helped. We also can’t forget the entire journey: it is no exaggeration that back on June 3, 2017, I don’t think I even knew what a chess “grandmaster” (GM) was. I was just getting into chess and creating my chess.com account. I had no rating goals and no way would I have imagined that just over 4 years later I would have a rating over 2000 
Purpose
For a day, or so, I contemplated how I wanted to present this 2000 rating milestone to the chess community. Should I share a summary of events going all the way back to when I joined chess.com? Should I give annotations on my last several games leading up to reaching 2000 for teaching purposes? Should I instead try to capture the atmosphere of approaching 2000 rating?
I wasn’t entirely sure, but ultimately I decided to combine some of these elements together and convey some key moments through the use of annotated pgn diagrams and written descriptions to express the context upon nearing the 2000 threshold.
Last Month
About one month ago, I shared one bump on the road of chess improvement:
https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/dropped-more-chess-rating
I dropped below 1900 chess.com Rapid rating for the first time in several months. Rating fluctuations are expected, but it is still sometimes tough to not get discouraged by them. The irony is that I’ve noticed some of my greatest chess milestones have arisen out of some of my biggest challenges; not everyone can stay optimistic in the face of adversity, but doing your best at surviving those challenges is what makes conquering them possible.
Close to 6 months ago (to the day!), I reached a 2000+ online blitz rating for the first time:
https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/2000-blitz-sort-of
I knew 2000 was possible for myself. I just have to do my best, keep learning, keep improving and have trust in my own abilities. Something I’ve often said highlights this attitude, (which I’m virtually certain I parroted somewhere from IM Jeremy Silman) “I have to trust in my chess position: if I don’t trust in it, then who will?”
For what ended up being about three weeks of on and off chess grinding, I recovered the rating I had previously lost (1977, or so, down to dropping below 1900) and this pushed me in striking distance of my highest ever chess.com rating (1985 at that time). In about three weeks, I was once again over 1977 rating. This brings me to a key game which was played the night of November 21, 2021 (although calendar-wise technically November 22 as it was after midnight).
The purpose of these game pgn annotations is not to analyze the game moves too deeply, but rather to give context to how I was feeling in regards to the situation:
Game 1
The previous rated game (against an opponent over 2000), I felt like I played well, but just happened to lose. This game, I get paired with an opponent over 2300 and I see this as an opportunity to gain a solid amount of rating points. They were rated 2322 and I was rated 1975, so a win could push me all the way up to 1989.
One might imagine this win would boost my confidence and help propel me to 2000+ rating, but that is pretty far from the entire truth. I recognize that my opponent was the better player and why wouldn’t they be? They are much higher rated and seem to deserve their rating; isn’t it only justice they are better if they invested more effort into improving their chess ability and understanding?
This by no means underscores my own ability, or confidence, though. According to an elo calculator like this one:
https://www.3dkingdoms.com/chess/elo.htm
we can see that purely by rating, I am estimated to win approximately 12% of the time. Today just so happened to be one of those 12% instances. It feels uplifting to understand the probabilities and shrug off outcomes which are over-rated anyway. What bothers me even more than losing a chess game (as painful as that can be) is playing a game (win, lose, or draw) which I know I misplayed, or didn’t play my best.
One might imagine winning a game with an opponent over 300 points higher would be confidence-building. Not untrue, but I’ve won against higher rated opponents than this before (although to no surprise, I lose them much more often than I win) and there is no reason I can’t continue to do so in the future. It was already after midnight, so with 1989 chess.com Rapid rating (all-time high) I decided to call it a night and get some valuable sleep. I have non-chess plans in the morning and besides, I would like to be well rested for the next day of chess when I might push 2000!
Game 2
I played some chess between this “Game 1 and Game 2” - remember these games are selected to illustrate what I consider key moments. Just before this game, I brought my rating up to 1996 and I was debating to keep playing, or to take a break for the day.
After playing a longer chess session, dropping rating is more common than gaining rating if the player isn’t in as good form. Ever since about 1600 chess.com rating, I’ve implemented a stop-loss system (similar to what many in the stock market use) which I first heard in an old chess article I read by a chess grandmaster author.
Without getting into many details, a stop-loss system helps minimize losses while allowing for growth. If there is interest, perhaps I’ll write on how to apply a successful stop-loss system for chess.
I remember thinking how 1996 is a symbolically cool number for me to stop at. My chess.com username is based off of the Yugioh character Seto Kaiba.
https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/kesetokaiba-username-meaning
Guess what year the anime Yugioh first aired? 1996. Nice, huh? I seriously considered stopping at 1996 rating and pushing for 2000 rating the next day, but no - I decided to risk my new highest chess rating of 1996 in the pursuit of 2000+. I took a step back for a moment and considered how “in form” I felt and I felt like I was playing good chess for my ability, so I decided to keep playing. As GM Bobby Fischer said about winning in chess,
“[sometimes]…you have to force moves and take chances.”
Surpassing 2000 rating here would have been nice, but at least the rating didn’t change upon a draw and I’m still in good enough form to keep pressing for a higher rating. I sent my opponent a friend request (which was later accepted) because they played well and put up a stubborn defense in the endgame. I like players who fight like I do in chess! If you want a win against players similar-minded to us, then you’ll have to earn it!
Game 3
After my drawn Rook endgame, the very next game I played a decent game with nice positional presence; however, I got into time pressure and blundered into a loss. This put my rating back down to 1988 and the current game (this “Game 3”) gave me a chance to win 6 more rating points for winning (at the risk of losing 10 rating points for a loss).
Due to the nature of this game, I’ve excluded the username. I don’t want to name-shame anyone, so I’ve changed the player to “N.N.” (N.N. stands for “No Name” as is the standard recording when the chess player name is unknown [anonymous], or when the name is intentionally excluded for some reason).
No use accusing someone I hardly know, but I will say that chess players using an engine (unethical) have a few telltale clues they leave behind. Spotting one, or two, of these clues means little in itself; seeing a trail of these clues over time signals to an observant detective that something unethical is more likely to be going on.
One of these clues is an uncommon opening which is fairly solid (if not objectively terrible), yet unpopular. Chess openings like the Englund Gambit, Budapest Gambit, Grob Opening and so on all are common choices because they bring studied players into lesser known complications. Someone using popular mainlines is more likely to be honest in ability because it displays their chess knowledge to navigate the position while a potential engine user is more likely to avoid theoretical positions which the opponent may have studied deeply.
Another clue and oddity to me was the move 7…Qxc3 not because it sacrifices material, but because it doesn’t seem to give any plausible favor to their position and goes against the motifs of that specific opening choice. I shake my head at the post-game analysis revealing 7…Qa3 (which I expected in the game) as the best move and 7…Qxc3 (move played) as the engine second recommendation. It isn’t too unreasonable to believe someone could play 7…Qxc3 as a pathetic attempt at hiding their tracks, but playing a move a few centipawns worse than the “best move” doesn’t do much of anything at concealing play when the same player reveals lack of chess understanding in other ways unforeseen to them, yet obvious to their opponents at that level.
I’m not really fazed too much; you know what? I’m sort of proud with how I played that game. I held an advantage for the vast majority of the entire game. Perhaps this simply underscores just how objectively terrible the Englund Gambit is, but nevertheless I now have 6 more rating points than I did before this game and I’ll see if my 1994 rating can increase!
Game 4
This last game gives the illusion of dirty flagging if not observing the contextual information of the game (specifically my psychological observation mid-game). For a few hours, I changed my profile status to something like: “Dirty Flagging to 2000 Feels Better Than It Should XD” but I didn’t feel this correctly captured the context, so I soon changed the status to: “Today Is The Day, 2000+ chess.com Rapid Rating! ” and kept that status up for a few days.
Now that I’ve reached this 2000 rating milestone, am I going to just sit on my over 2000 chess rating? …Like a mother hen.
I’ll enjoy the new milestone, but not indefinitely as many make the mistake of doing. There is a difference between celebrating a milestone and getting a confidence boost versus never touching your rating for the sake of preserving a number no one cares about and preserving an ego only the player themselves cares about. I’ll be back in the arena again; perhaps a little rating enjoyment, but then back to work we go!
Can’t achieve higher ratings and bigger things if we sit around all day complacently.
What about my chess future? Will I feel an emptiness now that a goal has been completed and have no worthy objective to aim for? Not at all! I’ll still keep working on my chess - learning and improving as I always have
2000 and higher chess rating is informally “expert” rating, so do I have plans to pursue a chess title and become a “chess master” now? As I’ve expressed with others many times before, becoming a chess master (like Grand Master [GM], or National Master [NM] etc.) was never a desire of mine. I just love chess and I don’t need a lofty goal to motivate me into improving, or a formal chess title to elevate an ego. Who needs it?
I fully support those with an ambition to reach those elite levels and strive for a chess title, but chess is just a hobby for me. Granted, it is a hobby I love and have gotten good at, but it is a hobby none the less. Just like most other things in life, if you are willing to invest enough time and resources into it, then you’ll improve and grow for sure. Chess is no different, but I think many undermine just how much work it takes to achieve these heights and how much struggle (and losing!) it takes to reach these levels of chess ability.
Chess Grandmaster and former Chess World Champion, GM Anatoly Karpov was once asked in an interview how he got so good at chess. Karpov’s answer was something like, “I joined a chess club with the toughest players I could find and I lost thousands of games to them.” It sounds paradoxical to lose so much to improve, but trying your best and still losing gives experience and chess games worth analyzing to see where you went wrong, how you could have improved and eventually how to refine your technique. Losing is a critical ingredient to healthy improvement. I’ve lost literally thousands of chess games and I’m bound to lose many more.
Helping Others In Chess
I’m still motivated to keep working on my own chess game and better my chess understanding, but I’m also happy to share my insights with others. This is why I write chess articles, give helpful posts in the forums, stream chess and much more; if I have the chance to help others understand the great game of chess, then why wouldn’t I share what I know?
Dutch physicist, H.A. Lorentz (also co-prize winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics) was considered a “genius” by even Albert Einstein himself. In the book, The World As I See It, Einstein’s kind words about Lorentz align with how I’d like to be known in the chess community. At an address at the grave of Lorentz, Einstein says,
“His never-failing kindness and magnanimity and his sense of justice, coupled with an intuitive understanding of people and things, made him a leader in any sphere he entered. Everyone followed him gladly, for they felt that he never set out to dominate but always simply to be of use. His work and his example will live on as an inspiration and guide to future generations.”
At another time, Einstein also said, “[of Lorentz] …intelligent, humane and modest personality, whose unspoken but faithfully followed advice is, ‘Not mastery but service,’ will lead people the right way.”
This service mindset and humbleness resonates with me; it makes me happy to see similarities in my own impact on the chess community. In the pursuit of helping others, I won’t selfishly pursue a chess master title; rather, I’ll be of service to others as I continue to improve myself. If I reach the ability of chess master and within reach of some formal chess title, then cool. I may consider pursuing it then, but it isn’t an end-goal of mine.
Thanks for being a part of my chess.com journey to 2000 rating everyone! Let us celebrate this little milestone and keep helping each other
