Conquering The Dreadful Chess Plateau

Chess is an extremely excruciating game, and when it comes to chess improvement, there isn't anything more frustrating than a chess plateau. One of the most common plateaus is near the expert level. I've mentioned it before, a chess plateau is unavoidable in your chess progression. Although at one point, through patience and perseverance, you will eventually break through that rating barrier. When I first hit 2000 in October of 2021, I thought my rating would easily progress at the rate it had been. Although after a year, I was still around the same rating. 

However, I now stand at a rating of 2063, a rating far greater than my old peak. I think I finally did it, I surpassed the plateau of 2000. Although, maybe right around the corner there's a new plateau. The 2050's, the 2100's. I know many people stuck at 2100, climbing up the hill toward the NM title, before stumbling down in a handful of poor tournaments. However, instead of looking into the future, let's take a look at my games from the 2000 barrier and beyond.

Southern California Open

The Southern Californian Open was my first major tournament after my awful performance at the U.S. Open. My rating was 1956 and I wanted to get back up to 2000. Going into this game, I had 1.5/4 with three draws and a loss against an NM. I was already gaining ratings but only just a handful of points. On the last day of the tournament, I played an aggressive opening going for the win, and this is what happened.

I went on to win the sixth round and earned my first candidate master norm. My rating went from 1956 to 1995, and I was once again approaching the 2000 barrier. Although unfortunately, after this tournament my rating was going up and down until I had an extremely poor tournament, and I was back to 1962 going into the Los Angeles Open. 

Los Angeles Open

Historically, in the past two, Los Angeles Open's that I had played in I had not done well. However, this time I was one of the lowest-rated players in my section. You might be thinking, how is that a good thing? Well, being one of the lowest-rated players means if I lose I lose little rating and if I win I gain a ton of rating. Going into the third round, I had a score of 1/2 and I was playing against an NM. Although his first move surprised me, 1. f4.

Going into the next day, I was paired against my friend and a regular opponent. In fact, my opponent was one of the players I interviewed for my "Questioning Titled Players Blog". Well let's see what happened. 

Overall, the Los Angeles Open was a decent tournament, I ended up losing the last round to a 2200 and overall I gained 15 points. I was now rated 1977, In my next tournament I gained 19 points and I was on the verge of getting back over 2000 for the third time.

American Open Scholastic

When you think of the name "American Open Scholastic Championship," you would assume that there would be tons of young stars. Although in reality, the #1 seed was an IM, then me, an 1800, and the rest of the players were sub-1700. Obviously, I wanted to win first, but with an IM in the field, it was very unlikely. Although the good thing was that the IM and I were teammates, so we wouldn't face each other until there was a round where we were one of the only on the top of the field. That time finally happened in the 4th round, the second to last round.

After a goofy draw with this IM, I narrowly won the last round after a few errors. I ended up tying with the IM both with 4.5/5 and somehow I lost on tiebreaks despite him getting his first round win off forfeit. 

Gambito - 996

The Gambito is a weekly tournament that has taken place at the San Diego Chess Club for over 21 years. In the first round, I was paired against my schoolmate Sepehr Golsefidy. In this game, I had 7 brilliant moves according to chess.com's analysis. For this game, @Seppppppy annotated from his perspective, enjoy!

I finished this tournament with 3/4 points, I kinda got lucky in my next rounds but I still was able to convert positions after my opponent's errors. At the end of this tournament, my rating went from 2011 to 2049. Recently, I played another tournament and gained 14 more points cementing my rating at 2063 for the rest of the year. 

Conclusion

In my opinion, the most important skill needed to get over the 2000 barrier is the ability to get a better position and slowly hold onto it until you make the final push or your opponent makes another mistake. If your opponent doesn't make a mistake, and you don't make a mistake, then the game will end in a draw. Although if your opponent makes one mistake, it's easy to win if you eliminate your opponent's counterplay.

I won't be playing another over-the-board tournament for the rest of 2022, hopefully, I will be able to be much higher rated by the end of 2023. Share your 2023 chess goals in the comments below! Thanks for reading, and see you next year.