My Recent Chess Feats And Background As A Player

Hello everyone! And welcome back to my newest blog post! Since it has been so long since I last posted this will be a bit of a recap on all I've been able to accomplish in the chess world recently. Back in March I posted my first blog. I had gotten into over the board chess. Before that I had only played one tournament up to that point in 2021. My life was very different back then and a lot more... For lack of a better word streamlined. I had a bit of a clearer picture of everything but one thing was undeniable... My chess, was incredibly mediocre. I remember one of my toughest opponents there thinking that my rating should be around 1600-1700ish. After we played a tough game. I don't still have the score sheets so I am unsure whether or not it was an accurate assessment or if my opponent was being extremely generous. I'll air on the side of caution and assume my opponent was being unbelievable generous.

And my first ever tournament... Was kinda a stinker. It was a two day event where I got crushed in my three games, ignoring the advice of so many chess players before me. "Never castle Queen side. O-O-O" i.e, don't lose three in a row. After those three crushing victories, the next two days my opponents were of a much lower caliber and I easily beat them. Despite my confidence having been crushed from the day before. I remember a dear friend at the time being disappointed that they couldn't talk to me so much that weekend, and me being a bit disheartened by the score. As 2/5 out of 5 to me seemed poor for all the knowledge I knew of this dear game. 

Other than this nothing major happened in the chess happenings in 2021. I might have hit some milestones, improving my rating to 1600-1700ish. I do not recall exactly. The biggest thing that happened by far I will say is that in 2022 I did not play a single new OTB game, however I had gotten quite a taste for tournament experience.

Chess.com rolled out their now dead feature of "Verified." This was a blue checkmark by your name that showed you were 110% legit. Now that I didn't so much care about but what I really cared about was the fact that... You got to play qualifiers to try to get into the play-ins where you got to play masters! 81 chances.... To play with some of the world's great. I cleared my schedule and for months... I played not one of the 6 weekend tournaments, not two, not three, nor four, nor five, but playing all six qualifier events desperately trying my damn hardest to score around 8.5 out of 11 in the swiss tournaments to qualifier for the play ins.

I realize that the things that interest me, that drive me to work so diligently might not be what drives other people. Who would be playing 24 hours of chess every weekend to just have a CHANCE to play with some of the world's greats? Not everyone I will tell you that much. It's a bit silly but I was also trying to impress someone I was close with at the time. And using chess to illustrate the type of person I am I think has become a staple for me, as anyone who realizes all the time and dedication you put to the craft, it just explains so much about who you are. Sadly at the time I didn't archive my best games in those competitions but playing 24 hours of rapid chess every week was insane.

My best tournament at the time I think I got 7.5 or 8 and got in the top ten a couple times, but you needed to get top four to qualify. To add insult to injury a lot of my opponents that I struck down in individual games would later go on to qualify in the tournaments where we didn't play each other. I still feel slightly bad I made HannahSayce leave the tournament twice as she lost to me two times in critical games where it was game point, and if they didn't score then there'd be no point. I believe one of those tournaments I was on fire and won 6 in a row, but then got flagged game 7 from a winning position, and then proceeded to lose every game after that despite already having taken down the top seeds. The brutality of tournament competition wasn't lost on me. While I got results I could be far happier with than the results I got in my first tournament in person... It still felt wrong. I had put in so much work, and believe me at the time I was the one who worked the absolute hardest to have a chance to compete in the play-ins. And yet... I couldn't pull it off even putting in my all. Don't get me wrong, I got really bloody close so many times. It was so close yet out of reach at the same time. To reward anyone who has got this far I'll put a beautiful chess game I recently played at a tournament against someone who claimed to be 1600-1700 chess.com.

Probably the best tournament game I have played recently and requires very little explanation other than Rdg1 is really the only major improvement I could have made in hindsight. Instead of Rhg1. Though it's an understandable mistake. 

I think the lesson from the Chess.com Global Championship Qualifiers, CGC. Is that sometimes you can do something, your heart can have complete conviction in your need to get something done, but... It might not be enough as you might just not be there yet. No matter how hard and sincerely you fight. And that's okay. Even if you didn't make it, if you gave it your all that's all someone can really ask of another person and even though I didn't succeed with my goal that experience gave me great foundation as a player. I remember being really disheartened when it was over, my final chance squandered... And it looked like there wouldn't be a CGC next year, or if there was it might not be accessible to all. I don't think they really had anything comparable to what they had last year, still I am grateful for the experience, and due to other arenas after the CGC was over I even got to play a legend, Gata Kamsky in a bullet game. Sadly my bullet skills are nowhere good enough for me to have given him a fight, but it still is a historic moment playing against such a legend.

Being a 1400 at bullet at the time and just having terrible speed I figured the result before it ever happened but I still tried my hardest. Though the nerves clearly got the better of me, those dudes are like machines! I recall being very excited to play such a guy. As experience versus titled players is one of the principled reasons why I fought so hard to get into the Play In phase of the CGC, and I might not have done it but I still got a game versus a grandmaster. I remember it was around September or October I believe I reached 1900 for the first time. In 2022 to be clear. After the qualifiers ended. (As believe it or not going on any rating grind when you are playing 66 games of Rapid every weekend against underrated players is nearly impossible unless you're Hikaru strength.) I remember looking at the mirror. Getting to 1900 in a slower time control on chess.com is something very few can say. I think it was around this time I contemplated if this was my time to just get out. My rating was better than 99.8 percent of people on this website. And perhaps compared to a CM, NM, IM maybe I was trash at the game, but to the average person calling me an expert wouldn't be the most unreasonable thing in the world.

Though I laughed from the moment I became a 1800-1900 rated player I mentally saw it as "I was an insane 1600-1700!" as my endgame strength, plans and knowledge outclassed most of the people I played online, but my speed bottlenecked me for awhile. But once I got to 1800-1900 I thought myself maybe one of the most mediocre and/or bad 1800+ in the entire world. Now I will say that might be harsh I've encountered some terrible ones since. But at the time I think I believed it.

Moving on, it was a September day and... I went through heartbreak. Last thing I was doing before experiencing that heartbreak was I was in a chess game. I considered them such a friend after over 2 years of being together that I legitimately thought we were inseparable. It was long distance and moving into a new phase in my life I was thinking about how I was probably going to have to make changes soon in order to progress it to the next phase. I remember I associated chess and the idea of playing another game with that moment, and for a little over a month I just couldn't play  No matter how hard I tried to willing put myself back in that moment? No thank you. I very much had a run and avoid attitude till it was probably to late to salvage some at least peaceful friendship between the two of us. An attitude I gained as I didn't want to be like my father who was a manipulator and still to this day tries to act like my mom can't move on despite being divorced for as long as I can remember. The idea of even being a little bit like that made it so I didn't fight for what I had put 2 years into. And the last thing before that came crashing down was a chess game... 

I told myself that it was my new work schedule, that I didn't want to lose rating, that I'm tired anyway watching a show or movie would be better. But I think that wasn't true, several times during those weeks I'd stare at the play button for upwards to 30 minutes on my days off. It felt like it was daring me to come back and for a long time. Writing this has taken me a minute as it's made me question whether or not I want to share sorta these more intimate things as usually I keep those things to myself.

Me and that person did end up talking at the end of October and let out some feelings. At that time I realized that my love being gone and not my love anymore was okay. But what really broke me was, you can just tell when someone is no longer your friend, as the moments of them being a friend almost shined through in some moments but I think they were more fixated on trying to be right. The day we talked was my birthday and having a definite since of closure in some sorta way (despite not really wanting a closed book completely. I will confess I got more than most people do in those situations and I am grateful, they sorta undermined this later but that's between me and god lol.) It was still a struggle to get myself in the mind frame to play, but it no longer was an impossible task. And whatever turmoil my heart was going through at the time one thing was clear, I'd much rather that anguish be seething on the chessboard and put my all into that as the other thing wasn't useful and making me fail to appreciate all the things that I did have. Which if you're in the midst of it all can be hard to see objectively. Thankfully outside of love I have a pretty level head.

And once I started playing again I probably lost quite a few rating points as that just happens if you take a hiatus. Honestly that was the first time in my chess "career" <-- (using this term loosely I have made minimal profits with chess but not enough for it to be a job, even though I'd be making bank if I was getting paid hourly for all the chess content I consume, create on the board, and put into it all.) where I didn't know if I was going to be back. I was staying near the 1900s, and eventually in the angst I was able to reach 2000. And the first time I did that I wrote a blog about it, and then pretty soon after I went right back down into the 1900 club.

In the chess.com discord server we're back in the 2000-2199 rating channel let's go!!

That being said I think I will focus my efforts now not on getting to 2100 yet as I just don't think I'm there. I'm good but not that good. To celebrate this approaching as I had a feeling it was only a matter of time I changed my profile picture

Which from 1700 I had different variations of this girl Sasha from Amphibia as my profile picture as while another character there Marcy might have quite a bit in common with me, I think in a way if you know this character a big longing they have is for "control" due to circumstances where they had a remarkable lack of it, which is confirmed in the supplemental material Marcy's Journal. In a potentially toxic way that I think I could myself exhibit if I let myself really get overly attached (which I very seldom do I usually can be friendly but also a bit distant at the same time. with the overwhelming majority of people with only 3-4 exceptions off the top of my head.)

And I felt it appropriate for someone who was fighting to prove something.

Last night I couldn't get any sleep and my rating hovering around 1980-1999 <-- yes... 1999 I can not tell you how pissed I was at that. I decided if I wasn't going to sleep then I was going to at least get to 2000. Acting like I can just will that into being isn't true but I felt it.

These are two of the most important games in my opinion that helped me get back to it today instead of it being next week. And the games that are the most exciting, as they were draws from lost positions.

I was white and what I probably misremembered here was I knew there was a knight sacrifice line, but it was Ng5 h6, and then Nxf7. I don't main the king's gambit I just got very tilted and wanted to not get outplayed in my serious stuff. Bad habit when tilted but it was okay. I maybe even had winning chances had I played Kf1 trying to stop the pawn I just didn't realize I could till it was to late.

I got super lucky that my opponent couldn't convert a piece up. I feel like I would have won the white side of this with how much time was remaining but I'll take those lack of Ls any day out of the week! I won't notate and go through every little detail but I think one of the most important confidence boosters was when I was climbing back up the rating latter I encountered a CM and got my first just win by resignation versus a titled player which had me so happy!

 The immediate Kxh7 would have lost the queen thanks to the discovered check but taking first refutes the idea and even against a bozo like me, the endgame is completely winning for black even if you try pretty hard to mess it up!

And the game that sent it over the edge and got me back to 2000, was a game I played in the Scandi! Which almost anytime I got to 1990-2000 range I started playing more serious opening and opting for Caro-kanns from the black side instead of the Scandi, however an argument that I often use but I sometimes forget in the midst of things is....

SCANDI OP!

A game that overall I think I played semi-decent despite telling myself over and over again to stop playing as I really should be sleeping. And believe me I tried to go to sleep so many times my body just was not having it. No matter what I did which was a little bit frustrating but oh well. Such is life. This game is nothing remarkable really, but that's what you learn it's not that you get so much better at crazy sequences most of the time. A lot of the time chess at a higher level has such a nice degree of restraint. Not going for crazy moves and giving your opponent just enough rope to... Well! You get the picture.

This is my highest rating in quite awhile but I believe my highest was actually 2012 if I remember right. Beating a CM this week and getting back to 2000 great accomplishments and win or lose I'm getting the experience to play a GM in a simul tmr which is very exciting. 

Also on a side note I almost forgot to mention this but I got 1600 on the dot on the USCF rating. Which has not updated for some reason yet but looking at my post tournament results I saw I got 1600 which was super cool. Also I drew a CM OTB but I might have already shared that game I do not recall. 

I'd say some of my best chess has come from moments where I have felt the need to have control over something so I go to chess 1200-1500 I was anxious about the end of high-school and the tests and my coping mechanism was chess and great improvement showed, and things happened that helped me get to 1500-1700, and then 1900-2000 at first I think was influenced by me running head first into chess once I got back, but I think the self actualization that has happened as this more or less has become just a for me thing has really helped my sanity lol.

Perhaps I over-shared, but adding some context to sorta the journey I think it allows it to be more human and become more than jsut a game that was played online. I hope to one day say I'm a 2000 player in all time controls or at the very least be able to say I've been 2000 in blitz and bullet too, though I guess I can brag about the only time control I've gotten to 2000 is the one where you have to win on more than just time. Thank you for reading and feel free to share the parts of your story people might not know! And what pushes you're in the midst of it.