I am returning to chess.com!

  Hello anyone who may still be subscribed to my blog.  I have decided to come back to chess.com and play/interact/ make content for the site again.  

  If you're wondering what I've been up to, well, I've still been heavily involved with playing chess, and studying a bit.  I have only played 1 over the board tournament in the last 5 years or so (went 4-0 and became Omaha City Champion).  However, I was playing almost daily (when I wasn't taking a break from chess) on another site.  It's a site that has a lot of titled players, so I was getting to play a lot of games against titled players in it's 5 minute pool.  I have to say my results in 5 minute at least were pretty good:  I started saving my wins against gm's in my library a couple months ago, and had about 20 gm's beat in that time period.  

  So in general, I feel stronger at chess than I ever have, although my results are highly variable.  Sometimes my mind is on fire (usually when I'm well rested and have drank some coffee), and I just see variations insanely fast.  Other times I struggle to calculate even basic stuff.    

  Why have I decided to come back to chess.com?

  Well, for one, the site I was playing on is slowly dying.  It's not a web-based platform so it lacks a ton of features that a modern chess platform does.  I ended up playing a lot of the same players all the time, so I wasn't getting enough variation in the openings I encountered.  

  One of the reasons I haven't been playing on chess.com is that the titled players all seem to be playing 3 minute, which I dislike compared to 5 minute.  Oh well, time to get used to it

  I'll be making some instructional content on chess.com, and playing a lot in live chess...maybe some correspondence too, not to mention lots of puzzle rush and whatever else. 

  I also have a youtube channel that I have posted some content to, but I have plans to add more soon.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpSdYytm796BOl3MTRnLFJw

  Anyway, I really like the direction chess.com has been going lately.  I have been a member for a very long time, and I remember the early days when live chess barely worked or didn't exist.  I think puzzle rush is great, not to mention things like the 4 player chess and other stuff I probably don't even know about.  

  Thanks for reading, 

Jacob/Zenchess