Reaching for 2200: 186 Points to Go

I'm back above the dreaded 2000. After winning a few games in a row, I now have the responsibility of staying afloat. Trust me, it is not easy. Maybe once you get comfortably over 2000, perhaps almost 2100, it becomes easier to hold up. I believe that the reason it is difficult to stay above 2000 once you reach it is purely psychological. We are desperately determined to stay above it, more so than we would be to stay above for example 1900 or 2100. Why? I would guess it is because of the transition into the next thousand. You don't want the fourth digit to change, and it is easier to accept that the ones digit, the tens digit, or even the hundreds digit to fluctuate, but when you get to that fourth digit, it wrecks your mind if you change from a 2 to a 1. There's no logical reason that I can think of.

As of today, 9/6/2021 (or 6/9/2021 depending on where you live, don't be outraged if you don't live in the U.S.), I am rated 2012. Don't forget that this is my rapid rating that I am working on. We will get to my blitz and bullet ratings later, which I don't value as highly and therefore are much lower. If I set my mind to it I think that I could improve significantly. Same for my daily rating. I make my moves as if they were blitz or even bullet games, and only focus on a few games that are more important to me. It doesn't help either that I have 116 daily games going on at the same time. I will reduce that number after most of the games finish so that I can concentrate on less games and use more time to think.

Anyway, back to my progress.

I've had little time to use the study plan. Only one video in IM Danny Rensch's video series Pawn Structures 101 has been watched since the last update last Tuesday. School. I need to be able to actually play too, and have some players who I sometimes play training games with. I do puzzles every day, though, either Rated Puzzles or Puzzle Rush, both of which are helpful in improving my tactical speed and acuteness. My Puzzles rating is currently 2807. I am also rereading Aron Nimzowitsch's revolutionary book, My System again. Every time I read I learn something new. Everyone who wants to improve at this game should read the book. Some ideas in the book are not as relevant in the modern game anymore, such as overprotection which has not been a successful in the chess world, but it is very educational and will teach you a lot about positional play, the center, piece play, endgames, etc., etc.

If you were wondering why I am posting this today, on Monday, instead of usual Tuesday update, it's because I will not be able to post tomorrow! I give that an exclamation mark because I'll be in New York Watching the quarterfinals of the US Open in the Louis Armstrong Stadium! If any of you are going to be watching, I'll be in the third row, so it's possible that you'll see me on camera. Not that you'll recognize me, because none of you knows what my face looks like. Hopefully. If you do, something is very wrong. It will be my first time going to watch a round in a Grand Slam!

Back to chess. Here are some of the games that I played in the last week which brought me back above 2000. The first two are unrated games played against a training partner. I inserted them because of their instructional value. 

In this first one, I completely forgot how to react to Marshall Attack (Gambit), played fast, captured a poisoned pawn, lost the exchange, and got my king surrounded. Not the greatest start, but at least it was unrated and I finally brought myself to look at the Marshall more in-depth after this embarrassing loss. Analyzed lightly, like the rest. Don't tell me I only post games I win! This might be my lowest CAPS score of all time at 9.3. I wish we could search up our accuracy scores somehow in the archive.

Now my second game against the same opponent. Revenge time. I almost lost in the middlegame but managed to simplify and win in the endgame.

These two games were good training for both of us. My opponent has trouble managing fast time controls (in this case 10|0) and I sometimes speed up too much. It is also good practice for me because my next tournament is a 10|0 rapid open. The 2021 Chess in the Park Rapid Open, organized by Chess in the Schools, will be on September 18 in Central Park's Bethesda Fountain. New York, of course. I'm not sure but I think that I will be playing in the unrated section since I am still unrated, but it's possible that I will play in the rated section to actually get my new rating. 

Now to my next game. I pretty much took the advantage and held it for the whole game, and then he missed a threat, lost a pawn, and the game with it.

I had another game where my opponent, rated about 20 points higher than me, abandoned the game on move 7 in a slightly better position for some reason. Free points, I'll take them! But I feel kind of bad I couldn't beat him in a real game. Some other games I lost were by blunders, not very instructive, so I will not post them here but if you want to see me blundering mate, you can check my archive. There are some shameful moments there.

That's it for today's progress update! Maybe I'll post some pictures of top tennis players grunting next time. One thing's for sure, I'm going to have a lot of fun tomorrow. See you next time!