A year into my chess journey - Part 2

After several games of just trying to figure things out and being quickly overwhelmed, I decided to try and bring some structure to my chess adventure. I decided to purchase the Diamond membership and get access to all the resources here on chess.com.

First up was the lessons. I began working through the basic courses, following the suggested order of chess.com. I made a lot of mistakes that are funny to think about now, like getting stumped by simple fork and pin exercises. All-in-all, I found these super helpful.

I also did some reading and it was suggested that I pick an opening for White and Black. At this time, I was also watching content on YouTube and Twitch, trying to pick up some things by watching various streamers (more on that later). I wanted to find an opening that was stable and all signs pointed to the London for White! For Black, I decided to focus on the Caro-Kann, which was an answer to the most common 1e4 move by White. A year in, I have been playing these openings almost exclusively.