My Improvers Journey!!!!! (February 2025 Pt.2)
Welcome back to my Improvers Journey! This series is dedicated to following my chess journey through the Chess.com Improvers club, a movement that is helping over 30,000 members find coaching, helpful tips and growth. In the first part of my February Journey, I recapped an OTB (over the board) chess tournament played in Minnesota that I competed in. You can read about it here. This post will be more general, showing some of the areas I worked on and improved on this month.
What's included in this post:
- Openings I studied.
- Games from this month.
- Puzzles from my games this month.
- List of Achievements.
- What's next?
Openings I studied this month.
This month I decided to develop a repertoire for both online chess and OTB chess. Although the Tiger Modern (which is the name I use for a Modern with g6, d6 and a6) has worked very well in classical, I'm soon going to playing 2000s regularly and the imbalances will not work in my favour against masters. So I worked on playing Nf6 and d5 as a response to 1.d4. These work just as well, and with enough practice they will become second nature to me.
Games from this month.
Here are some top highlights and amazing games that I played this month. This first one was a comeback. I was playing amazingly, had a brilliant move, huge attack, you name it I had it. The world was my oyster. But then I hung my rook for free. Somehow, despite this being a daily game with three days to make each move, I hung a rook. But I persevered, kept attacking, and with only a queen and a bishop, I won the game!
Next up is an unrated game played against a 2600 in 3 minute blitz. This is probably me playing at my finest, and it's my highest blitz win on chess.com (if you allow for the fact it was unrated).
Puzzles from my games this month.
This is a new feature that I'm going to incorporate into my blogs from now on: puzzles! I have selected a few positions from my actual games and put them into puzzle form so YOU can have a go at them! The easiest ones will be the first couple, and then the final few will give all you seasoned veterans something to chew on!
This one is from a recent daily 960 (or freestyle or Fischer-random) game.
Next up is an easy tactic from a bullet game. I'll give you the first move, because it's not obvious. Play Qh5 first. Don't fall asleep for the final move though!
Up next is from a rapid game played in a league competition. In the position, I've amassed a huge advantage and it's actually Mate-in-6. Can you find the moves?
This final one is the toughest of the month. Can you find the impossible move?
That was from a state championship game which you can read about here. It's in game #2.
List of Achievements.
Another new segment for this month! I apologize; these next few paragraphs are going to be me bragging about my many accomplishments this month. I do believe however that if you achieve a goal, especially if you've been striving toward that goal for many weeks or years, you should make a big deal of it and celebrate it. Celebrate the journey and take joy in knowing what you've completed so far. So without further ado, here is what I did this month in a nutshell.
Okay, okay! Enough fun, this is actually what I accomplished. (but wasn't that funny?)
I did the following:
- Qualified for my State Closed U2000 Playoffs (State Championship). You can read about it more fully in this article.
- Raised my USCF rating to over 1900.
- Raised my bullet rating to 2350+ (on my way to 2600). The bullet road is long and winding, but I'm still grinding!
- Raised my daily rating to 1550+.
- Beat a 2400 NM in 3check. I competed in the Chess.com 3check Championship and although I didn't win, I beat a 2400, a 2200 and a 2100!
- Established a puzzle battle rating of 2000.
- Wrote two amazing blogs that you're reading!
What's next?
Next up is March, the beginning of spring. I'm a sixth of the way into this incredible journey, but the hardest is yet to come. In March I will be spending extra time on openings and middlegames as I have two difficult OTB tournaments ahead of me. I will also grind my online ratings quite a bit and aim to crack 3300 in puzzles.
Thank you for reading! Have a great day!
P.S. Does anybody know how to add puzzles directly from a game? I tried to edit a puzzle in the middle of a game so when you solve it you can see all of the analysis but it kept starting the puzzle from Move 1, which won't work. Any expert that knows how to do this, please let me know in the comments, I appreciate it!
Past Improvers Journey 2025 Blog posts
