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My Improvers Journey!!!!! (March 2025)

My Improvers Journey!!!!! (March 2025)

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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 this post, I will be showing you what I have been doing throughout March, what I've been learning, some games and some puzzles, and some thoughts going forward. 

What's included in this post:

  • Openings I studied this month.
  • Games from this month.
  • OTB Tournament recaps from this month.
  • Puzzles from this month.
  • Where I'm going next.

Openings I studied this month.

This month I was preparing for some OTB tournaments and I wanted to start playing openings that I'm less familiar with so I can improve my knowledge with different structures. I remember that my go-to move was always 1.e4 when I was growing up, and I need to get back into it, so the Italian and Sicilian are back in my repertoire! It's part of my mental journey to learn that I can win from any type of pawn structure, even though it's new. When I play classical, I'll have hours to think, so I can easily figure it out, and online if I lose, it doesn't matter.

Games from this month.

This first game is from a daily game I played a few weeks ago, and it's an extremely instructive game, show casing the power of attacking with opposite coloured bishops.

Up next is a 3+0 blitz game playing in the pool. I was just swimming around when I was paired as Black and I unleashed a Sicilian brilliance!

This month I was grinding for 2400 bullet, and I got that easily. Too easily. So with a couple weeks left in the month, I started on the long winding road to 2500. The path is hidden sometimes, and the edges of the canyons a one premove and one second away from falling down the cliffs of tilt to my doom. After hours of grinding, I was within one win of 2500 -- not the first time I had been here and fallen, you must know -- and I sat down and clicked the final bright green 'play' button. Playing in the pool, I played a 2500+ rated FM from the Netherlands, and the game finished in 15 moves.

This next game was a specialty game. I played a young up-and-coming YouTuber in a rapid chess game for her channel! Her YouTube channel is linked here, and I highly recommend checking it out for some fun entertaining chess content! 

OTB Tournament recaps from this month.

This month I played three USCF rated events: the Minnesota State Scholastic, a blitz tourney after the scholastic, and a quad event. Unfortunately due to time constraints and some homework I had to do, I was not able to write full recaps of each event. I will give a quick overview of the State Scholastic here. 

The Minnesota State Scholastic (5.5/7)

The State Scholastic is a tournament with four sections: K-3, K-5, K-8 and K-12. I played in the K-12 (high school) section, which was a seven round Swiss with a time control of G60 d5, 60 minutes for the whole game with a 5 second delay on each move. I scored 5.5/7 with 5 wins, one loss and one draw. I lost to the reigning K-12 champion, a 2200 NM who beat me barely by an endgame blunder. I will show one game that I won with 96% accuracy, a game against a 1500 that plays like a 2000.

That put me at 5/6 after round 6, but sadly I missed a win in the final round and had to settle for a draw. I scored a total of 5.5/7 and got 8th place, which wasn't bad because I was seeded eighth place from the beginning!

After the main tournament was over, there was a rated blitz event (open to all including non-scholastic players) that I played in and I scored 8.5/12, which placed me second tied with a National Master! But that wasn't my highlight. In Round 2, I played the reigning defending Minnesota State Blitz champion, National Master Andrew Titus and I drew!!!!!! This is by far the best result I've ever gotten in rated play, a draw against a 2300 NM. Titus went on to win the tournament with 11.5/12, so I was the only blemish in his tournament!

Me about to play NM Andrew Titus!!

Puzzles from this month.

Here are some puzzles from this month! Once again, going from easiest to hardest, how many can you solve?

This one is from a blitz game and while the first two moves are quite simple, the final two need a bit of quick calculation.

This one is from a rapid league I'm playing. My opponent played very well, but there's always room to make a mistake, even in opposite coloured bishop situations. 

This is from a daily game against a friend, and after a long back-and-forth Sicilian middlegame, the following tactics emerged.

Where I'm going next.

This weekend on Friday to Sunday, I will be playing in my state championship. You can read about how I qualified here.  I don't know when my next OTB tournament will be, but I am almost confirmed for the US Open in Madison this July. My next Improvers blog post will likely come out on the 6th of April, so mark your calendars! In that post, I'll be recapping my 2025 State Championship run (!), which will be very exciting! Online, I want to grind some blitz and chess960/freestyle, and I'm going to play in some more of the Community Events. Thank you for reading this, have a great day!

P.S. Yes this is a face reveal, but don't be too overdramatic, okay? 

Past Improvers Journey 2025 Blog Posts