My First Titled Encounter On Chess.com
What I've been up to lately
After taking a 3 week break from playing on chess.com, I returned on the 3rd of April to make use of chesscom free trial to do unlimited puzzles. I completed over 5000 puzzles within a week and although I hit a peak rating of 3146, I was determined to reach 3200 but as I climbed the rating ladder, the puzzles became increasingly challenging and my rating fell to 2700. I felt as if I wasn't improving at all, it was frustrating, so I took some time off to read some chess books, improve my focus and study the game. I wasn't planning on returning to chesscom for a while since I have upcoming exams, but I cant risk losing my 336 daily puzzle streak, so I log in every now and then to do a few puzzles, then log off.
During the third week of April, I began to study the games of former world champions such as Jose Raul Capablanca, Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, etc. It was very insightful to watch them play and try to understand how they play the game. I wondered to myself "How can I improve at chess", Then I remembered a quote from Jose Raul Capablanca that reads, "You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win" Thus, I began to study some games I've played over the board and analyze why I lost that game to not make the same mistake twice and I learned a lot from three games that I lost but the game below taught me a lot about how I should approach the game:
It was the final round of the National Age Group Chess Championship, I was on 3/5 going into the last game, before the match I realized that my opponent was much higher rated than me but I tried not to let his rating intimidate me during the game, I started to hesitate on seizing the initiative until I lost my advantage and forced into playing defence. The things I've learned from that game were that I should trust my calculations and intuition, capitalize off the smallest window of opportunity that arises and keep focused throughout the game.
The Day Of The Encounter
On April 28, 2024, I didn't intend on playing on chesscom that day but after continuing my daily streak, I felt that I had slightly improved so after some self-debate on whether I should play until I finally gave into the thought and booted up a 3+2 blitz game, I got paired with a 2100 rapid player and I had a winning position but then I allowed too much counterplay and I accidentally drew the game by repetition. I was more confused than upset because I thought if I shuffled a bit I'd gain some time to win the position but think the position was only repeated twice the game ended in a draw.
I played a near perfect game in the third game of the day, where I played into an Open Sicilian. I find the Sicilian Defence very fun to play from the white side, more often I get comfortable positions with a lot of space and attacking chances but the Najdorf is a tough opening to crack, However, I always try to find a way to go on the offensive, and I was proud of this game since I did what the position demanded and capitalized off my opponent's mistakes, I should give credit to all those puzzles I did which enables me to be tactically alert during the game and my opponent simply didn't calculate his moves before playing them which allowed me to seize victory:
