Hello!

The path to GM is obviously long and winded. It takes talent, years, thousands among thousands of hours of dedication to reach not even considering the money investment needed. For my personal path to GM, I just need to complete some of the following steps.

CURRENT --> 2000 All TC ---> 2200 Rapid --> 2000 USCF (Expert) --> NM --> CM (2200 FIDE) --> FM --> IM --> GM

wait... HOLD ON HOLD ON. I'm just going to just play some chess and become GM?

>_< that's not how it works. And if I just said that this was my "plan" for chess, I think B1ZMARK would kill me...

So perhaps narrow down on the first two items, which we will call "phases". That's essentially the main portion of what I have planned out rn as what is called the "Balanced Training Plan". Essentially, after some disussion with other chess players of higher levels such as Nimzo and B1ZMARK, I compromised between my inner speed chess addict and the advices of Nimzo to build a path to success in real, classical otb chess. After all, long time controls is how our true strength in chess is measured.

I was also advised to add some more concrete details to my chess plans. B1ZMARK criticized how my goals were rating milestones alone, without anything on how I will achieve them. In the past, I have had difficulties making myself take the time to write long posts analyzing what my strengths and weaknesses are and improving from past games. In order to fulfill this, I have decided to make one extremely detailed forum post reflecting on my games for every milestone I reach: things I have improved on, things I still need to learn, general insights.

For the purpose of attainability, let's further narrow down to only Phase 1, or 2000 all TCs, which for now this club will focus on. My previous unofficial plan aimed to improve 200 points per TC at a time. This gap is way too large. As seen by my repeated failure to get past mid 1700s in bullet, I need to take my time and not overload myself. Therefore, looking at my current ratings:

Rapid: 1600

Blitz: 1600

Bullet: 1700

the goal is to work from slowest to fastest time control, to improve 100 points at a time such that the end rating is +100 from the end rating in the slower time control. E.g. I will start by getting Blitz to 1700, then Bullet to 1800 (Done! ),

... R -> 1700, Bl -> 1800, Bu -> 1900,

... R -> 1800, Bl -> 1900, Bu -> 2000,

... R -> 1900, Bl -> 2000, Bu -> 2100,

... R -> 2000

In this fashion until my rapid rating reaches 2000.

This will be my goal for the end of the year. If all goes well and I complete this amazing journey, phase 2 will be where the "balance" comes in. Essentially, I will force myself to focus more on serious, longer tc chess with a target of Blitz -> 2100 and then Rapid -> 2200. The idea is that after phase 1 I will cease to make any further bullet goals and after the first half of phase 2 I will cease to make any further blitz goals. In this fashion, I will still be able to play fast chess casually for fun, but won't stress out because of any further rating targets like 2200 or 2500, instead seeking to improve my chess?

You may be wondering where OTB comes into the picture here. Indeed, the first two phases don't involve OTB at all, and instead my first goal for OTB is already incredibly high - 2000 USCF!? Well, the reasoning behind this is a little complicated. I feel like playing OTB will be similar to committing myself fully to chess, and will also rely on the time, money, and overall support of everyone around me. To some, this may sound silly, but for myself this is something I really want to set straight because of past cases in which a temporary passion failed to translate into a long term commitment. I hope that the extremely difficult, but entirely possible goal of 2200 rapid will help me prepare for high level OTB classical play if I find I have this potential, and the whole purpose of Phase 2 transitioning into longer time controls is to prepare me to be wholly committed to OTB chess shall I show I can succeed...

Now, you may wonder, why am I here? I specifically cherry picked you all, talented players who have made this difficult journey yourselves, to assist me in making my own. Alas, it won't be a smooth journey at all, spending so much times playing games, analyzing them, doing practice with other tools such as puzzles, writing long and intricate blog posts to try and learn from my games, to improve, all with the busy year I have coming up. But why shall we allow ourselves to be defeated??? ~

RNBTP

Super Admins