My experience in chess after 1 month/300 games.

First, my context: While I don't know how to play chess, I was familiar with the movements, rules, and some basic notions (controlling the center, castling early...) as I learned to play as a child. However, I haven't played a single game in the last 25 years.

The idea was to learn on my own, no books, videos, or courses, just me against the world, and see how far I could go. Not very far, it seems.

My experience: Truth be told, it's been a mix of feelings. While it has been fun, and winning games is a very gratifying feeling. I had never played with a clock, so the first games were tough, and out of fear of falling too far behind on the timer, I played fast, too fast, which led me to make huge mistakes. I still make them today, but to a lesser extent. Honestly, the most frustrating thing is the traps. Game after game, the same moves, trying to checkmate in 4 or 5 moves, or positions where if I brought out my 2 knights early, I would be attacked in a way that demanded my queen (I still have problems with this). I've lost more games than I care to admit, but it was all part of the learning process. Today I still struggle with players who use the queen very early and abuse positional mistakes.

The 2 weeks of free premium: After playing about 100 games and understanding the basic concepts a little better, I stopped playing against people altogether, activated the free trial, and dedicated myself to playing against bots, starting with the lowest level ones. Nelson helped me a lot with my problem of players who use the queen early, although I still make mistakes when playing with time. After a week of playing exclusively against bots, I went back to playing against real players, and the change was considerable. In a short time, I managed to go from 350 to 500 elo. I know it's not much, but it's honest work.

Cheaters: According to a statement from chess.com, the number of cheaters is very small, but my feeling is that there are more than they want to admit. Players who, after the first 10 moves, give away their queen and some minor piece, start playing perfectly, all moves in the same amount of time. Some players I reported, chess.com informed me of 10 bans, and I suppose there are more that, due to my lack of knowledge, I didn't realize were not playing honestly.

Draws: Almost all draws are due to my inability to be clinical in the endgame, suffocating the enemy king and wasting great advantages by not knowing how to finish the game. But as I said before, it's part of the process.

Summary: I am currently at 530 elo, 154 W (50%), 12D (4%), 142L (46%). Overall, it has been a good experience, and without a doubt, I'm not going to stop playing for a long time, although I'm going to continue with my philosophy of "just me against the world" for a while longer.

TLDR: I think I've fallen in love with chess.

Good Luck with your future games and continued growth as a chess player. Caissa is easy to fall in love with.