National Master: Ask Me Anything

do you play any video games?

I played as a kid. Chess tactics would have helped my life more, imaginably.

ah, i see.

how was the daily puzzle discovering daily puzzle nirvana? was it easy 4 you? cuz 4 me it took 2 attempts cuz i got the 2nd move wrong on the 1st try cuz i played Qg4 but i figured it out after and got the rest of it. is 2 attempts good for a puzzle like that? it took a while to solve the daily puzzle
im 2046 in puzzles is that good?

so whenever i solve a puzzle and my king is in check and i cannot capture the checking piece nor block it then i have to move my king. where should i move it? what do i do when that happens

u know what i mean right?

just keep playing more. If you experience difficulties, solve more puzzles and check the computer after your games to learn from the biggest improvements

compare your options and check the opponents threats

Over the past year I’ve been improving at chess a decent rate. The only ever times I’ve “plateaued” is when I didn’t have time or didn’t spend time on chess. I’m expecting to hit 1800 by the end of July (it’s likely I could push to that rating now but have decided to spend my time studying instead). I’ve been able to keep myself improving by spending a few days thinking really hard about chess as a whole and how I play it. This method of self-reflection lets me see what I need to work on and how I need to work on it. My question is, do you think I would be able to continue to use this method to reach the NM title without ever getting a coach to tell me what I’m doing wrong.

How old are you? Younger players have a tendency to improve with basically any method.

#176, 16.

Hey Elijah sir,

I feel like I always exploit my chess rating. I first go up to like umm... 700, 900 then down to 800 and the cycle goes on. I am stuck on this damn cycle of war between me and my rating. So can you give me tips to improve? I play chess maximum 1 - 1.5 hours a day. I feel like this is actually a great opportunity to improve. And for my age, I am 11 years old. So please help me.

Solve many puzzles! At first what you said sounded like "adult ratings" because being stuck in a variance band is pretty typical among older players, especially those who aren't seriously studying or analyzing their games, although even then! I saw you only played 174 games though, and adult rating graphs can fluctuate without progress even with thousands of tens of thousands of games, so I'm not too worried for you. It looks like you just haven't played much games yet, and you actually gained some rating. So be more active, solve puzzles, and as you measure progress more in terms of weeks or months, it will be evident that you are actually improving. If you want something to apply, look into Paul Morphy's games, there are some YouTube videos, some free Chessable courses, and of course, solving puzzles. There's chess.com's free puzzles and others as well.

It's realistic for you to eventually reach NM even without coaching, given that you are young and NM isn't that high of a title, relatively speaking. You might really want to use your time before 18 very seriously and immerse into puzzles and books if you have the focus.

You need a national rating of 2200+ and three tournament norms with a national performance rating of 2300+ if you want to be a national master (nm)

You don't need any norms to earn the NM title

how long have you been playing?

I've been playing for 6.5 years or so

I played especially actively from ages 13 to 19. I'm 24 now, returning to tournament chess.

What was your first acount?

* account