Project 2300 Blog #1

Blog #1 - Start rating: 2092 - 6/10/2025

This will be blog #1 of hopefully a multi year series.

I posted earlier this year about my goal of reaching NM, and after some persistence and luck I made it. It was a lifetime goal of mine to get the title and something I dreamed of since I started here with a rating of 600.

With no more goals, I stopped my chess training and have been getting careless in my games. My ratings for USCF and FIDE both tanked, and in a couple months I went from 2046 FIDE and 2200 USCF to 1950 FIDE and 2092 USCF.

It would be easy to give up here, to say I made my goal and move onto something else, but I still love playing chess and want to play well. I miss the confidence I once had and the ability to compete at a high level.

I need a new goal, so I am starting project 2300. In the next 1-3 years, I want to progress from my peak rating of 2200 USCF to 2300 USCF. To do this, I will follow these basic steps to improve.

1. Observe the differences between you and the players at the target rating level.
2. Address the most glaring differences and close the gap.
3. Play OTB games on a regular basis.
4. Incorporate healthy habits into your life. (sleep well, eat well, exercise, limit drugs/alcohol)
5. Visualize what you want to achieve. 

When I analyze with stronger players, these are the most glaring differences:

1. They calculate much faster, deeper, and more accurately than me.
2. They have better opening preparation and play many more openings than me.

The training plan:

1. 30 minutes of puzzles a day on chesstempo to improve my calculation
2. 1-2 hours per week of new openings (this includes playing 3+2 blitz games on lichess with the new openings and creating a lichess study of all my lines)
3. 30 minutes - 1 hour per week of blindfold training (either blindfold chess or solving puzzles blindfolded).
4. At least 1 OTB game per week.

I am 30 years old and definitely not in the demographic you would expect to improve, but I still think I have a chance of getting there. I'm aware that the odds are against me but the high chance of failure is also makes it interesting. I will follow up later with updates.

Fun! What's the best advice you could give me on how to get NM?

Hey Chris! Wishing you the best of luck on your journey! I’m sure I’ll keep seeing you around at local tournaments, and look forward to playing you again at some point in the future!

Thanks Ephraim! Excited to see your chess journey and progress and hopefully will catch you at another open or gambito.

Your online ratings are quite high. I recommend observing the differences between you and the players at the target rating, address your biggest deficiencies, and play over the board chess regularly.

Hi Chris. It's exciting and encouraging to see you set your sights on "the next step" after reaching 2200. I'm certainly excited to follow your journey along.

Thank you!

Thank you!

if your 2000+ lets play

Best of luck man! We are similar in the sense that we lack conventional chess training, although mine is obviously to a much worse extent. I am just a blitz degenerate with aphantasia who can barely see 1 move ahead!

wish you the best chris, if you want some blindfold play im always up for practicing my party tricks XD

Thank you I might take you up on that!

Thank you, wow that's sort of amazing.

Keep at it! If you ever find yourself needing someone to play some 3-0 with I'm down again.

Thank you, will do!

Good luck! Every drop brings you closer to the top

Do I have a shot at IM/GM? I'm a teen adult (18-19).

I almost completely stopped blitz and switched to binging Chessable videos on the internet.

Probably. I’d set a goal of 2800 blitz. I feel like that’s where lots of new IMs are.

How would you recommend I get into Codeforces?