Quest to 2222 USCF

<eye roll>  Why do you need a ssn?

since I want to make sure you are economically self-sufficient.

Wondering how long it will take for this to be closed due to someone scamming for PII data.

Ok. My name is Kim Jong-Un, my rating is over 9000, and  my SSN is 314-15-9265.

Sir, you can't simply reveal your information online like that! The rest of the world isn't like North Korea, where it's all rainbows and roses. There are a lot of bad people out there, like scammers who could easily steal your information and impersonate you - or worse, assasinate you at an airport! Being the leader of North Korea, it must be difficult for you to fathom how people in the outside world could be so evil - but trust me, they are! You wouldn't want them to get their hands on you!

That seems far too modest a target for the august discussion threads of this noble chess site. Aspirants here sir, usually wish to become Grandmasters at the very least, usually at what the world would regard as too old an age and in too short a time frame.

You disgrace this forum by having such a low threshold of expectation. You should be ashamed of yourself. I mean, you don't even want to be a lowly IM !

good point. scratch everything I said. time to be a gm. how does one play chess and where does one buy a gm title?

LOL!  I was thinking the same thing.  So few realize you have to break a big problem into small steps, not only to be likely to realize success but to keep from getting frustrated!

When I coached high school track and cross country, after the first couple meets of the season, I would sit down and we'd set goals for them for the final 12 weeks of the season.  We'd set a high goal - if everything goes right, a probable goal - if the struggle to improve turns out to be as hard as normally expected, and a minimal goal - an improvement that is the least acceptable to the athlete if everything (not including bad injury) goes wrong.

That way, the athlete always had a goal to try to reach.  I'm 1396 here in rapid and think it's reasonable to be 1500 rapid and 1600 in 30 min or more games and expect to have time to play often by Spring and reach those ratings during the year.  But if 1400 is all I manage to get to, that's still an improvement over the 1200 initial rating here.  On the other hand, 1800 would be a surprise but not unbelievable.  So as long as get a little better, I'll still feel like I'm heading toward my goal.

If I don't get significantly better over time, then I'll know I need to do something else: a chess teacher, etc.  But I'm comfortable hitting a minimal to a maximal goal now!

Haha, this is great!