Reached 2200 Rapid after 4 years and 19k games!

I finally reached 2200 elo in rapid today. I've got almost no opening theory knowledge and have always stuck to the Italian and solid development like activating the bishop, then knights and castling. I'm not a sacrificial player either although at times I do experiment. I've always reacted to opponent moves when playing as black and accepted gambits without even thinking . I get punished severely many times, sometimes I get out alive and even win. In a way, this has improved my defensive capabilities actually. I almost always have played way faster than my opponents and a lot of them lost to me by getting flagged. Also I've set the pairing elo rating as high as possible so I get paired against stronger players mostly I think.
Only recently did I start looking at the Catalan opening(a week back or so) and lost many games haha. I did study and watch tutorials on rook endgames though, mostly GothamChess, Ben Finegold and recently Daniel Naroditsky's endgame series on Youtube (still ongoing).

In summary my lessons are these:

• Stick to one opening as white and solid development
• As black, be defensive and rock solid. You'll have to calculate some in the beginning but soon you'll play instinctively.
• Study rook and pawn endgames. Never resign and always keep fighting on till the end. You'll learn a lot from that, take the opponent along the path of greatest resistance.
• Be calm, don't stress out, be polite or maybe do some playful trash talk

All in all, I've realized that chess is indeed a lot of pattern recognition at the end of the day. I plan to continue playing, although will take a break now I think. I also plan to play my first OTB tournament soon.

Here is the game that made me 2200:

Well done 🙌 Something I might never achieve 👏

Cool, an excellent journey, KnightSJU. That many games is a learning paradise. I like that you advocate for never resigning & that you're going to play in your 1st OTB tournament. GL & happy chess, 🙂♟️

Thank you! Don't say that, it's actually more likely that you'll achieve it if you be consistent, keep yourself up!

Thank you very much for your kind words!