Remember to have fun

Just wanted to make a thread about a learning lesson I experienced today, and that’s how important it is to have fun playing this game.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the ELO race and the grind that you can end up getting so frustrated and upset with yourself:. However you’d be surprised how much this negative mindset really hinders your development and improvement and may even prevent you from reaching your goals all together.

It may even make you hate chess.

Remember why you first started playing? For me, it’s because chess was actually really fun. I was so garbage, if you played the scholars mate against me I can promise you were getting the win. I had no concept of ELO, and straight up got demolished all the way to below 200 ELO!

But it was the fact that I was having fun that allowed me to quickly learn from my mistakes and get better.

Recently, after months of grinding I've brought my game to a level I'm pretty proud of. Yet like all of us at some point, I hit a wall and began to tilt.

Hard.

I tilted hundreds of ELO in every category and nothing i could do seemed to help.

Until I met some random stranger here on the forums and we played a game. Not to name names, but he was a very weak player and I was able to crush him using a bunch of fun tricks. It was unrated so no harm no foul, but I was literally laughing out loud while playing him. Not laughing at him because he was "bad", but because how much fun we both were having. He learned new tactics, and i had a blast playing.

And it reminded how I played just like him when i first started. No concept of traps or openings, heck I barely knew where the pieces moved.

and that made me feel good knowing how far i came. and it made me remember how much fun chess really is.

in a day, i proceeded to boost my ELO hundreds of points. almost 100 in rapid and over 200 in bullet and 100+ in daily!

And remember; if you’re serious about chess and improving you’re likely spending a large portion of your life doing it. Why make it miserable? Enjoy it!!

Here’s to higher ELO for all, and most importantly cheers to the love of the game!