The long road to chess improvement

First, I want to thank all my opponents, who have played a game or several games, with me.  You are all my teachers.

Secondly, in the beginning, I played chess just for recreation.  My father taught me when I was very little.  He was a great chess player (with a last name of Fisher even )

This week has been rather special for me.  I've finally managed to reach my first milestone - to reach the 1000 rating and hang onto it. 

Y'all can laugh now... I'll wait for the merriment to quiet down...

One thing that has helped me is to focus on one simple opening.  Learn how to play it in White (and not play it).  That taught me discipline.  Once I figured out how the opening works and all it's variations, I could focus on the opponent's defense.  Many different defenses were presented by some very clever players, some effective and some not.  It also allowed me to think way beyond my current move and look at the board for lots of possibilities.  I tried things.  Some worked, some were disastrous.  But along the way, I learned - sometimes learning the hard way.

After I got the feel of the opening and mastered the discipline to set up my moves carefully, I used the mirror image of the opening to play Black.  It felt weird at first.  I had to be more careful setting up the pieces.  And I lost quite a few games until I started to get the hang of it.  The most interesting thing about the Black opening is that it required a lot of analyzing what the opponent was doing and often, I felt blocked.   So, I learned to look for holes, trying to set up a situation where I could zoom in for checkmate that the opponent could not defend.  It was interesting...  to say the least.

Yes, I lost a lot of games trying to learn this opening.  I also learned not to care about my rating because a little voice in my head said, "When you figure it out, your rating will improve."

I wrestled with this opening for at least a year.  I didn't crack a chess book because my free time is very limited.  Instead, I tried to remember some words of wisdom passed down from my dad in those formative years when I was too little to grasp it all. 

This year, my rating stayed a strong 800.  Then, a couple weeks or so ago, it went to 900.  I'd been there before - briefly - but this time, it stayed there.  And much to my total amazement, it shot up to 1000.  I'd been there before too - very very briefly.

It's been said on chess.com that players at the 1000 level cheat, it's harder to beat some of them than at the 1200 level, and blah blah.  Maybe it's true.  I think if people are going to cheat, they will do it at any level.

I broke the 1000 rating barrier on June 8th.  Two days later, I'm still there.  Don't know how it will proceed, but after a few games, I plan to finally open the chess book I bought a few years ago and start reading when I have a few minutes here 'n there.  And who knows?  Maybe a year or two from now, I'll progress at a faster pace.

My point is simply this:  We all play chess for different reasons.  I read a lot of posts from beginners who are feeling hopeless, people who want to know how to improve their game, people who are fed and quit.  Everyone is different.  But we're all in this together as one big community here on chess. come.  And I'm living proof that if you persist and don't give up, your rating will improve over time.  Hopefully, you won't need 18,000 games to get there

Tonight,  I'm going to celebrate my chess achievement with a shot of Royal Salut !!!

Thanks for reading my post & here's my baby guinea pig, Cestmir ("Fortress") wishing y'all a nice day...