My Improvement in Chess

Chess Improvement - My "History"

As of today (9/18/21) , I've reached a Rating of exactly 2099 2100 in Blitz chess here on Lichess. This is my all time high, but not only did I reach my peak in Blitz, I also have reached it in Rapid with a 2139 Rating. But it took me a long time to get here although I also think, that I will improve even more.

My chess journey began during autumn 2019, I aquired knowlegde through Books and Videos alike. But it would take more than half a year, until I would register into Lichess. During the first weeks and months I played many, many tournaments and just enjoyed the Game. I was quite proud of my 1500-1600 Rating, and I still think that these Rating Categories are like the "First mayor step" or struggle for any beginner, who has learned a few things (and with a few I mean a lot). But as I approached the 1750-1800 mark, my play did not cut it anymore and I had to settle on some openings I previously enjoyed a lot. As an example I will state, that I did like the Ruy Lopez at that time very much, but the I could not play the French with Black, it just felt to cramned and since I didn't like the arizing structure, I played horrible and thought, that the French was an inferior Opening. Today I know, that the French is perrfectly fine - but it just not suits me.

So, what did I do to cross the 1800 mark? Nothing! I just played a lot and adapted. But I occasionally took breaks and read a lot of chess books (but I never finished these books, so I'll have to re-read them eventually). And so, with my biggest advantage, the Opening, I did succeed and acquired a Rating of 1900+. This got me really excited, and I developed somewhat of a Rating fear: I did not want to lose to anyone and lose my Rating, and so I withdrew from playing chess - or moreover, I took a break. And I eventually came back to play, and I eventually lost my Rating, but now that I knew that I was at the very least capable of reaching the 1900+ area, I improved, although slowly.

And then I ascended to the 2000-2100 Grounds, how the reader may justly ask? To be honest, I have no idea in the slightest.

So, how does one Improve?

As always, this differs from person to person. But I would recommend these things:

• Play a lot of games until you know, what kind of structures you like. Of course, you should try out different Openings, until you find some you enjoy.
• Analyse some of these games: Especially games you've lost and drew, but also some, where you won in the end, but were unsure in e.g. the middlegame. At any time you do not like your position, make a mental note about it and try after the game to see, why you did not ejoy the position. Needless to say, the same goes for Blunders. Do not analyse Bullet, Hyperbullet, Ultrabullet and other games of these kinds. You can look at these briefly with an engine, but for other time controls you should analyse first on your own and then check+ (I really hope you got that reference) the engine.
• Analyse famous games, played by masters in the past, e.g. the Opera-Game:
  
  https://lichess.org/study/T5MuJ9Eo
  Or the Immortal-Game:
  
  https://lichess.org/study/W0FQk4eB
  And there are many more master games out there, so you can study for example the different world-chess-championship-matches. And of course, games of masters you've never heard of before are also oftentimes a great source.
• Read good chess books, but these are hard to find and also have to suit you, after all, what can a book give, that you for one reason or another do not want to read?
• Pick an Opening you love! This is, as stated before, very important, since you should have some fun when playing chess. I myself chose the London System and played it many times. And then, after some time, I suddenly switched back to 1.e4 Openings. You should definetely have one Opening you "understand", memorization as well as exessive Opening-preparation is not really healthy, because your Opponent can deviate into dubios lines and even if you know how to fight against these inferior lines, you will essentialy not play chess, you would just throw the moves you have learned onto the board and either win through analysis or lose through lack of experience. In either case, you could only be proud of your Opening-prep, so do not over do it, since you want to improve.
• Take some breaks and play, when you feel good
• Lay focus on important endgame strategies: If you know the most important endgame strategies, you can apply them to your games and to similar structures. The Philidor is a must, so is the Lucena position too. Other positions are also important.
• You may choose to join a chess-club or a team here on lichess. You can also join a tournament/ arena/ or a swiss-tournament/ -arena. And of course, cou can check out chess problems, a chess composition and studies.
• Play some variants, that will help you to improve you standard chess: As such I would recommend Chess960. Other variants are also fine, but I just prefer Chess960, since it helps to improvise and you must find creative plans.
• You can also use a real, plastic or wooden or stone or glass board and pieces and you can also use a note book to study specific things.
• Do not regard Rating as your final goal! Your goal when playing chess and improving should be, to play good and win for the sake of improving your chess skills, not because you want to reach a higher Rating or moreover do not want to lose your current Rating. But Rating milestones are still a nice, healthy thing to keep you going, even if you have a bad day.
• Be self confident and trust yourself! This may be hard for some people, but if you can be selfconfident, then you will enjoy chess all the little more
• And here is the most important recommendation as well as the least saying: Have fun playing chess (and also have fun studying chess)

As we have seen, there are many things one could do to improve. But the sad part of this, that one can only improve so much, some need to study a lot to improve, some memorize like everything chess related. Whatever you take from this Blog, I hope that it will help you and that you enjoyed this article. I will also update the Blog every once in a while. That's it for this time, take care!