How I Accidentally Went from 0-2000 in Chess in 2 Years

two years ago I didn't know how to play chess [Music] I didn't even know how the pieces moved but like many others after watching the Queen's Gambit I decided to teach myself how to play the game from scratch less than two years later I achieved a rating of 2 000 on chess.com this is that story in early 2021 I was in the middle of one of my busiest College semesters I was writing and producing a short film getting involved in clubs working part-time and taking a full load of classes but I decided for some reason that this would be a great time to become at least proficient at chess [Music] watching the hit Netflix series the Queen's Gambit was a huge inspiration from my first tentative steps into the world of Chess here was this cool smart Confident Woman overcoming adversity and proving herself on an international stage I wanted to know what was happening on those boards I started watching some videos and playing against bots I learned basic opening Concepts and the values of different pieces and in April of that year I decided to play a game against a real person online and I lost my reading settled in the 700 range for context the strongest player in the world Magnus Carlson is nearing a rating of 2 900. you achieved the Grand Master title at 2500 the international Master title at 2400 and other titles as you climb the radiant ladder those official ratings are for over-the-board classical tournaments meaning games are several hours long I was playing 10-minute games against random people online that summer I started playing more games I experimented with different openings and started learning about more tactical terms and Checkmate patterns chess was really just a fun hobby so I wasn't really putting in any serious study time I watched a lot of videos and played a lot of games that's it my main problem during that time was missing my opponent's threats I was so focused on my own pieces that I didn't see what they were planning but my opponents were prone to similar one move blunders and I started moving up in rating foreign success came primarily from just playing a lot of games but not mindlessly I was really intentional about looking at my mistakes after every game and talking myself through what I could do better next time I decided that I would be content with reaching 1200. I figured that was about the peak level I could achieve without putting in a lot of work and heading into my senior year of undergrad with a course overload in an internship I didn't want chess to become a distraction but of course it was after a bit of a plateau I got to 1200 in November of 2021 but now I was hungry I thought about Chess all the time I woke up with chest positions floating through my head I dove into internet rabbit holes to find middle game plans and openings I was struggling with but there was just one problem chess can be a lonely game in order to improve you have to spend a lot of time by yourself analyzing games practicing tactics and studying Theory I loved watching creators who played Street chess complete with hilarious trash talk I really wanted to play a real game with physical pieces and a physical board I wanted to see if my online rating translated to over-the-board play and in the back of my mind I figured if I was really bad it wasn't worth continuing to put in the time I found my local chess club and worked up the courage to go in January 2022. I found a handful of seasoned players in a food court in a quiet mall and that first time I happened to sit down with the president of the North Dakota chess Association at the time Mr Todd wolf I soon found out that Todd is known in North Dakota as that chess guy he travels around the state to give school and Community clinics and direct tournaments he coaches kids and starts after school clubs within a few months Todd got me involved in the local chess Community I was substitute coaching beginner students and running a kids chess club at the public library I became a regular at Sunday chess club and played in my first USCF rated tournament I even managed to get a handful of wins against some of the club's top players I really liked playing over the board but it was massively different from playing online for some reason I found it much harder to visualize on the physical board and I often lost Pieces by simply putting them on squares where they could be captured for free my first provisional USCF rating was 9.41 a far cry from the 1300 I had recently achieved online but there were a lot more distractions involved in over the board chess from worrying about etiquette during the game to Spectators gathered around my board those aren't excuses but psychological barriers I knew I would need to overcome if I was going to keep improving up until this point I'd never really set a long-term rating goal for myself after I started playing at weekly Club I just wanted to be able to hold my own against those guys but after a few months around a year after I'd first learned to play I got the idea that if I kept improving at a steady rate it would be possible for me to reach a rating of 2 000 online in the next year so I got down to work [Music] I hadn't been playing many rapid games preferring the adrenaline rush of Blitz and bullet but I started playing in the 10 minute time control every day and made a point of practicing tactical puzzles I never really understood the point of puzzles until I started getting hit with simple tactics in my games things like Forks skewers and basic Checkmate patterns were often causing my downfall because I didn't have a strong basis of tactics my skill floor was really low sometimes I saw ideas at the level of a 15 or 1600 but if I kept making 800 level tactical blunders along the way it didn't matter I would lose after an especially bad tournament which caused my USCF rating to drop for the first time I finally got a chess.com Diamond membership solely for the unlimited puzzle Rush which gives you increasingly difficult puzzles to solve gamified so you try to get as many possible Right in a row before getting three strikes I started playing with a three minute time limit which made me drill thousands of easy patterns over and over and over again especially for an adult learner repetition is key the patterns weren't going to become intuitive to me if I only saw a handful of examples I had to be able to look at a position and see the winning idea in seconds only a few weeks after making puzzle Rush a part of my daily routine I finally ended my 1400 plateau he's stuck he can't go anywhere he has to sack the queen let's go my tactical Vision was becoming a little more well-rounded but I didn't have the intuition that allowed me to quickly spot necessary defensive moves or meet weird openings sometimes I thought way too long about simple improving moves and found myself in time travel a lot if you run out of time it doesn't matter how well you're doing on the board you lose I was also still prone to simple blunders which often cost me the game in the first 30 moves I set a new training regimen for myself I would play an hour of puzzle Rush followed by a handful of 10 minute games then I'd study openings the first couple moves you make that usually determine the structure of the rest of the game throughout my chess Journey memorizing opening lines was actually the most fun for me but at this level I rarely got to play out the 8 or 10 move traps I was learning I settled on some more solid openings and learned them really well still usually my opponents would deviate from Fury pretty early and then I had to think on my own I started learning about middle game plans and made a point of playing the lines out on my physical board for muscle memory still I couldn't seem to break out of the 1500 bracket I actually started a document during this period called why I'm losing at the end of each week I would go back through all the games I'd lost that week online and make some quick notes about where it all went wrong this data helps me figure out which openings were causing me the most trouble and showed me that I was mostly still just missing my opponent's ideas I also found that I struggled deciding when to change my plan in the early middle game I played moves I was comfortable with instead of what the position called for [Music] frustrated with my relatively stale progress I took a break from chess while I had a four day work gig in early July 2022. I reread a book did a handful of puzzles and kept up with my daily games but I just wasn't putting the hours in and honestly it felt great my mind had gotten so bogged down with random opening lines and Grandmaster games that I was overthinking every move when I returned to club that weekend I felt the difference I was winning against strong players and when I returned to my lonely computer I lost right away but then I started winning I gained 63 rating points in five days and I finally broke 1600. [Music] oh my gosh okay finally oh my gosh about two weeks later I was at 1700. [Music] let's go well I guess we're 1700 now 10 days later I made it to 1800. [Music] oh okay one blocker and it's done all right I'll take it we take those I guess I was so scared I thought I had such a terrible position [Music] so what changed why did my performance suddenly Skyrocket was I really that much stronger or did the number just catch up with my actual skill level honestly I don't know there were probably a lot of factors that went into it returning from a short break made me see positions with fresh eyes this was also probably one of the most disciplined periods I've ever had in chess puzzles and games and books every single day I was also taking more time to study openings and drilling those lines by playing faster time controls Blitz and bullet taught me the importance of having safe moves ready to go if I wasn't sure what to do the main thing I was learning to be intentional about my thought process gone were the days of one move Wonders on every move I asked myself what my opponent wanted and looked for forcing moves super basic stuff but it made a difference since I was more comfortable with the positions I was getting I got to spend more time thinking about long-term plans long term meant my games were usually equal for the first 20 or 30 moves I maneuvered my pieces through the middle game traded down and often found myself in the end game especially in the 1800 range this is where my games were falling apart [Music] there are in-game positions that are theoretically solved meaning that if both sides play perfectly either a win or a draw is guaranteed there are also end game specific tactics that can turn an equal game into a completely losing one with just one wrong king move I got a new book and started studying just knowing more endgame ideas made me more confident I knew that I might be able to draw a game even if I was down upon and I was seeing strategies for the first time that I probably should have learned months before still I spent about six weeks at 1800 before I made my next breakthrough [Music] it's just too easy it's too easy this was it I knew I was on the home stretch I was really happy with my fast progress and frankly I felt kind of like a 22 year old Prodigy I was on top of the world and then two days ago I finally hit 1900 and then I promptly dropped about 45 points and now I'm back down in the 1850 range I kept just saying like Okay just one more game like I'll stop as soon as I win and I just could not win I lost like five or six games in a row and that wasn't the worst of it I dropped all the way back down to 1775 in the next three days I was frustrated with myself and I realized that I still had a long way to go before I was ready to reach my goal both in my thought process and my skills [Music] I started to be a lot stricter about my chest time I limited myself to three rapid games a day since I knew anything beyond that would burn me out often I ended up playing only one or two even though my rating stagnated at the 1800 range for the next few weeks I knew I was improving I traveled out of town to a tournament for the first time where I got a major upset win I knew my playstyle was getting stronger the content I was consuming changed around this time too outside of pure entertainment the intermediate and advanced content I was interested in involved long lectures and a lot of repetition and memorization it was a long journey with a lot of ups and downs I had a few more disappointing losing streaks every time I had to mentally reevaluate what I was doing I set more achievable goals like avoiding time trouble and kept at it the games were being decided by closer and closer margins I realized that often I was just shuffling my pieces waiting around to be attacked instead of initiating an attack myself I worked on being more aggressive sometimes at the cost of my own defense my games were getting Messier but that's the kind of experience I needed I needed to see the winning ideas hidden in a complex position I needed to fight and finally I fought my way back [Music] this time I knew I was ready to push through those final hundred points I was down to one maybe two games a day and I was winning a lot I knew I could pull myself out of the valleys and finally make it to my goal I just needed to be patient and disciplined I had another out of town tournament in early February 2023 and then I took about a week off from studying I learned from my tournament that my openings were more than solid but I was often struggling to convert winning positions later in the game when I got back down to business I changed up my routine just a little I aimed for three scores of 30 in three minute puzzle rush to start off a study session then I played one single game analyzed it and went to my physical board to practice more difficult calculation puzzles again taking a short break was the reset I needed I could feel myself playing better than I ever had before I was spotting aggressive sacrifices and forcing my opponents to respond to my threats even down a few pawns or pieces I didn't give up all of my hard work was finally paying off one game at a time I was inching closer and closer to my goal finally the big day arrived I knew I was one game away from reaching 2000. but my nerves and the time got the best of me and I couldn't pull it off no I was so determined that today was the day that I broke my one game a day Rule and kept playing thank you foreign out of my mind I worked my way back up to one game away and then I gave it everything I had all right the key is to play the first moves like it's Blitz [Music] I think it works my opening knowledge and tactical Vision combined to win me material from my opponent's early mistakes wait I just I was about to win a rogue in exchange for a night on move 10. but instead of giving up his Rook my opponent made an even bigger blunder [Music] oh my God [Music] at the end of the day it's just a meaningless number on a screen but that number was the result of all the long hours I'd spent improving my chest over the last two years my perseverance had paid off I had proved to myself that if I set my mind to something if I put in the work I could achieve something that was truly impressive and I was really really happy [Music] thank you so much for coming on this journey with me if you like this video please consider subscribing I'll be posting a lot more instructional test content for beginners and intermediate players so let me know what you want to see next see you soon thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: Kamryn

Views: 450,977

Keywords: chess, chess improvement, chess elo, chess rating, 2000 chess, 2000 in chess, kamryn

Id: nQ9gkF840Vk

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 07 2023