Minor accomplishment for me



So on Chess.com you can do leagues, where you just get points for every win (9 for 5 minute games (Blitz), 15 points for Rapid (10 Min). 3 minute Bullet were always too fast for me (you get 3 points). 

It's a fairly crude tournament, you can just grind yourself to a win. But it makes you play a lot of chess, and focus on winning because you don't get points when you lose. I don't like to quit when I get behind but I'm more and more inclined to give up, despite spectacular comebacks. Sometimes it's too dire. Sometimes it's sweet relief to get checkmated, to play someone who has that quick killer instinct. 

Sometimes in games I imagine both of us have our hands around each other's necks, choking each other, who's going to pass out first? 

Playing a lot has improved my ranking, I got it up to 800, which is nothing, I know, but it's something to me because I live in the 700's. I think my highest ranking is 908 when I won my first game. You start out at 900. I've played 5,085 games since February 2021. I've won 2 more games than I've lost, and drawn 251 games. I won 10 games in a row once. I have a 50% chance of winning white, and 45% chance of winning black and 5% chance of drawing. I feel pretty streaky, sometimes I win a lot, sometimes I lose a lot, and I wonder if my concentration or my mental state is different, but I always feel pretty much the same when I choose to play chess. When that happens, I think maybe I just ran into some good players, or I ran into a bunch of bad players. Life isn't so black and white, but since I can't identify the mental state where I win, I can't take all the blame.


Leagues:

Wood (Top 20 in each division advance)

Stone (Top 15 in each division advance)

Bronze (Top 10 in each division advance)

Silver (Top 5 in each division advance)

Crystal (Top 3 in each division advance)

Elite (Top 3 in each division advance)

Champion (Top 1 in each division advance)

Legend - The top, nowhere to go from here!


Moving through the leagues was easy at first, and that kind of primes the pump to want more. I just got to Champion league. It took me a long time to really try in Elite, because it was so competitive. For some reason I busted my ass when it started, and got into the top and just kept myself there. I was worried at the end so I played a lot of games to ensure I went up, a last minute spurt to avoid others, but there was nothing to fear, I was in second. I'm so burnt that I can't even try right now to raise in Champion league. I was in the 500's. I looked over my past history and I think I got to 800's once. (More info here.)


Most people don't play chess. So the ones who do seem to be super serious. I've never been able to become obsessed like I have with soccer or Buddhism. It's like opera, I don't know enough to get obsessed, I just like it even though I don't like studying. 

I tried to collect all my blogs into one, but it doesn't work and that's Motley Kamuka. That ended up being politics and literature. There are contractions and expansions. 

Turns out I tried to do a chess blog before.

Another award, new openings.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Premature queen development

Image
My best friend and I played 5 minute speed chess for hours and hours. I love playing chess.  My father taught me. I remember copying his every move, and then when he took my queen he said, "stupid." That stung, but it was stupid, I'm less afraid of that word now at my age. I'm going to be 56 soon, and I've enjoyed chess my whole life.  Played chess when I did a year abroad at a university chess club, and got excited when I won a game. I had some glorious comeback wins, down two pieces to come back and win. I like my fight.  Got my friend a book that explained why premature queen development wasn't good. I was looking for it on my bookshelf, he gave it back to me when he konmaried his books. I can't find it at the moment, maybe I konmaried it or gave it to my son. I have 3 children and only one likes to play chess.  As a chess tutored, I just play and think aloud with kids. I taught chess at a Yeshiva after school program to kids. Forgot about that, that w
Read more

Principles

Image
There's that pause when my opponent realizes I took their queen. It really is a good strategy not to get the queen out early, least of all that if you make a mistake the, the cost is less. You put the least valuable players out first. You put pawns to try and get bishops and knights. Development is an important idea, getting locked in is really dangerous. I've had a lot of good checkmates, against me, where I was bottled in out of defensiveness.  There's also balance between being defensive and offensive. I've had some spectacular fun wins being really aggressive. That's a fun game, but a good player can defend themselves well enough to take advantage of aggressive play. Same with defense. Just clearing the back line so you can castle isn't a bad goal, but there's a hierarchy of goals. Sometimes there is no good move, so you make the least bad one. Notice when you're in a loop. You have to value every move, the more efficient player usually wins.   If yo
Read more