Reaching 2300 on lichess rapid in 2024
Professional HS poker player, also very active in chess..
Been playing since i was 6, mostly online on chess.com and lich
if anyone would be able to give some advice on this Question would appreciate----------atm im sacrificing elo points to play side lines on openings im not as prepared. i think my strength is piece coordination, playing with solid positions but at the same time im pretty sure my tactical skills and and long term compensation instinct is very good , like sac the exchange for a 2
A few thoughts:
1. I think you are putting too much emphasis on rating. Rating, by itself, is not really that meaningful. Work on fundamentals, starting with your endings, how to systematically formulate short and long-term plans during the middle game (for now, doesn't matter if these are "good" or "bad" -- just try to always have one), and lastly your openings. Understand the game better and the rating will follow.
2. Play chess for enjoyment. Experiment and learn while it is fun. You're not a professional or making a living out of chess, so it's ok to go on long losing streaks (especially in meaningless online games).
Since you are a professional poker player (please pardon if this analogy doesn't land as I am not), this thread feels similar to:
"I am currently a 50NL online player, I want to get to 200NL by 2024."
"Won a few buy-ins, I'm at 100NL, might quit when I hit 200NL in 2026 if I'm bored."
"Lost a few buy-ins, should I continue to imitate GTO pre flop strategy or should I experiment with my own exploitative ranges that makes me more money?"
Just enjoy and work on the game if it is interesting. Don't worry about short-term results and short-term measurements. Experiment away.
Brief background on my chess experience:
- Not a professional, haven't played for around 20 years
- Played chess as a child/young adult, formerly one of the highest ranked in the US, representing US internationally
- Fide Master at around middle school age
A few thoughts:1. I think you are putting too much emphasis on rating. Rating, by itself, is not really that meaningful. Work on fundamentals, starting with your endings, how to systematically formulate short and long-term plans during the middle game (for now, doesn't matter if these are "good" or "bad" -- just try to always have one), and lastly your openings. Understand t
Appreciate your time to reply , and you mentioned some very interesting points
1) i will disagree with the rating , even tho yes , but im happy that im trying nem sidelines, and maintaining the rating , but my main goal atm and yes i should not aim for '2300' or whatever , cause as you said , it doesnt really matter that much , and could even play with the pure intention of reaching 2300 , which would not be satisfying as i would only rely on playing the same set of openings , and the true rating would be much lower as i would get crushed on other openings OTB
yeah i rely on opening patterns to build my mid game plan , which leads a lot to following 'the correct plan' even tho there's way more to it and what you said made me think a lot about 'experimenting' , and was by far for me and probably for most chess players the hardest part of my 'chess' career to build the mid game plan
2) i really enjoyed this point , as i don't think i was having as much fun as i could have had, i played a couple of games today that i lost, but actually had fun , and the analogy is actually spot on , as i wasn't really being true to my personality , as i always liked to play outside the box and do a lot of dubious fancy plays even even after poker solvers were out , and that's what made it fun tbh, but i think, and modesty apart , that i really have to thank my brain to allow me to do this
im not a full time pro poker player anymore, but i can say that i wouldn't have played it if i wasn't above the curve by a decent margin , even at a high winrate , cash games are absolutely brutal , when you think it can't get worse , its just getting started ..
i have to say tho , that chess is probably even more brutal , you have to spend 4 hours playing a game , making long term calculations , controlling the game , and one inaccuracy and you're drawing or losing , it must be so draining for the brain , esp when you don't manage to convert a winning position, or you miss a tactic cause you're tired or miss an easy draw ..
gratz on the FM , any reason you haven't played for 20 years ?
reminded me of the first time i took chess 'serious' , when i was doing the chessmaster 9000 back in 2002 where i did the Joshua Waitzkin course and the larry Larry Christiansen matches xD think it was the first chess bot post deep blue , pbb slightly weaker
it was actually quite fun tbh , transposed into the scotch gambit , and actually had a +1.8 on move 8 , and blundered Qh5 , Qb3 its winning already , but was happy with the result as it's an opening i haven't played in a while i and ended up learning a new pattern
then i just had a horrible game where i blunder a piece , actually -7 points of material @ some point , and i just had to come up with tactics to try and draw despite being on the verge of resigning several times , and we're actually completely equal on move 27 even white has an 'edge' , and low on time and tired i really messed up the rook endgame , still quite fun to see that i can find some creativity and managed to get from -7 to 0s
Appreciate your time to reply , and you mentioned some very interesting points 1) i will disagree with the rating , even tho yes , but im happy that im trying nem sidelines, and maintaining the rating , but my main goal atm and yes i should not aim for '2300' or whatever , cause as you said , it doesnt really matter that much , and could even play with the pure intention of rea
I think I may have been a bit harsh and was doing a bit of self projection when I emphasized how much rating matters. Back in the day, it mattered a lot to me because it was very important I made the All American youth team every year.
As for why I stopped playing. Chess, like everything else, has a very small community at the higher levels. Jen published an article a couple years ago with some details on the darker side. Sadly, it is not very surprising to me, knowing what occasionally happens behind the scenes. Unfortunately, experiences like Jennifer's does not only affect women. After an incident in my early teens, I woke up one day and just didn't feel like playing anymore. There are a fair bit of sickos (and we're not talking about the good poker playing kind). Going to college and having a normal career was also likely the better long-term decision.
I think I may have been a bit harsh and was doing a bit of self projection when I emphasized how much rating matters. Back in the day, it mattered a lot to me because it was very important I made the All American youth team every year.As for why I stopped playing. Chess, like everything else, has a very small community at the higher levels. Jen published an article a couple
when you say you haven't played in 20 years , does it mean you haven't played OTB for over 20 years , or you haven't played a single game for 20 years ?
yeah i've heard some stories , but its like everything .. the 2500s wont get into the circle of the 2700s , and if you're an FM , peaked IM , you'll just be ignored by GMs
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Made a new chesscom account , couldn't find my old one ratings there tend to be lower , and i've played like 15 games , and already got points back from getting cheated
not my fav place to play chess
Again i can rule out my initial goal , it ain't happening any time soon , luckily i'm dedicating a lot of time to side businesses , who knows .. maybe next year ill have the time to put in some serious time and see how far i can go
but we keep on playing and experimenting ..
1800 rated atm , and all these games are against 17xx to 20xx
playing 10+0 here to force me to play faster , but does get a bit annoying not being able to win K+R vs R cause you dont have a 1s increment..
its a good way to manage time tho , as i also tend to have way less time than my opponents on 10+5 lichess
Struggling to get over 1900 on rapid (10+0) and (10+5), its been like 4 years now
i'm slowly learning, but I won't get a solid 2k/2.1k online rating without putting in a lot of time, playing OTB; can be a good learning experience when playing against stronger players and possibly getting a coach, having lessons for the first time in my life, cause i know i can study efficiently and i'm a fast learner, but at this point, time required to find my leaks by myself, if even possible, could be spent fixing them
its hard to say how much that translates into classic FIDE rating, as i tend to do much better with more time on the clock and made some research, found out that most of the games over 50 moves i tend to win or draw from a worse position, seems like a more Karpovian style suits me better, but for sure i'm not higher than 1800, which makes my goal of reaching 2200 FIDE a 400 point different on an advanced level, somewhat way worse than i thought
I'm still confident i can do it, i'll need to get a solid 2k in the next 2 years tho, don't think i'll have much more time to increase my rating because of age
i do have to say that vs 2100-2200s 70 to 80% of the time i'm lost after move 25/30, and then either win by a missed tactic or cause they are low on time and end up blundering, or i spend 40 moves trying to defend a worse position .. so for me to reach over 2k online i'll need to get a lucky streak, but its irrelevant cause i get outplayed and they find vgood resources even when i get a winning position
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had no idea what i was doing against this opening, and that's why i'm playing these positions more passively and slow, to not get be lost after the first 20 moves ..
but should have known better , missing the key move cause i was low on time is not an excuse, i should find these moves instantly
key move is obviously to check and get the rook behind the pawn , these positions are not always a draw , but there's no point in calculating here , if wanna have any chances of drawing this is a principle that i should not miss
i didn't try to defend this position with stockfish obviously , but i tried playing with black and see how he would defend , i obviously lost all tries up a pawn in 10 moves , so i had to got another bot , and managed to get it in my muscle memory
simple and fast draw is to just get the rook behind the passer, and keep cutting off the K , and wasting time with the R while not extending my pawns
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key move and only winning move, this one i know by heart tho, don't fall for the rook sac , guess he didn't realise it
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Tall would be proud , literally sac the house
---- OPENINGS ---
--> Petrov declined (4 knights)
I've never bothered to learn the Petrov, I don't mind playing the 4 knights, in which white should be slightly better because of the initiative, even tho Stockfish says 0s
I wasn't aware I was doing that well on a symmetrical position, but I think in practice this is probably more like a +0.3 with a solid game
So I'll keep declining the Petrov, no doubts with a 77% win rate
But interesting to understand why i perform so well on these equal positions, where you can play solid, but also maintain the initiative, and eventually with better peace development, create tactical opportunities, and from the results black is always defending a slightly worse position without creating counterplay, maybe something i'll review with AI
A few thoughts:1. I think you are putting too much emphasis on rating. Rating, by itself, is not really that meaningful. Work on fundamentals, starting with your endings, how to systematically formulate short and long-term plans during the middle game (for now, doesn't matter if these are "good" or "bad" -- just try to always have one), and lastly your openings. Understand t
Honestly one of the most spot on posts I've ever read on this forum. Quoting it fully for OP to read again. Learn chess and enjoy the journey. That's it really.
i think my strength is piece coordination, playing with solid positions but at the same time im pretty sure my tactical skills and and long term compensation instinct is very good , like sac the exchange for a 2 way game , and my ability to calculate 5 to 6 moves ahead while spotting tactics is way above average compared to your 2k lichess rated player , and then back to playin
I would be very worried if one of my students wrote me this. Identify your weaknesses and start working on them. You need to be very honest to yourself, otherwise you won't improve.
I would be very worried if one of my students wrote me this. Identify your weaknesses and start working on them. You need to be very honest to yourself, otherwise you won't improve.
ty man
pm'd
Built an AI agent. A chess coach
After a long, precise and deep analysis, I have a high % of reaching 2100 in 1/2 months
This is probably gonna be fun.
I got told what videos to watch, non-negotiable paper book ' Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual' - OTB analyses, and to stop playing e4 d4 c4 nf3
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I'll be playing 50/50 1.e4/d4
main line Italian, open Sicilian, exchange caro-kann and tarrash bagete
catalan variations
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with black
Taimanov Sicilian for various reasons
Ninzo-Indian, which apparently is my most successful opening
- Opening theory
- endgames
- blindfolded exercises
- analyse every game - using the Lichess 'study' feature for those openings
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lets see how this goes.
2 weeks ago:
started with 1800 on Lichess, @1950
started with 1800 on chess.com and @2000
only playing rapid.
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I'm gonna Kramnik a bit on Chess.com.
Once you reach 2000/2050 Elo, every 4th game, you're clearly playing an 1k rated player who hangs a piece or a queen by move 10 😃
- 5 moves later: oh... now I'm playing a 3500.
- move 20: claustrophobia.
- move 30: re-evaluating your life choices and resign
I know you get your points back and that it's impossible to catch everyone, especially when they're 1600–1700s cherry-picking Stockfish moves.
Guess there's a million-dollar algorithm in there for whoever figures out how to solve that :p
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10+5 game on Lichess. Black ended the game with over 10 minutes on the clock.
The position is completely winning and, after Ng5, if ...takes, then d5 and the knight wins the queen.
This endgame is lost tho, so either I'm playing someone on roids or a sh*t bot.
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Horrible opening then being annoying for 10m straight
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I knew Q+P vs P is only a draw on the C and F file.
Didn't want the pawn to get to a2, as you need to allow black to promote in some positions, was a good learning lesson
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Nasty
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Forced draw
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and why not... Any 1500 should be able to convert here
Q vs P is also draw on a and h file. Subbed. Why these viewers dont allow to go back with the moves? Tilting
