Do you suffer from chess addiction? I do. This Blog is my way to cope with it. Instead of playing compulsively, I force myself to analyse my games.
En route to 2100
I'm back to a 2000 Lichess rating (in blitz), which I first reached in March 2020. I find that provided one resists the temptation of over-playing (knowing how to stop) and thus spoiling one's rating, it's doable to get there. That places me in the top 10% players in Lichess, and top 10% of anything is always do-able, with enough dedication. A real challenge is to get to the top 5%, which means a rating slightly above 2100.
Rating objectives met
My objective to reach a rating >1900 on lichess in both classical, blitz & bullet is now met:
Stalemate against three queens
Never give up!
Stalemate in correspondence chess
Speak of a lack of foresight... David, the champion in bringing hopelessly lost position to stalemate, could even achieve such a feast in correspondence chess!
Knowing where to stop
We set some objectives on our chess ratings. I want to reach 1800 on lichess by the end of the year in both blitz & bullet and 1900 in the course of next year. (update: I reached this goal on 17, November (2015) and David on 28 November (2015) for the 1600 thresholds, including classical & chess960, but not king of the hill).
Blitz game 3: Italian Game, Italian Variation
My first inaccurate move, 18..Ne7? quickly led to a complete spoil of the position, and then the blunder 21..f5?? which looses the knight on f3 without compensating by the one on g3. At this point I was demoralized and tempted to resign.
Sicilian Defense, Old Sicilian, General
At least no blunders in this game, but some fairly obvious mistakes (such as missing 26.Bxg6).
French Defense: Advance Variation, Nimzowitsch System
An embarrassing game, with 3 blunders by White, 4 by Black. It was a 5 minutes game and much time was devoted in the opening phase, dominated by Black until the blunder 24..Qe6, missed by White, however. Last moves were made within fractions of seconds. Final countdown was 1s for White, 4 for Black.