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.
2000 is not nothing, although in a club environment, it is regarded as ~1800 (for Blitz) which is overall described as "starting to get strong". There's a lot of diverging opinions in chess so it's difficult to get a consensus. There are some attempts to correlate Lichess and FIDE or other ELO ratings, see e.g. here or here. One can also use the Elometer. Finally, 2000 is a landmark since it's one of the criteria in tournaments (with players <1300, <1500, <1700, <2000, the latter being a good [or terrible?] way to come back afloat if going below the 2000 waters).
Despite my interest in chess, I failed to take it seriously enough to study basic things like opening theory. I know Giuoco Piano, of course, but not even the Sicilian, which I play 2. Bc4, known as the Bowdler Attack and recognized as a weak move.
So I have decided, from 2000 rating, to move to 2100 by studying games I'll play and in particular the opening. To keep this fun, I'll blog about it. I've made this promise before and failed to hold to it... I'll bring an element of vlogging also to learn about the latter. I'll also play classical games and study problems, to deepen serious problem-solving, although blitz is my main interest as classical is a time sink (blitz also is but the hole size is smaller). I'm routinely well over 2100 in problem-solving and found that I could get a much stronger classical rating but just didn't have the time or the patience. In a nutshell, 2000+ over is time to get serious about chess! No more patzing! Room for becoming a PM!