March 1, 2025 Chess Ratings Update

This is the first of what I hope will be a long series of chess rating updates. It’s only been two weeks since my initial post, so this is a shorter update than future monthly ones.

Chess Game Ratings Update

The “Period delta” reflects the change over the past two weeks (in the future, one month), while the “Total delta” indicates my progress from the start of my journey. Since this is my first update, both numbers are obviously the same for now.

As you can see, I broke 700 in Rapid and 1200 in correspondence/Daily. 🎉

Chess Puzzle Ratings Updates

Reflections About Daily Games

Daily (correspondence) games can take several days or even weeks to complete. I realized that playing just one game at a time could create a significant gap between my actual playing strength and my rating on Chess.com.

To illustrate this with some hypothetical numbers: Suppose each game takes about a week, I have a 60% win rate, and I gain or lose an average of 15 points per game. Over 10 games, I’d gain 6 × 15 points and lose 4 × 15 points, resulting in a net increase of 30 points, or an average of +3 per game played.

Starting at 1189 and aiming for 2000, this pace would take 270 weeks (over five years). Of course, the math isn’t exact. Many factors come into play, like the fact that if my skill improves faster than my rating (due to the identified gap), my win rate should increase and I would be able to gain more points by beating stronger opponents.

Still, the key takeaway was clear: playing one game at a time wasn’t going to cut it.

Choosing How Many Daily Games to Play at Once

I decided to try running 12 Daily games simultaneously. Once most of them are completed, I start new ones to maintain that number.

I suspect 12 might be too many, as I’ve noticed myself blundering more often than when I was only playing one game. With multiple games, I sometimes forget a threat I had spotted earlier or miss a tactic I had calculated, defaulting to instinctive moves instead.

Over time, I’ll probably need to fine-tune this number and bring it down a little. Possibly reducing it to a more manageable 6 (or even 3) games at the time.

The 12-game approach still helped me gain 61 points in just two weeks which is really good. But I expect a dip in March, since my remaining current games are mostly against stronger opponents and I blundered in one game against an equal opponent.

I should be able to assess if 6 instead of 12 games is a better approach by experimenting with it in March.

Reflections About Rapid Games

I’m happy with my progress in Rapid. I still have a tendency to blitz moves instead of using my time properly, but I’m improving. I’ve miscalculated a few times, but my biggest issue is clearly openings.

Right now, I’m mostly winging it, and under time pressure, I feel rushed to move before fully assessing the safest option. This has led to falling for simple traps. For example, in a Rapid game yesterday, I lost my queen to the Englund Gambit. As a d4 player, I really need to be prepared for tricks like that.

In another game, I was black and played 1… e5. In haste, I picked 2… Nf6 the Petrov defense, an opening I’m not familiar with at all. Moreover, one that has many traps available. I lost my rook to one of them and eventually the game.

Thoughts on My Opening Repertoire

I think correspondence games are great for practicing the middle and endgame. However, I’ve failed to use them effectively for openings so far; I’ve mostly blindly relied on Chess.com’s opening explorer without really internalizing the opening lines. I need to start studying openings sooner rather than later, and daily games could be a great way to reinforce them then.

My initial plan was to use the following openings as my battlegrounds:

• Jobava London (2. Nc3) as White
• Caro-Kann against 1. e4
• Queen’s Gambit Declined against 1. d4

I like the Jobava London and have been doing well with it, so I might stick with it. The only issue is that I have not found great material on it. I have the Chessable course by Ginger GM but I find it lacks beginner explanations. If I switched to the regular London, I would have an endless amount of study material from novice to grandmaster level.

I haven’t studied the Queen’s Gambit Declined enough yet to form a strong opinion. But I don’t think I like the Caro-Kann. I’ve ended up in some sketchy positions and nearly lost two correspondence games the same identical way (though I miraculously won one). And that’s using the best lines from a Chessable course. It’s quite likely that I haven’t studied the main ideas yet so I reach the middle game unsure of what to do with it. Obviously the Caro-Kann itself is fine. I just don’t know if it’s suitable for me at this stage.

I’m tempted to consider a simplified approach:

• Jobava London (2. Nc3) as White
• 1… d6 against everything as Black

My only concern with the d6 against everything approach is that it goes against IM John Bartholomew’s advice to start with “normal openings” rather than “conquer the center later” ones. Also, the name might be “d6 against everything” but my understanding is that it’s really a combination of Pirc, Philidor, and King’s Indian.

If you’re a coach or a stronger player, feel free to chime in on these openings.

Regardless of what I decide, I need to make better use of my Chessable membership to fully learn these lines, understand the ideas behind them, and apply solid opening principles to avoid falling into dumb traps.

Overall, I think this road to becoming good at chess later in life will likely be even harder than I expected. But I’m excited for the challenge and I think I made good progress in two weeks.

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