How I Accidentally Went from 0-2000 in Chess in 2 Years

Two years ago, I didn’t know how to play chess. This is the story of my journey to a 2000 rapid rating on Chess.com.

CHAPTERS:

  • 00:00 – Intro
  • 00:25 – How it all started
  • 01:54 – Playing for fun
  • 02:27 – 1000
  • 03:23 – The OTB chess community
  • 05:19 – Operation 2000
  • 06:23 – Puzzles and 1500
  • 07:56 – Openings
  • 09:39 – Suddenly 1600, 1700, 1800
  • 12:22 – Endgames and 1900 pt. 1
  • 13:28 – Tilt
  • 14:08 – Ups and downs and 1900 pt. 2
  • 15:44 – Patience
  • 17:48 – The last game
  • 19:37 – Thanks for watching

Расписание

Sunday

2-3 hours – OTB games at club Game of a Great

Monday

  • 1 hour – Puzzles
  • 1 hour – Rapid games + analysis
  • 1 hour – Opening studies – London all c5 lines

Tuesday

  • 1 hour – Puzzles
  • 1 hour – Rapid games + analysis
  • 1 hour – Opening studies – French

Wednesday

  • 1 hour – Puzzles
  • 1 hour – Rapid games + analysis
  • 1 hour – Opening studies – London all non-c5 lines including KID

Thursday

  • 1 hour – Puzzles
  • 1 hour – Rapid games + analysis
  • 1 hour – Opening studies – English, QGD Cambridge Springs, Catalan

Friday

  • 1 hour – Puzzles
  • 1 hour – Rapid games + analysis

https://www.chess.com/member/smalltowngoose

14 Comments

  1. This is actually insane.. she did exactly what she is supposed to do – analyze own games, learn the classics, study endgames (technical and strategic)

    • Wow so much you can do when you do exactly what you’ve been told to do. The thing she has over others is discipline, very respectable.

    • Yes, lots of people could beat him at chess, but he’s only ever seen playing noobs/influencers, and, like him or not, he’s WAYYYY more successful and better at life than all us chess nerds

  2. The title should be “How I dedicated time and effort over two years to achieve a goal that many will never achieve, thanks to critical analysis of my weaknesses”. Well done, very inspirational. Not particularly accidental, though!

    • Yeah, this is thousands of hours of concentrated and consistent effort, “accidentally” makes it sound like she hit her head and became a chess genius overnight

    • “to achieve a goal that many will never achieve,” huh? Anyone can reach 2000 online if you just pay enough attention. i don’t have any problem with the video, the video is awesome . the thing that bugs me is that people always appreciate their achievement not on it’s own merit but on the thought that their will be people who will never achieve the same goal, a way of deriving pleasure by seeing people below you, by seeing them fail. i wouldn’t recommend this line of though, just my advice.

      • if anyone Can, doesn’t mean everyone Will. I don’t think the statement is used to derive pleasure from seeing people below you, but in fact to point attention to the fact that what a person did is uncommon, because of the difficulty required. I don’t know if the statement or the comparison is necessary persé, to use to praise accomplishments, but I do think it can be seen as an objective observation. Eg not many people will do x, is just an observation. The additional meaning of pleasure I think you attached to it

      • yeah anyone can, but not many will achieve, yk what the quote is, its just a fact that a vast vast majority will never reach 2000 online.
        and the only reason its valuable is because of its position above other people, i mean thats what the elo system is its a way of quantifying how good you are compared to other people. so im not sure what other line of thought you could have. but its not directly that either, its just seeing your success, not their failure.

    • Yeah, I clicked because the “Accidentally” in the title gave me hope that there is a shortcut to getting good. But I liked the video anyway, even though it basically said “hours and hours of hard work and study”, which I already knew.

  3. I have been playing for 8 years now and I’m rated 1400, I play like one game a week because I’m not really into chess anymore but this video has given me the motivation to start actually taking chess seriously. My goal is 2000 as well, I’ll come back here when I get to it. Cheers.

  4. Thoroughly impressed with how you conducted your work. Extremely disciplined, especially when you went through a rough patch where you were losing rating. Being a grandmaster, I know how hard it can be to go through those periods where things are just not working out. Hope to see you continue on this path! I’ve already used this video in my teachings and I hope to see more chess related content from you in the future. Best of luck! :).

  5. As a 25yo woman who really got into chess about a year ago, this is truly inspiring. I started at like 600 ELO and am now at 1150. Thank you so much for sharing this!! I wish you lots of joy and learning in the rest of your chess journey 🙂

  6. That’s super impressive and quite motivating. I’ve been caught off guard recently when my once stagnant rating started to climb. I think it’s because I have been inadvertently taking your tip of doing one 10 min game per day and analysing it deeply and looking for problems each time. I still bang out the occasional bullet or blitz game, but it’s just to warm up ready for the one important rapid game of the day.

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