Never quit on yourself!

I just returned home from the Southwest Class Championship held in Dallas, and I wanted to write about this while it is still fresh in my mind. I played up into the class "A" section instead of the class "B" section my rating falls into (My USCF was 1743 going into the tournament). I had wanted to test myself against higher-rated opponents while still giving myself chances to win.

What I want to write about isn't how the tournament went, though I will give those details at the end for those interested, but how much work you put into improvement before seeing results.

How many players work on their game for a few hours a week, and after three months of not noticing any results, suddenly quit deciding it is a waste of time? Should they try to improve for six months, nine months, or even a year without results? What amount of time is too long to wait for the improvement you feel should be proportional to the amount of work you know you are doing?

A little over three years ago, while on one of my extended breaks from chess, I met GM Avetik Grigoryan online. I chatted with him in private messages for a couple of months, hardly any of it about chess, and he re-ignited my desire to improve at the game I have loved my entire life. I had quit two years earlier, thinking I had reached my peak rating and no longer was seeing improvement from my time invested in studying. My rating was around 1750 USCF and been there for a long time.

A short time later, I joined a new chess improvement website that had just launched. I began my work in earnest, and I started by learning a whole new opening repertoire. I had used only the Trompowski from the white side and Simon Williams' Black Lion with the black pieces, so learning a complete arsenal of new openings was quite daunting.

I charged into battle with my new weapons in hand, ready to slay any opponent unlucky enough to cross my path! My opponents, on the other hand, didn't cooperate with me. Instead, they dared to fight and slew me just as often as they had before. My online rating grew slightly, but my OTB rating slid backward since I found myself in many unfamiliar positions that left me feeling uncomfortable. How often have you switched openings, had poor results for the first couple of months, then decided it was trash and moved to another one? I spent close to a year getting familiar with the new opening repertoire before I felt comfortable with the positions I found myself in. The results from that are I no longer fear my opponents' preparation. I usually don't get unfamiliar situations out of the opening phase of the game either, even against strong players.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), a chess game is rarely decided with the choice of opening, and it didn't seem to matter how well I was doing at the beginning of the game. My good start quickly turned sour, and I was on the losing side just as often as before. Meanwhile, my online rating did continue to grow (this was helped by being locked down with little else to do!), and my over-the-board rating stayed static around the 1750 mark (Hindered by the same lockdown).

Also, in that first year, I added many other training activities to help accelerate my growth, including online tactics puzzles, reviewing annotated games, reading books on strategy and endgames, and playing as often as I could. The knowledge I gained grew by leaps and bounds, but my results continued to be less than desired (Is this story feeling familiar to some of you or am I alone in this?).

Many players would have thrown in the towel by this time and invested their time elsewhere, but my love for the game of chess and my commitment to myself and others prevented me from giving up.

With the second year of improvement stunted by the inability to play OTB tournaments, it is hard to quantify any real progress from this time. My online blitz rating had increased dramatically, but my OTB rating didn't budge. On the bright side, I wasn't discouraged by a lack of OTB progress in this second year, as it was beyond anyone's control.

As my third year of focused chess improvement was beginning, I decided to finally take GM Grigoryan's advice a get a regular coach to help me pinpoint my areas of opportunity for growth. GM Grigoryan referred me to the wonderful Nicolo Pasini, and I started working with him to improve my game. Unfortunately, Nicolo lives on the other side of the world from me, so finding time to connect that worked for both of us was problematic and inconsistent. I then reached out to a GM that lives locally to me that I have known for years and asked if he would be willing to help me. In late March, we agreed to start, and I have been working with GM Barcenilla since.

He quickly identified my weakness in tactics, which I had previously tried unsuccessfully to cover up by avoiding complications and set up a plan to help me improve my vision on the board. GM Barcenilla is also helping me deepen my growing knowledge of my openings, giving me new middlegame ideas and opening my eyes to new ways of looking at the chessboard and how the pieces interact on it. Even as I continued to gain knowledge, my rating continued to flatline and stay about 1750 USCF.

So now we come full circle and back to where we started this story. How much study is needed before someone notices it in the results? I have focused on the game of chess for the last three years without a shred of tangible improvement if one is focused solely on the rating chart, but I knew I was ready for a breakthrough!

I entered the "A" section of the Southwest Class Championships in Dallas with a USCF rating of 1743. I played seven rounds of chess with an undefeated 5/7 score (three wins and four draws) and gained over 100 rating points to reach 1855 USCF, finishing in a tie for 4th place in the section! Will I continue on this path upwards? No one can know for sure, and only time will tell, but I do know I saw more possibilities on the chessboard during my games than I have ever seen before.

I am not writing this to get a pat on the back or accolades for my accomplishment (Though I will gladly accept all of those, as we can all use affirmations from our peers!), but to hopefully encourage all of you not to quit too soon. With a game as complex as chess, you need time to absorb what you are learning before it shows in your results. If you keep doing the work, the results are sure to come!

Jay
February 23, 2022