Milestone: 1300 on Chess.com Rapid

The San Antonio Spurs were my favorite team in the NBA from 2002 to 2016. That was the era of the Big Three, when Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili led the Spurs to four championships. After a victory against the L.A. Clippers in April 2004 in which Duncan scored just 8 points in the first three quarters and Parker and Ginobili shot a combined 0-5 from behind the arc, Tony Parker remarked, "It was an ugly win, but I'll take it."

The game that elevated my rating from 1292 to 1301 was a similarly sloppy affair. Black, rated 1297, replied to my 1. d4 with the Englund Gambit -- except he pursued a line I hadn't explored in "Fuck the Englund," namely 2...d6. After move 10 my clock was down to 7:35 while Black still had 9:34 on his. Increasingly nervous, I proceeded to blunder a bishop on move 12 and was on the verge of giving up hope, but two moves later my opponent hung mate. It was an ugly win, but I'll take it.

Work ethic -- success

Does ascending to 1300 mean I have meaningfully improved as a chess player, or do I have luck to thank for the four-game win streak that got me here? Luck, not skill, was certainly the deciding factor in today's game. Yes, Black's capture of my bishop with 12...bxa6 opened up the b-file and weakened his king, but my king was even more exposed on the fully open e-file. The engine's evaluation of -3.9 after move 12 confirms I had no business winning the game.

On the other hand, I have been careful not to play on Chess.com unless I'm rested, alert and equanimous. Moreover, since mid-September I have been solving rated puzzles daily on Chess.com and am a quarter of the way through Shaun Taulbut's Positional Chess. Granted, these didn't stop me from condemning an innocent bishop to death and my Bullet, Blitz and Rapid ratings on Lichess have for the last month been going sideways; but I feel that without the work I've been putting in, my rating at Chess.com Rapid would not be where it is now.

Game 3 (2 October 2022), move 9

Which brings us to game 3 of the streak, played Saturday, October 2nd. Black, rated 1327 to my 1282, accepted the Queen's Gambit. Now, when Black defends his forward c-pawn after 2...dxc4 with 3...Be6, although it's a line of which the engine disapproves, I find he has ways to hold onto the pawn. But in this game Black tried defending the pawn with 3...Qd5, and poor play from that point led to the position shown above and to my checkmating him on move 32.

Interesting to note about my opponent in this game, one prodiptcg19 from Bangladesh, is that on September 9th he reached an all-time-high rating of 1483. The reason that's interesting is because shortly thereafter he suffered a monumental collapse, and in that context our game on October 2nd takes on a different meaning. To wit, I was facing a player whose performance at the time in question was nowhere near 1483 or even 1327. He was playing the way I play when I'm sick, tipsy or haven't been sleeping enough.

Game 2 (24 September 2022), move 20

The streak's second game was played on Saturday, 24 September against an opponent rated 1305 to my 1273. Assigned the black pieces, I replied to 1. e4 with the French, whereupon White pushed 2. e5 and I played 2...c5 to control d4, quasi-isolate White's overextended e-pawn, and prepare 3...Nc6. We both neglected to castle, but I felt that with superior control of the center my king was safer than White's. On move 17 I captured White's pawn on e5, leaving his uncastled king with no c-, d- or e-pawns behind which to take cover.

The crucial sequence in the game began on move 19, when I attacked White's queen on e4 with 19...Bb7. Identifying a checkmate opportunity against my king with Qf8#, White slid his queen to b4, in the process also offering a trade of queens. I, however, declined the trade and, with the knight that had captured White's pawn on e5, replied 20...Nd5+, a royal fork. White failed to recover and fell to checkmate on move 41. About this opponent there is little to add; his rating peaked the day before our game at 1314, but he has since dropped below 1200.

Game 1 (24 September 2022), move 30

I played three games on September 24th: in the first, I let an advantage of +8 slip away, panicked, hung mate on move 30, and dropped to a rating of 1266; the third was the win described earlier; and the second was the first win of the streak. In this second game, my opponent, rated 1227, opened with 1. d4, and I replied 1...Nf6. White kept leaving pawns undefended or underdefended, and I capitalized such that on move 23 I was up three pawns. On move 25 I had three queenside passed pawns, and one of them promoted on move 30. White timed out after move 42.