Chess in Israel

Postprandial chess is generally a bad idea. The body is heavy with the weight of new food, muscles are slow to react, and the brain is lazy. It being a Saturday afternoon, and having slept poorly the night before on account of two mosquitoes in my room, shortly after finishing lunch I decided I needed a nap. Before retiring to bed, however, I sat at my desk for a game of what I thought was anonymous chess. Without checking if I was logged in or not, I selected "10+0 Rapid" from the Lichess Quick Pairing menu and in an instant a game was launched. Earlier in the day I was berating myself for failing to find and create tactics in my games, but in this game my approach was carefree. I wanted nothing more than to sit back and relax for ten or fifteen minutes, maybe even check the news between moves if my opponent was slow.

After months of rating stagnation, the past several weeks saw me reach new highs in Rapid and Daily on Chess.com and Rapid and Blitz on Lichess . However, as was the case the last time I pushed above 1300 Rapid on Chess.com, my wins felt fluky and undeserved. None was flukier than on June 13th , when for no apparent reason my opponent up and resigned on move 11. That boosted my rating to an all-time high of 1317. I spent most of yesterday, a Saturday, watching chess videos on YouTube, solving tactics puzzles, and playing unrated games on Lichess. When I finally resolved to play a rated Rapid game in the evening, Chess.com matched me with a 1326-rated player named sahil0420 and assigned me the black pieces. We transposed into the French Exchange early and I held my own going into the middlegame, but sahil0420 played faster and the clock pressured me into a few dubious moves that gave away the game.