Hello everyone,

It's been a while since my last topic post, but this post isn't asking for advice, rather to let you know that I have finally reached 1200 rapid, so I am now 1203 in rapid!

After some dedication this week, I reached 1200 today (January 12, 2023 in Australia here), expecting to reach it only at the end of my holidays. Here's the game:

( https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/67239628603?tab=review )

For those of you who can't be bothered to analyze it and whatnot, fair enough (you probably have better things to do), so, at an engine depth of 30, the computer thinks this (I was playing black):

It was a 35-move game, by the way. 35 moves!!! And I had 92.6 accuracy!!! Sure, for you 2000 rated players, you are probably yelling at me for making an inaccuracy, or something of the like, but for me, 90+ accuracy for more than 20 moves is fabulous, and with 0 missed wins, blunders and mistakes, it sells to me as the perfect game. It would have been better if I made a great or brilliant move, but maybe chess.com's engine is saving 10 brilliant moves up for my game to reach 1500... I don't know.

Now, though I said I probably wouldn't post more topics until I reached 1500, this sub-goal for my 1500 journey is really important to me, because I can now say I am an early intermediate player (by pretty much everyone's standards); chess.com's engine Level 6 at 1000 is intermediate, but I would say that in general about 0-1200 is beginner, 1200-1800 is intermediate and 1800+ is advanced, though not completely accurate, either way the point is that I'm still early intermediate finally!

Looking back, plateauing at 1100 was not fun at all; in fact, it was frustrating and annoying. But, after putting in the actual focus when playing chess, I got there. Easily too, not like I had to learn some complex concepts or anything; I suppose focus is all I needed, and it probably still will be until 1400-1500.

I only lost a couple of games from my swift 1100-1200 spike (which only took me a week or so), and one of them was to a 1300. The funny thing is that I was winning by a pawn and had a massive attack, but just blundered a minor piece even after checking heaps there were no tactics. It's nothing to sweat about though, I would say, because I wasn't confident enough; with time, 1300 will come.

Now I aim for 1250 rapid by the end of the holidays (which would be brilliant!), then I will most likely have to focus on school and other activities, so I will need to figure out how I can fit chess in to reach 1500 by about April.

Thanks everyone again that contributed to helping me get here, 1500 is just a bit further down the road, and good luck with your own chess journeys!

TurqouisePLAYER

Chess.com Legends Club

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