I practiced speaking and playing - and not just saying nonsense while thinking my next moves and calculating what is going to happen in the games I play - and I succeeded. I didn't win all my games, but I leave this Road to 1500 satisfied with my results.
It's amazing how hard it affects a player to win or lose the first game, no matter if it's on a tournament, a stream, a weekend matchup... the first game has a psychological weight that if one has no way of controlling thyself, one can throw away the whole tournament.
I wasn't able to regain a 1,000 ELO level but I am close to that, and I am beginning to look at some stability on my playing level, while playing better games while recording - this is good, if I can record videos and hold this level, this means that with no video recording and all my focus towards the game makes me a better player.
I missed the Hive Tournament of this Friday due to schedule problems, but hopefully I'll be able to play the next one.
Series Intro
Chess is a beautiful game, and despite the fact that I'm not great at it, I'm also not that bad.
I learned how to play Chess when I was around 10 years old but I never actually took any lessons, I just played it every once in a while with my dad, and at one point I even got good enough to actually play in the school tournaments. I never won, my best place was second against a guy (or kid? We were like 12 or 13 at the time) who knew just a little bit more tactics than me, if I try to remember I think he knew about the concept of Forks, whereas I was just very good at calculating exchanges and overall positions, but if one of the players knows about Forks and discovered attacks and the other doesn't, then the game will be incredibly one-sided.
Either way, I kept playing over the years but I never took the time to actually get better. I would still kick every other guy who said "I can play chess" but whenever I faced someone who actually played I would get destroyed.
A few months ago I started to play again for fun and damn, I got so much better in no time by taking some online lessons at chess.com and I indeed understood more about the game.
I am currently learning code, more specifically JavaScript and CSS but every time I need some air or to clear my mind, I play a short 10 minute game of chess, which if you think about it, instead of playing three 10 minute games in one day, I could actually try and set a goal for me, stick to it, and upload the progress to Threespeak.
Right now I am a 1,000 ELO player on Chess.com and I intend to reach 1,500 in less than a year from now.
This is Chess for ThreeSpeak. No censorship, lots of bad words, open to anyone who wants to have a tab open of someone ranting at the screen everytime he loses a game, or chanting victory songs every time I get a win.
This is my second video and I already feel more confident and loose, more at home. I will keep getting better at them and I will get noisier and more aggresive once I feel comfortably enough while talking to a camera and a microphone.
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