Goals

Earlier this week at the MetroWest Chess Club in Natick, MA I ran into Joshua Haunstrup of the Chess Praxis blog linked in my sidebar. He pointed out to me that I haven't posted in a while, and that is sadly true. So, here we go.

Today I want to talk about goals. My chess goals, specifically.

My first step into non-casual chess was taken over five years ago when I realized that people play chess online. I quickly got fed up with Yahoo! chess and I discovered FICS. I think my goal at that point was merely not to lose as much. I never gave any real thought to playing in OTB tournaments.

A few years later I met a coworker who was (and still is) far stronger than I was. He had a deep understanding and appreciation of the game, and was able to look watch other games and really understand what was going on. This became my first clear chess goal: to be able to appreciate the beauty of a well played chess game between two strong players. This still remains one of my primary chess goals.

It may seem like a modest one, but then again, chess is a strange hobby. Or maybe it's not, but it seems so to me. The road of chess improvement will extend forever for me: I'll never be the best. No matter how good a player I am there will be thousands of people better than I am, so it becomes a matter of personal satisfaction. At what point would I say to myself "I'm good enough." When will I consider myself a reasonable chess player?

I'm still not sure what the answer to that is. I've already crossed the line where I feel that I should (and for the most part do) beat anyone who doesn't consider himself a chess player. Great, but it's no real accomplishment to win just because I put time into it and they don't.

Ok, so I've officially crossed the line between someone who "plays chess" and "chess players." What next?

I played in my first USCF rated tournament just over 2 years ago. It was a G/30, 4 rounder on a Saturday at the Boylston Chess Club. I got completely destroyed by a 1700, 1800, 1200 and 1500 and came out of it all with a rating of 810 and wondering what I was doing wrong. I've come a long way since then (54 games and 650 rating points).

It's clear to me now that I was never truly an 800 or even 1000 player. Not really. I've played a wide range of players now and I'm starting to get a sense of what each class level really means. What I lacked in those first few tournaments wasn't chess knowledge (though my knowledge has grown in important ways in the last 2 years, to be sure) but experience. Playing in serious tournaments is just plain different.

After a few tournaments I took some time off, and then started playing in the various weekly tournaments in the area, both at the BCC and the MCC. Over the course of the fall and winter months I turned a corner with my tournament experience and my ability to play to my true level, and my rating has been climbing (mostly) since. I've hesitated setting any real goals since I'm sort of waiting for the inevitable plateau: at some point I will reach the point where I am using my current knowledge and experience to its fullest and no further rating improvement will be possible without doing real work. I'm still not there yet, and I have no idea when that will happen, but I suspect I'm close. From discussions with other players and my games I instinctively feel that I'm a mid to high class C player, but who can say? 58 games really isn't that many, and once I got some things figured out I haven't spent very many games at any class level:



Sub 1000 - 17 games
Class E - 18 games
Class D - 12 games
Class C - 11+ games

I've got two more rounds in the current MCC swiss tournament (I'll be taking a bye in the last round) and unless I think it's basically impossible to reach class B in this one, so there'll be at least 6 more games added to that class C number, at a minimum.

I'm rambling a bit, but I'm trying to get somewhere here. The question is: what should my goals be? When I talk to non chess players I normally reference this idea of wanting to be able to look over great games of the past and understand them. This is in part because it is true, and in part because ratings thresholds will have no meaning to non players. My personal goal at each class level has been to reach the next one, but those goals have been coming pretty quickly, as you can see. I guess I'm a little more goal oriented than some, but I feel the need to have a long term plan.

What should it be?

Some of you know me (and have even played against me [I'm 0-2 against the chess blogging community, that I'm aware of]) and some of you don't, but I'll ask anyway: where should I set my goal?

I'm sure that I'll never be a GM, and I'm sure I'll never be an IM. Even plain old vanilla master seems a long shot. Expert? I'd like to think I could make 2000 some day, but....is it possible? What are the limits of the chess skill of a player who got serious about the game at the age of 26 and has somewhere in the range of 10 hours per week to put into it?

For now I'll set my same old short term goal: I want to make class B. But to be honest, I'll be disappointed if I don't do it soon, and in my heart I silently append "by 2008." and wonder what my long term plan should really be?

So, this has been nice and long, and not too taxing to read either! I have two games from July that need a little analysis and posting, and I'm a bit of a stat nut, so I have some insights about my own performance to post and muse about. There's time to write 3 posts in the next week, right?!