Good news and bad news from this month’s tournaments…
Good news first:
My overall results in two August tournaments pushed my unofficial USCF rating up almost 100 points, to 1574. This is the first time it’s ever been over 1500, and I’m very excited about that! Now I can really start thinking about making it into Class B.
I started playing tournament chess regularly in early 2003, after a roughly 20-year hiatus. Here’s my rating history since then:
My rating hovered around 1300 for about 18 months. Within six months of starting lessons with Dan Heisman, it went up to about 1400. It stayed there until early this year, when it started going up again.
The bad news is that I was in an extremely strong position to win the U-1750 section at my club this month, playing and almost winning in the final round against a player whose post-tournament rating is in the high 1600s. But I had the most frustrating and embarrassing last-minute collapse that I can remember.
I’ll write about this game, and what I’m trying to learn from it, in a day or two. Right now I’m still trying to get over it.
2 Comments
Nice work! Sometimes the training we do today doesn’t show up until 6 months later. Play more games with stronger players in the club. This is the only way to put those lessons to a true test.
Hey… beat me and I am a class B player.
George
George – I regard my recent win against you as a pretty unusual outlier. It was a kind of mutual brain freeze.
But hey, as you said in your blog, a point’s a point!