Opening In the past three and a half years, I decided to improve at the game of chess. In the following post, I will break-down the lessons learned and steps taken in each year of my journey that brought me from 900 ELO to 1423 ELO in Blitz and 1100 ELO to 1657 ELO in Rapid on Chess.com. 2021: Beginning In December of 2020, I finally listened to recommendations to watch Netflix's The Queen's Gambit . I had forgone watching the show for a couple months as I had always been disappointed in chess depictions in media in the past, with the exception of Searching for Bobby Fischer . However, I succumbed to the peer pressure after a couple of months and binged the whole series. Shortly after, I created a Chess.com account on the day before New Year's Day 2021 and began playing games. In high school, I played two chess tournaments and got 4th place without putting much effort into preparation. I remember thinking that I would be vastly better than most people online. I...
Hierarchy of Strategic Knowledge Introduction In looking at a variety of strategies and tactics, I thought it would be beneficial to develop priority guidelines of knowledge acquisition for competitive strategies. While rudimentary, I believe the following concepts hold true for most competitions. 1. KNOW THE ENVIRONMENT 2. KNOW THE SELF 3. KNOW THE OPPONENT The proportion of knowledge in each section will vary from each person, place, and competition; however, I believe the following prioritization will optimize knowledge acquisition beginning with environmental knowledge, followed by self knowledge and capped by knowledge of the opponent is preferential in development of strategy. Strategic Knowledge Hierarchy Breakdown 1. The first priority when collecting knowledge for the implementation of a strategy for any sort of competition is, KNOW THE ENVIRONMENT. It is necessary for a player to understand what the arena of competition is and what the boundaries...