Year in Online Chess

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A little more than a year ago, I started playing chess online.

I played a little in elementary school, when a friend of my grandmother’s gave me a book about chess. It was “Babies playing chess” and I was really hooked on the game. Nobody in my family could play and we didn’t have a board, so I cut pieces from cardboard and played against myself on the flyleaf of the book, where the board was printed. It wasn’t taken seriously by my mother, and after some time I stopped playing altogether.

my first chess book

Throughout my life, I come back to this story in my mind and feel dissatisfaction. Maybe if I had asked my parents to bring me to a chess club, I would have met some interesting people and had another hobby, more social than programming. Maybe I would have gotten some more enjoyment and fulfillment in my life. Maybe not.

A year ago I decided to check it and started playing games on lichess. They were hilarious games. I lost a lot, won a lot. Every game had a lot of turning points. Even if you lost your queen on turn five - it doesn’t matter. Two turns later, your opponent will lose theirs.

I watched some youtube videos (primarily Gotham Chess whose video previews I truly hate) but the most improvement I got when I solved puzzles. A lot of puzzles. Pattern recognition is a very important part of the game of chess. You need to see forks, checks, mates and you need to see them fast. Puzzles give you pure experience in searching for and finding important things on the board.

After a few months of playing and solving puzzles, I started to get more benefits from youtube. I saw a lot more on the board than before, I understood much more from host’s talks.

In nine months of practice, my chess routine was to solve a dozen puzzles and play a few games twice a week. My elo slowly grew and I even started to visit a small chess club in Moscow once a week. The club was a fun place. I didn’t get much information from it, but meeting different people and playing games with physical pieces was a joyful experience.

I changed my routine in february of this year. One day I thought that I wasn’t doing enough with chess and that I needed to focus more on the game. So, I moved chess from a weekly activity to a daily one. Almost every day I solve five or so puzzles and play one or two games. It wasn’t too time consuming, but I really started to improve my skill and my elo. Almost exponential.

try to find february

At my peak I reached 1318 and, after that my focus has shifted and my elo stabilized a little below 1300. I am happy with my results. Now I know that I can play chess, I can win, and I can have good games. Not games where the result is decided by who blunders the last piece, but much more thoughtful games, where even a pawn lost in the opening can decide the endgame. In the next game I will lose my queen on turn ten.

And I met some people thanks to chess.

Now I live in a different town and don’t attend a chess club, but I visited a chess event at the office recently. And it was really fun (I lost all my games).

I will continue to play chess (almost) daily and attend events when I can. Now this hobby has become an important part of me and brings me a lot. I love chess now, like I loved it in that short period of my childhood.

The gestalt is complete.

konyahin

Year in Online Chess