Why I Ditched My Rating Goals

Like many adult improvers, from the first moment I got hooked on this beautiful game I wondered how high I could get my rating. For the past year my goal has been to make it to 2000 by the age of 55. While the number is completely arbitrary, I think that is the level where I could objectively say that I was good at chess. Over the past several weeks I have been exposed to some very helpful ideas that culminated in a breakthrough where I threw out my 11-year plan focused on a number for a more meaningful set of goals. Here they are:

My chess goals are to: (1) pursue learning as much as I can about this beautiful game by making meaningful progress on my Dojo training plan every day and (2) make meaningful contributions to the global chess community by sharing my story, finances and learnings with those in need of inspiration, resources and instruction.

This blog is a story of how I went from point A to point B. I hope it will help others find meaning as they pursue chess in their own unique ways.

The Genesis of the 11-Year Plan.

Matt Jensen of ChessGoals (https://courses.chessgoals.com/) wrote an article entitled "You Can Make Chess Master At Any Age" (happy to share a copy if you can't find it via Google) where he uses his statistical skills to outline protected rating progress depending on age and rating level.(As an aside, Matt is awesome and ChessGoals is a fantastic resource for training plans and courses that focus on every aspect of your game). For the first time, I had something objective and data-driven that I could use to calibrate my ultimate chess goals. For me, that resulted in a 11-year journey to 2000 Lichess Classical. Here was my plan based upon Matt's great work:

December 2024 - 1659
December 2025 – 1744
December 2026 – 1784
December 2027 – 1824
December 2028 – 1864
December 2029 – 1904
December 2030 – 1920
December 2031 – 1940
December 2032 – 1960
December 2033 – 1980
December 2034 – 2000

So, I was off to the races typically putting about 20 hours a week into training, playing and analyzing. While I heard Ben Johnson on Perpetual Chess ask several adult improvers there "Why?," it never really occurred to me for some reason that I should ask myself that question on a deep level. Of course, my superficial answer was that I had a goal and was working towards it. But why? Was 11,440 hours of my life worth reaching an arbitrary number? Now we turn to the part of the journey that led me to answering that question in the negative.

Dojo Talks

A few weeks ago, I listened to Episode 47 of Dojo Talks: A Chess Podcast and Kostya, David and Jesse did a great job of outlining the negative aspects of focusing too much on one's ratings. The episode is definitely worth a listen and started to get me thinking as to whether my 11-year plan, by definition, had me focusing too much on rating. One of the negative aspects highlighted was that people who are focused too much on their ratings sometimes choose not to play (or fear playing) because they don't want to lose rating. We will come back to that insight later in the journey.

FM CheckRaiseMate's Blog

If you are reading this Blog, you have also likely read FM CheckRaiseMate's insightful blog entitled How Do You Stop Caring About Rating? The article is very well written and deeply insightful. If you haven't given it a read, I would highly recommend it. I won't recap the article's insights here, but it is clear that this article helped solidify some of the doubts that began to take shape listening to Kostya, David and Jesse.

Perpetual Chess

It is only fitting that the final straw was an episode of Perpetual Chess as most of my knowledge of chess and the world that surrounds it comes from this amazing podcast. Given that I started listening to the podcast in 2022, I have a lot of content to catch up on (he is currently on Episode 362!). The episode that struck the final blow to my 11-year plan focused on an arbitrary number was Episode 256 where Ben Johnson interviews Alex Crompton in the popular Adult Improver Series. Alex was not a very strong chess player at the time the interview occurred and had only been playing for a year, but the 97 minute interview had fresh insights and perspectives that I had never been exposed to. I definitely recommend giving it a listen!

There were several insights that were helpful, but the one insight that struck a deep chord with me was Alex's insight as he started developing a study plan to ask: "What makes a chess player good?" Or "What differentiates a good chess player from a bad chess player." I realized in an instant that I had never really asked that question despite that is what I was spending 20 hours a week trying to achieve! Another pretty remarkable gap in my thinking!

His answer was not entirely earth shattering. Essentially the answer he came to was that good chess players have better first candidate moves and their calculation simply affirms their initial candidate move (intuition). More than the answer, the question struck the final blow in my 11-year plan focused on an arbitrary number. It also helped me to see its shallowness.

Holiday Space

My life is packed. I'm a lawyer, adjunct securities professor, husband and father of 3 (13, 11 and 6). In that packed flow, I create around 20 hours a week to study chess. As an aside, I often hear people on Perpetual Chess or otherwise talk about how they only have 15 or 30 minutes a day to study chess and I just roll my eyes. We all have the same 24 hours. As my uncle told me when I was a single recent college grad who had all the time in the world but didn't think I had any time: "David, you always have time for what you make time for." That rebuke has had a huge impact on my life. It is true, you always have time for what you make time for. Well, almost always. I understand that there are always exceptions. But, for me, that has always been the case.

The holidays have afforded some extra space in my life to think and process different insights that I obtain over the course of time, like those outlined above. On a long walk today, I connected the dots that are set forth in this blog. While it was scary as I have invested a lot of thought into my 11-year plan focused on an arbitrary number and communicated that plan to many people, I had no doubt that it was the right thing to do.

Then the question arose, what would replace it? I realized I needed to inject more meaning, more of a focus on process and something broader than just myself and an arbitrary number. That is how I arrived at the two goals that I outlined at the start of the article. Rather than focusing on an arbitrary number, the new goals focus on making meaningful process on a daily basis. As one of my favorite professors always used to say "The secret to being excellent is being average every day." At first I totally disagreed with that statement, but over time the wisdom packed into that one sentence has had a significant influence on me.

Rather than just being focused on me and an arbitrary number, my new goals focus on making significant contributions to the global chess community by three means: (1) my story, (2) my finances and (3) my learnings/insights. I believe that one's story is the most meaningful thing that a person can share with another. While I'm not entirely sure how my story will contribute to the global chess community, I am committed to sharing it through this blog and other media that pop up from time to time. I am a resource constrained individual with the lack of a trust fund and three little humans that cost quite a bit. But, I am committed to exploring how I can use the resources that I do have to contribute to the global chess community over the long term. While I am a beginner, I know more than many people who are just taking up the game. One of the many things that I love about the Chess Dojo is its + = - approach. That is, everyone should be learning from someone more advanced, collaborating with their own peers and sharing insights with those who are not yet at their level. What a great community of learning! I am committed to thinking of ways that I can share my chess learnings who are earlier in their chess journey than I am. I honestly don't know what form that will take other than in the context of the Dojo right now, but the goal has been set! To say that I am very excited the breakthrough that happened today is an understatement.

What Now?

While there are several benefits that I expect to flow from today's transformation, here are a couple that came to mind today:

• Injection of deep meaning and purpose will help fuel the daily grind!
• Removing a number from the focus on an 11-year journey will help remove the significant level of fear that is currently present in my game. When the most important thing about chess is rating, the thought of losing a game creates fear that inhibits one's ability to play and the thought of winning injects excitement that also distracts one from staying in the present and doing the hard work of playing chess!
• There is a quote from a GM that I can't recall that was to the effect of: "Don't play chess to win, just play chess." When I stop focusing on whether the game at hand will hurt or help my rating, I can adopt a mindset of curiosity where I try to learn as much as possible from each game that I play, win or lose.
• The rejection of an 11-year plan based on an arbitrary number has also started to have significant impact on other areas of my life where I am doing the same thing. For example, since 2018 I have been laser focused on being a Chief Legal Officer/General Counsel of a Public Company. But, why? I had superficial answers to that question like that is my only potential ticket to the C-suite, etc. However, like an arbitrary number, Chief Legal Officer/General Counsel is an arbitrary title. As such, I also gave up that goal and recalibrated it in line with how I recalibrated my chess goals. Instead of shooting for a title, I am shooting for staying in a place like where I am now - that is, where I am fairly compensated, do meaningful work, enjoy the people that I work with and believe in the underlying mission of the company. Wow - that is a different mindset and much more meaningful way to live! I look forward to seeing how this sort of thinking continues to reshape and reframe other areas of my life! Hopefully it inspires you to think about things from a different perspective, as well!