Bullet Chess #12: Getting to 1900 on Lichess Bullet

Back in my early years of playing online chess, I had struggled so much to maintain my playing strength at around the 1800 to 1900 rating levels, and that was already in blitz. It was even harder trying to stay in that range when playing bullet. Only after I was able to get the hang of playing chess in general and knowing how to play with time was I able to be more consistent in those levels. But it gave me great joy and excitement whenever I broke a new level in my rating. From 1500 to 1900, it made me happy because I felt that I was making progress. I felt like a little boy who just got the thing that he wanted most for Christmas every time that happened. It was the same for this game. I reached 1900 rating after playing this game.

I played against the Caro-Kann opening, something I'm not completely used to but I'm not in the dark about it either. I tried to simplify early on. I didn't want to have the complications of keeping pawn tensions and such so I exchanged the center pawns right away and I even exchanged a pair of minor pieces. However, this was when my opponent made a blunder, by not taking back my piece. From there, I was quite sure that it would be smooth sailing. One thing that beginners need to keep in mind is that though you shouldn't worry much about the opening, you should be careful not to lose your pieces or a strategic position either.

So that's what happened and I had a comfortable game throughout. When you're up a piece, the best thing to do is to trade down to an endgame. And that's what I did. In fact, my opponent lost another piece after that. Since I was up two pieces, I also just traded another pair of pieces, a rook for a knight but since I had enough material advantage, I didn't really care whether it was an exchange sacrifice because my only goal at that point was to simplify and get to a winning endgame. After all of Black's pieces were gone and only the pawns remained, he resigned seeing that I was up a bishop and a pawn.

I was ecstatic when I won the game. My goal back then was to at least get to 2100 and stay there. From that point, I will just try to keep climbing up the rating ladder until I can at least be on a par with those who have 2500+ ratings on Lichess. Right now, I'm still far from that goal but at the very least, I have improved throughout the years. If I would take studying and playing chess seriously with some guidance from someone stronger than me, then perhaps I would be able to reach that goal quicker. But as it stands, I don't have the resources for that. I don't have the time, the energy, or the money for coaching. So I will stick with what some casual chess games online until I can pour my attention into this game more in order to achieve that goal.