My Chess Journey

I don’t know what got into me when I started playing chess. I guess the biggest influence was that I played chinese chess in primary school. I think nearly all the boys in my class played chinese chess back then, every time during break. I don’t remember clearly; it was too long ago. Chinese chess is a lot different from international chess, but it was similar enough for me to understand how the pieces move. My dad also contributed in helping my journey in chess. I used to play him whenever I wanted to try chess out.

At first, my starting elo on my original chess.com account was around 400. I believe that was my starting point on my chess journey. I remember in my past school, called Discovery College, I met a person who played chess as well. I played a few games against my friends on another chess platform called lichess.org. I recall one game where I was completely winning, but then I didn’t know how to checkmate with only one rook, which made me quite annoyed. After the game, I looked it up on chess.com. I managed to push my elo to around 700 when I joined my first chess tournament in Discovery College. I won against all of the students in my house, but lost to another house. After that, I pushed the elo on that account up to 1000 elo. That is all my memories of chess in Discovery College.

When I came to FIS, I remember joining the chess ECA in Year 10. It allowed me to build on my chess foundations and push my elo to 1200. I created a new account for chess, because I lost the previous account. I didn’t intend for it to be my main account (the account that I play on the most and the one with the highest elo), but I managed to win many games. I restarted as a 500 elo, which allowed me to be able to prepare for my chess journey and learn more tactics while I played against lower elo players. My chess teacher also helped me train because he knew I was better than the majority of people in the ECA, and he played me himself. Of course, since he was a grandmaster, I lost most of the games. But, he gave me advice on openings, and taught me a lot. This was one of the reasons why I was able to push up until 1200 elo. 

Recently, I played a lot during break time, and I remember before the summer break I was at around 1300, going up and down in that range. But I learnt the London system, a very solid and annoying opening to play against. I also watched some youtube videos about the English Opening and the Italian Game, and that really helped me to reach 1400 because you need solid openings in order to get there. My endgame also improved, because I can actually calculate endgames during a game. Today, on November 9th 2025, I am at 1500. It looks impressive, but I still have a long way to go if I want to push further. What helped me get here, though, was thinking about whether or not I can sacrifice a piece for a checkmate, and being able to estimate an opponent’s move after what I play 70% of the time. Thanks to GothamChess (known for sacrificing his rook) and other content creators, I now consider if I can sacrifice pieces for a good position or for checkmate.

I hope my memory of chess can help you go for higher Elo, whether you play seriously or casually. I really enjoy chess, and if you have just started or are going to start playing, I hope you have fun too!