Week 54: my first 1300 rapid chess rating

January 13–19, 2025: 32 rapid games, 21 wins and 11 losses, and my rating moved from 1238 to 1334 (+96). On January 15, in game 1313, I reached my first 1300 rapid chess rating. The three positions below show why the results and the quality of my moves need separate reviews.

My first 1300 rapid chess rating: the week in numbers

The start was the best stretch of the whole winter: after losing the first game of the week, I won seven in a row (games 1299 to 1305) and went from 1229 to 1287. January 14 alone had ten games, and I went 7–3. With White I was almost unbeatable, 13–3: the London System went 3–0 and the Zukertort Chigorin 3–1. With Black, 8–8, and my Pirc Classical went 1–3 again.

The opponents got stronger as I climbed, averaging 1316, and I beat several players rated well above me: TheLastPrince7 (1405) with 98.1% accuracy, my best game of the week, plus AlexChenkov (1396), Retroperspective (1346) and Teng234 (1340).

Now the less flattering part. My average accuracy, 76.1%, was lower than in either of the two previous weeks, and I made 75 blunders. The game that took me over 1300, against mafimoshgele (1290), had 58.1% accuracy and five blunders from me, including 26...Kf7, where I had a mate in two and played something else. I won it anyway.

Three key moments

Game 1299: the knight that was shielding my queen

With White against Rocket_ua (1214) in the Zukertort Chigorin (game on Chess.com), I was completely winning, +7.59. My knight on c6 was attacking the rook on b8.

. r . . . r k .
p . . q . p p p
. . N p . . b .
. . . . . . . .
Q . . . p . . .
. . P . P . B .
P P . . . P P P
R . . . K . . R

Nxb8 grabs a whole rook. The problem is what it uncovers: my knight on c6 was sitting on the diagonal between my queen on a4 and Black's queen on d7. Once it left, the two queens were facing each other, and it was Black's move. After 17...Qxa4 the evaluation was −3.41: I had won a rook and lost my queen. The engine's choice was simply O-O-O, bringing the king to safety and the rook to the d-file, keeping +7.62. The game went 17...Qxa4 18.Bxd6 Rd8 19.b3, and somehow I won it by resignation. That was luck, not technique.

Game 1300: a mate in three I didn't see

The very next game, with White against ExponentialTilt (1223) in an Indian Game (game link). The engine saw a forced checkmate for me.

r . b . . k . .
p p . p r B . .
. . n . . . . .
. . q . P . N .
. b N . . P . .
. P . . . . . .
P . Q . . P P P
R . . . . R . K

The engine line is 21.Qg6 Rxe5 22.Nh7+ Ke7 23.Qf6#, mate in three. I played Nd6 instead, and it repeated the mistake from the game before: my knight on c4 had been blocking the c-file between my queen on c2 and Black's queen on c5. After Nd6, the engine's best reply is Qxc2, and the evaluation went from mate in three to −5.70. My opponent played 21...Nd4, and three moves later I mated on g8.

Game 1298: a loose bishop I didn't attack

The week's first game, a Pirc Classical with Black against nasinie (1224) (game). I was winning, −5.48.

. r . q k . . r
. . p n p p b p
b . B p . n p .
. . . . . . B .
. . . P P . . .
. P . . . N . .
P . P . . P P P
R . . Q K . . R

Rb6 attacks the bishop on c6, which has no defender. I played e6, and the engine's answer for White is e5, attacking my knight on f6. The evaluation flipped from −5.48 to +1.66. I lost this game later; it was marked abandoned.

The lesson of the week

Two of these three moments are the same blunder: I moved a knight that was blocking the line between the two queens, and my queen became capturable. In both games my opponent was the one who had to find the punishment, and in one of them they didn't. A +96 week built partly on that is not something to copy. The practical habit I took from it is a one-second question before every move: after this move, can anything take my queen? For getting better at rapid, the parts I would keep are the boring ones: the same White openings every game, which gave me 13–3, and playing on in bad positions, which turned at least two losing evaluations into wins.

All games this week

Previous: week 53. Next: week 55, where half of those points went back. All weeks: journey hub. If you want your own games checked for moments like these, Chess Coach can review them inside Claude.

For a general method beyond this week's games, see the rapid improvement guide.