Milestones Don't Matter

Milestones don't matter.

Hear me out. I have spent the last 15 months chasing 1200, and then 1300. I finally achieved 1300 just yesterday -- an amazing feeling. I wanted it pretty badly. What is starting to sink in for me, though, is this didn't matter as much as I thought it did.

I had a guy reach out to me on Twitter as I was chronicling my pursuit of this milestone. I was frustrated because every time I got close I would lose a bunch of games. The same thing happened when I got close to 1200. Funny enough, it did not happen at 1100. Know why? Because I never set 1100 as a goal. When I was 1000, I remember talking to my buddy NM Ian Harris and telling him that I was setting 1500 as my goal. He says, "How about we start with 1200?", LOL. And so 1200 was the goal.

1100 came and went with little fanfare. I think I got it less than 3 weeks later. 1200 - the outcome goal, took 6 months. Know why? Because I babied every step of the journey. I sat at 1150+ for WEEKS because I was terrified of losing elo. I went on a 30something game winning streak on Rapid -- which, if I am being honest, is bloated as hell -- largely because I wasn't actually streaking. I would win a game in Rapid, and then play Blitz -- lose a TON of games there, and then, when I got my nerve up, I would play another Rapid game. I was just lucky.

I did this for weeks, getting as high as 1174, I think? Then, I tilted because I chased the rating. Fell all the way back to 1100. This would happen two more times. Finally I got 1200, but 6 months had passed.

Now, to be fair, 1300 took 9 months -- and not because I didn't play. I just wasn't that good. 1300 -- now that I'm here -- I realize isn't much better than 1200. You're a 1200 who makes fewer mistakes, but you still aren't that good. In fact, I'd argue that 1300 online (these days) is closer to around 800-900 in real chess.

My coach doesn't care about my online rating. Calls them "reps". Everything that matters is tournament chess. Still, I see that shiny new rating and I feel like I matter. Which means I am still tethering my worth to it -- even though I shouldn't be.

Anyway, so someone hit me up on Twitter and asked why I was obsessing over 1300, and what would I need to do to let it go? My reply? Get 1300, LOL -- that'd make me let it go. He argued that 1300 wasn't really any different than 1290, or 1310. What was so funny about this was, right around the time I read his comments, I had just won a game, and was sitting at 1299. 

(Side note: 1299 is just evil. The chess gods are trolls. But I digress...)

Two games later I hit 1300. What I realized, though, was the guy was right. I got the milestone, yes, and it made me feel good. But I am basically the same player at 1301 as I was at 1285. I just got on a hot streak and won more games than I usually do.

He asked me what I would do if I hit 1300 and then lost it in the next game. Mind you, I fully expect to lose it. I went through this with 1200. You hope you win a few just to get a little cushion, but because you're basically overrated for the milestone, you're going to lose. The one big takeaway for me is -- if I can get 1300 once, I can get it again.

So, my hope going forward, is that 1300 is the last milestone I chase. I would rather pursue improvement. The milestones will come when they come. This is hard. Very easy to say that after you get the thing you wanted -- harder to do when you haven't gotten to where you want to be.

There will be no "Road to 1400". I need to focus on not missing so many mate-in-1s. I looked at my Insights yesterday. Over the past year, I had 200+ of them, and missed half. That tells me that I could have gotten to 1400 had my focus been mate-in-1s, not 1300.

I'll enjoy this milestone for a few more hours, then it's back to work.