Tips to Hit 2400 Blitz

Chess.com comrades,

Despite the young age of this particular account, I’ve been grinding to break 2400 blitz for quite a while, and now I’ve finally done it! I am hype! Two years ago I hit 2300 and this wall is easily the toughest to scale (which makes sense, only gets tougher). This jump felt similar to 1700-2000 or 2000-2200. I figured I’d share some tips that helped me recalibrate my game from 2300 to climb the next 100 elo points.

1. Opening Prep: I have a couple chess friends around my level that have said something along the lines of “dude honestly I’ve never even studied openings.” Well guess what, they are full of crap. They'll say this and then proceed to blitz out 10 moves of prep with an understanding of the middle game ideas to follow. Frankly, I knew my openings were my biggest pain point. At 2200 I could feel that I had worse positions right out of the opening way too often. I bought a GM’s course on 1.d4 for white for under $100. It came with chess files and video courses. The GM was also kind enough to provide chess files for some openings as black as well. I used those to learn some Sicilian. You will not hit 2400 without booking up - this means exposing yourself to lines, ideas, understanding and some memorization. Experiment and find where you are comfortable, be it e4, d4, modern openings, aggressive, defensive, positional, tactical. Figure out what openings you like and then I highly recommend purchasing a course from a GM to help you book it up. Once you have the course. Write it down somewhere. I use lichess studies but you can also use chess com or a third party program.

2. Repertoire Changes: There are so many lines in chess, the chances you choose the opening repertoire that best suites you in the long run on your first shot is low. Use the website chessmonitor to see where you are taking the most L’s. I realized that I needed to put Sicilian down. I get that GM’s can play it in blitz no problem but it was too tactical, too much of a coin flip for me. Right when I stopped playing Sicilian and changed to e5 with black, I achieved a new all time high before even booking up e5… I bought my second chess course ever on e5 from a different GM, $50. I know for sure my chess game will improve past 2400 because even at this level, I am not even close to being done prepping my own lines… I still have so much ground to cover.

3. Chess Understanding: Don’t hit 2000 or even 2300 and think you understand chess fully. I picked up the book Mastering Positional Chess by Johan Hellsten on Chessable and oh my goodness it changed the way I view knight blockades among other things. Pay attention - if you aren’t a strong master, chances are you are missing positional fundamentals in this game. It’s up to you to find them. If you’re a member of chess com I highly recommend IM Jeremy Silman’s (rest in peace) Strategy Lesson series I and II on this website. It’s very similar to Johan’s book. It’s less organized but still super difficult and helpful and an insane amount of content where Silman explains most of the wrong moves for you as well.

4. Keep it fun: If you are truly wondering how to hit 2400 then chances are that you are already deeply in love with chess. So booking up can be fun, but we all hit our limits. If you are constantly booking up then you will burn out and lose motivation. Something I did to enhance my interest was work in some blindfold chess games. I don’t have the board visualization to actually properly play chess blindfold but I can sometimes squeeze out a win against a new beginner. ZlinedChess on YouTube has some example blindfold problems, not many though. I started thinking about just one quadrant of the board on my way to work and started naming if they were black or white. It’s just for fun. No consequences for screw ups.

5. Understanding the Battle Front: This is online chess and these guys at 2300 will grind until the clock stops. You can’t stop fighting. Improve your chances by being in a place with good WiFi, enabling premoves. I played on my phone when I hit 2400… but I played on Safari web browser so I could premove multiple moves if necessary. Time scrambles are tough. Understanding chess is fantastic but have you looked at your clock? You should know when you have used 30 seconds. You should know when you have used a minute. You should know when you have used half your time and you should certainly know when you are down to one minute left. I play 3 minute no increment format primarily. I understand that even though I’ve put my blood sweat and tears into a position that when my opponent and I are at less than 20 seconds we are very close to “all bets are off”. Drop the ego and play a darn move, good or bad. Get a lead on the clock early if you can.

I hope these tips help! Good Luck and have fun.

Excellent tips. Thank you

Great tips. I know my openings are my weakest point as a 2300. I will focus them now to improve to 2400.