Victorious At Last!

Approximately two years ago, I joined a race between Panther473 and TheGoodKnight0. The goal of the race was to achieve a rapid rating of 2100, and hitherto we have been fighting for victory—through plateaus and peaks, valleys and mountains; yet no one prevailed. Early on in this race, we made great progress, Panther473 managed to achieve a rating of 2000 rapid, TheGoodKnight0 went on a rampage wreaking destruction on all who dared enter the 64-squares to challenge him. However, no one prevailed, it seemed there was a metaphysical barrier shielding the 2050 mark from all who dared approach it. However, two months after TheGoodKnight0 reached his peak, I broke this barrier, obtaining a peak of 2053, rendering my peak the highest peak of all racers; yet it was short lived. I fell down to the low 2000s shortly, and later even fell to the mid-1900s. It seemed there was no hope for us, not one of us remained above 2000 for an uncomfortable period, in September of 2025—I was hovering about 1950, Panther473 was in the low 1800s, even dipping below 1800 for a period, and TheGoodKnight0's rating plummeted to the low 1900s. Despite me supposedly breaking the barrier, it seemed it was in vain. It could be said that the true barrier was actually 2054.

But you may ask, "If this barrier is so strong, and your strength gain not prolific, then how pray tell did you achieve such a marvelous rating?" That is an excellent question my dear friend.

(P.S. Diredawn joined the race about a month or so ago, which gave us all a heart attack as he quickly gained 100 points, but he hasn't been in the race long enough to have enough content to be in an overly dramatic story)

There are three reasons I was able to achieve such a stupendous rating:
1. I started my first structured tactics training regiment: The Woodpecker Method. (I am still doing it)
2. TheGoodKnight0 provoked me by starting to blog. My inner chess dragon was safely in a slumber in terms of online rapid rating. (I am an OTB player)
3. I changed my core thought process from "Please blunder your pieces good sir, I don't play positionally, I just calculate 10,000 lines, so I am screwed if you don't," to "If you would be so kind, I would love control of that diagonal, as well as that weak square; for my bishop should go there because it supports my long term plan of pushing my pawn majority and creating an outside passed pawn in twenty moves." (3rd because this I apply positional thinking less in rapid than classical due to time constraints.)

Once these factors joined the land of the living, I easily achieved such a rudimentary rating. I know all my low rated readers can achieve such a rating.

It is my great joy that I have been declared the victor of the long running competition, in which much has been learned, and much sanity has been deprived.

Regards,
Me