My Rank

Hi everyone,

First of all, I want to make it clear that this is not a troll post or provocation. I genuinely want to hear opinions from people who play on Chess.com.

I started playing chess about 3 months ago. Usually I play between 1 and 3 games a day, because with kids, work and family life, I simply don’t have time for more. 😃

My current rating is around 1200–1300, and I can’t seem to get higher than that.

The problem is that a friend of mine once told me: “Everyone below 1700 is basically a huge noob.”
And unfortunately, I’m the kind of person who took those words personally. So now, whenever I lose games at my current level, instead of enjoying chess, I often feel frustrated because I feel like I’m losing to people he would call “zeros.”

He himself is rated around 2200 in rapid, so I thought reaching 1500 or 1600 would be fairly easy. But now I’m not so sure.

I don’t really know any proper tactics, openings or tricks. I consider myself a very weak player, but somewhere inside I still feel motivated to reach what I would consider an “average decent level,” around 1700.

So I wanted to ask you: based on your experience, is reaching 1700 mostly a matter of playing many games every day and watching tutorials? Or is it more like a long-term training process that takes years?

I’d really appreciate honest opinions and advice.

Thanks!