Hello everyone! My name is Matthew Koutnik and I am a keen chess player from Australia. I started playing chess when I was about eleven years old. I loved the game and competed in many tournaments in my youth. Both my father and grandfather enjoyed chess too so we would often play games together.
After leaving school I started a chess blog called The Chess Page. I wanted a space to document the things I was learning about and a place to share my thoughts with the world.
My current chess goal is to gain an ELO rating greater than 2000. I’ve never breached the 2000 mark so that would be a huge accomplishment for me. I will be attempting to do this online, playing rapid and blitz matches on chess.com and Lichess. My gamer tag is AtlasHeart.
I would love to improve my Australian (ACF) rating too. That would mean over the board tournaments, (which is a bit tricky to manage with young kids) but it would be great to play some over the board chess again. I want to reach an ACF rating of 1800. The Australian rating system is different and so an 1800 player is more like a 2000+ ELO rated player.
How am I going to accomplish my goal?
- Daily Puzzles (To get quicker at spotting tactics)
- Reading Chess Books (Who doesn’t love a good chess book?)
- Playing Games (With a focus on analysing my mistakes. Too often in the past I have preferred quantity (smashing through countless games in a day) over quality (learning from my mistakes).
- Opening Theory (There is still so much to learn in this department)
- Watching YouTube lessons from strong players
- Competing in tournaments
- And most importantly by having fun!
Maybe you have a goal and you want to come on the journey with me. That would be swell! Leave a comment to share your own chess goals.
I am eager to continue the learning, while enjoying the wonderful game of chess.
Matthew