2023

Chess and things to come in 2023

"New year, new me!"

For sure, something popular to say, yet somehow a lip service in most cases.

Personally, I really do see some progress regarding myself in terms of playing chess in many aspects already. Something that I am willing to further extend during the following months. Also, I am excited for a great new year of chess in a very broad sense, so without further ado:

Here's my personal list of things I am keen to see and do in 2023

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1 Personal Goals

1. Becoming a bit less emotional when it comes to playing chess.
2. Stop caring about numbers.
3. Getting better with my opening theory (especially regarding my weakness in 1.d4 and c4 games).
4. Play a marathon on lichess and win a trophy (but really only if I feel strong enough to do that - just playing it but not making it Top 500 is a bit of a waste of time in my opinion). [EDIT: Played but did not made it to the top unfortunately, got stock somewhere around #530 then quit when it became obv. I will not make it in the last minutes remaining] Maybe next time, who knows
5. Playing more offline chess and maybe get to know more people through this.
6. Getting more active in the lichess forum again.
7. Getting back to writing blog articles (I really discovered something that brings me joy here).
8. Do not fear stronger players but welcome the challenge (* I just recently had a chance playing against a GM and I tell you I got absolutely demolished, but I enjoyed it, because how often you get to play a GM?! And this, I think, is something one should keep in mind: It's a game, whether you win or lose. It is up to you to get the most out of it. I want to keep that joy and further enrich my ability to enjoy games even though, in some cases, I'll lose them).

In general, I want to play chess with more fun doing so.
At the moment, I manage to do so, but I know from the past that there is that "beast" inside which is constantly telling you to watch for your numbers and can't stand losing, which will make you scream and cry. Whilst none of this is what chess should be about: having a good time.
In 2023 I want to have a good time.

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2 Events (only regarding those big ones by FIDE/chess.com/lichess)

Regarding the just-stated wish to have some fun this year, of course therefore I am excited to watch some nice events happen. Some of them I want to list here.

2.1 Regular Events

While having various forms of chess events here, I want to focus on the main events organized by FIDE and some smaller ones I am personally keen to see, as there would be almost no point to this list if I tried to list all events that will happen in 2023.

2.1.1 World Championships

Going first, of course there are some of the most prestigious events in the world of chess, the championships

2.1.2 The Classic World Championship
Classic world championships are about to go through a massive change in terms of prizes and recognition, regarding the ongoing fight and drama in the chess world, so I see it as most of other commenting voices that are out there, if we get one WCC between Ding and Nepo it presumably will be far from the experience in Dubai '21. This being said, I still do look forward to this, since Ding (at least from my point of view) is some sort of a machine himself, left alone, that to this day he is the only other person apart from GOAT Magnus, having accumulated a classical rating above 2800. And then there is Ian Nepomniachtchi who arguably plays solid chess spiced with some sharp ideas. This could get hefty.

2.1.3 Meltwater
Knowing that Meltwater and the global chess championship have merged into one major event ( https://www.chess.com/de/news/view/die-chess-com-global-championship-und-die-meltwater-champions-chess-tour-verschmelzen-zu-einem-turni#:~:text=Chess.com%20freut%20sich%2C%20bekannt,sich%20%C3%BCber%20das%20ganze%20Jahr. ), it would be logic to list the following point 2.1.4 as 2.1.3.1 or something like this, but with this deliberately wrong done enumeration I want to make clear I mean the event in Wijk aan Zee as an individual and I mean meltwater as an andividual too. The reason why is, that meltwater is usually commented on by GM David Howell and IM Jovanka Houska plus Kaja Snare, but not so is Wiijk an Zee. I really do enjoy their commenting, but I also enjoy watching Tatasteel without their presence and rather on twitch than on youtube. This, of course, is totally personal and still, I do think Tatasteel /Wijk aan Zee should be seen different from the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. However, I am happy to see both of them happen.

2.1.4 Wijk aan Zee (Tatasteel)
To the date this paragraph is written, Wijik aan Zee has just begun, though when this article will be published we will probably know the results. Still, it is part of what I enjoy watching, so it found its place in this list. [Edit: It was pretty astonishing yet heartwarming, seeing Anish Giri finally winning Tatasteel. Moreover, I think that we had some really nice matches, especially regarding Keymers XXL endgame-marathons, young Eline Roebers brilliant gameplay which seemingly came out of nowhere and furthermore Magnus insane turnaround. What a party right?!]

2.1.5 US Championships
Way later on in 2023, we will see some real top level-chess "over the big pond" (from a European point of view) - the reason I enjoy these US matches (more) than, for example, let's say the German Masters, is that there are far more GMs and superGMs in the US than in Germany. Therefore it is much likelier to get a real good lineup and subsequently strong and interesting gameplay.

2.1.6 Sinquefield Cup
Going in the same direction, we will witness American chess once more, coming to the prestigious Sinqefield cup held in Saint Louis, and commented on (at least as far as I know) by Yasser and Friends. I like their commentatory, and I like the clash of kings, especially regarding the fact Aronian, Niemann, Dominguez, Caruana, Nakamura, Sevian, and many more big names of the American chess community are usually up there!

2.2 Price Events

Without naming each individual, I of course, also take those various smaller and bigger tournaments into consideration because some of the most interesting matches take place when there is no big hype around. I am sure we will get some decent surprises from various events that aren't displayed on a large screen.

2.3 Online Events

And now at this point, man, I tell you what, writing this list I really do not know too much about how to enumerate all of them without constantly repeating myself. However, there are, due to the ongoing "onlinization" far more online events than one could count. A small peek:

2.3.1 FIDE

FIDE is doing their arena thing. No more words are needed. They really should get into this, as it seems the are about to lose the track of chess. Yes, they still are the big header, but with everything going on, I feel like they are about to degrade to a bare "Grüßonkel" as we would say in german. chesscom, twitch, lichess, and so on, there are so many big players, and none of them really need the FIDE in order to operate. If I was FIDE, I'd get myself some kind of marketing strategy manager. Well... We'll see what will come.

2.3.2 Chess.com

Oh boy, here we go again. There are titled tuesdays, there is arenakings, there are these collabs between chesscom and other chess-event-hosts, there are their livestreams, there is so much to be excited about. chesscom definitely is an adress in 2023. I really hope though, that they reconsider their legendsclub thing since, at the moment, there are no more events held, and as a member of their legendsclub, I'd like to play for some money/prizes this year. Also, with peaking servercrashes, they have promised to enlarge their server infrastructure, which hopefully leads to a general overthink-process about their website. At the moment, this is a mess. chesscom will much likely be the number one online (event) distributor by the end of the year. Let's go!

2.3.3 Lichess And Others

As chesscom is still "pay to win", I am very happy to have lichess at hand. I like lichess' personality, this .org is a huge bonus tho. No, but for real, lichess is great, as you read this on lichess, we'll probably agree there. Lichess is doing some prize events too. The most popular is the Mr.Dodgy invitational. This could get tense when MDI goes into its fourth round in 2023. Unfortunately, I could not find out whether it will be held on lichess or not. Apart from that prize events, I am happy to see (and maybe this year for the first time play myself) marathons on lichess.
Coming to new year wishes, here are my top 3:
1. Tutor system renewed (not only for titled players)
2. implement online titles, such as AGM, AIM, AFM, ACM
3. custom board and piece design (implement an option to use your own "skin")

Furthermore, regarding that "others", I am interested to see which other chessserver may celebrate their big "comingout". We just saw how immortalgame managed to create a whole new hype about being paid with cryptocurrency for playing... chess. Interesting idea, let's see where this leads.

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3. Miscellaneous

Of course, chess is not only a game to play but also a game to watch being played. I enjoy watching chess on twitch and YouTube, but mostly you'll find me on twitch. The fact that a whole new chess community created itself during the past two to three years on twitch is fascinating to me.

3.1 Twitch

As I moderate on a few channels, and as stated above, chesscoms streams have a big influence on how we literally "see" chess and twitch is big player in the chessworld. Magnus has just started streaming again. Hikaru is going crazy over there. Lots of streamers are already big enough to cover their spendings just on twitch-money. That chess once would become a full-timejob and even a lucrative one, oh boy, who would/could have thought?! Personally, from the point of view of a moderator, I just hope that these guys won't forget to help the people who have helped them ever since. It's not that it wasn't fun and stuff (although sometimes you really have to cover some trouble as a mod), but man, I am investing my time and work here too. Don't get me wrong, I am not selfish, streamers first and all, but bro, sharing is caring. I'll leave it with this.

3.2 Tutoring

I could totally do some more teaching. If lichess, as already stated, would rework their coaching-system I could get that working. I already do coaching in private lessons, so why not give me the chance (and tools) to make it professional? However, I am excited to maybe re-launch my "Getting better step by step blog series" but just if people are interested. So yeah, if you've read up until here, feel free to contact me either for coaching or about that blog.

3.3 Chess Played Offline

Coming to an end, I want to make one more point:
With all this going on, let's not forget about the game.
About the people around us. Let's play chess.
OTB chess is just that: playing, chatting and having a good time.

As I am writing this there is already one little event on the calendar, I hope I will have managed to actually get to chess&jazz Berlin by the time this is published. [edit: it was pretty much fun! Shoutout to some new friends @ Curls, Rob, Ferdi, Heba!!]

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Summary

Well, that's that. I want to keep it simple. There are lots and lots of things coming in 2023, and I hope you will find your individual spot to enjoy all this. Take a seat, enjoy the ride. 2023 has only just begun.
Once more: Let's have a good time. Let's play chess!

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special thanks to @MetallQueen for proofreading all this nonsense! <3