Two Years Ago I Didn’t Know the Rules of Chess. Today I’m a 1000 Elo Player. I Finally Understood What Beginners Actually Need.

I started learning chess at 34. Reaching 1000 Elo taught me something I never expected.

Seriously.

I knew exactly one thing: the knight moves in an L-shape.

That was the full extent of my chess knowledge.

Nobody had ever taught me.

Not my parents.

Not my grandparents.

Not at school.

At 34 years old, I suddenly realized something strange.

One of the most famous games in human history had been around for centuries, yet I had no idea how to play it.

So I decided to learn.

At the time, I thought chess was simply a board game.

A way to spend an evening.

I had no idea it was about to become an obsession.

The Rabbit Hole Begins

The more I learned, the more curious I became.

Who invented chess?

How old is it?

Why do millions of people dedicate their lives to studying it?

I discovered that chess is believed to have originated in ancient India more than 1,500 years ago.

Then I learned something that completely blew my mind.

The estimated number of possible chess games is around 10¹²⁰.

That’s a number so large it’s often compared to the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe.

At that moment I realized something.

Chess wasn’t just a game.

It was an endless universe.

And I had just opened the front door.

Losing. A Lot.

I started playing on Lichess.

At first, I lost constantly.

I blundered pieces.

Missed checkmates.

Hung queens.

Made terrible moves.

Then I played friends.

At first, we were roughly equal.

But as I became more interested in chess, something started changing.

I began winning more often.

The more I studied, the more I noticed patterns.

The more patterns I noticed, the stronger I became.

For the first time, I felt what every chess player eventually feels:

Improvement is addictive.

The Strange Word I Didn’t Understand

At some point, I started watching chess YouTubers and streamers.

That’s when I heard a word I had never paid attention to before:

“Opening.”

People talked about openings as if everyone already knew what they were.

Italian Game.

Sicilian Defense.

French Defense.

London System.

To me, it sounded like another language.

At the time my rating was somewhere around 500–650.

I didn’t know opening theory.

I didn’t know notation.

I barely understood what strong players were talking about.

But one opening immediately caught my attention.

The French Defense.

It felt logical.

Structured.

Memorable.

It became the first opening I genuinely tried to learn.

Later I also started playing Nimzowitsch-Larsen as White.

My Biggest Frustration

I wanted to understand openings better.

Not because I wanted to become a grandmaster.

I simply wanted to know:

“What is the best move here?”

The problem was that every resource seemed designed for stronger players.

They showed endless variations.

Complicated notation.

Move sequences that stretched far beyond anything I could remember.

Even today, if somebody casually says:

“Play d4.”

I still need a second to visualize where d4 actually is.

But when I watched strong players explain openings on YouTube, it felt completely different.

They didn’t just tell me what move to play.

They explained why.

They explained ideas.

Plans.

Patterns.

Intentions.

And suddenly everything made sense.

Reaching 1000

Over time my rating climbed.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

Getting to 800 felt difficult.

Getting from 800 to 900 felt easier.

Getting to 1000 felt like a real milestone.

Today my rating fluctuates around 1000 on Lichess and around 750 on Chess.com.

I’m still learning.

Still blundering.

Still making beginner mistakes.

But I finally understand something I didn’t understand two years ago.

Chess is not about memorizing moves.

It’s about understanding ideas.

Why Everyone Says “Elo”

While writing this article, I became curious about something.

Why does everyone say “Elo”?

Why not simply “rating”?

It turns out Elo isn’t an acronym.

It’s the surname of Arpad Elo, a chess player and physics professor who created the rating system that later became the standard for measuring chess strength.

So when players say:

“I’m 1000 Elo.”

They’re referring to a system named after a person.

A small detail, but one I found surprisingly interesting.

How Chess Accidentally Led Me to Build a Product

For years, I dreamed of building my own software product.

I just didn’t know what problem I wanted to solve.

Then chess entered my life.

And eventually I realized something.

The thing I was struggling with wasn’t unique.

Many beginners were struggling with exactly the same problem.

Not understanding openings.

Not knowing what move to play.

Trying to memorize instead of understand.

After spending time talking to chess players, reading Reddit discussions, and reflecting on my own experience, I noticed a pattern.

Most beginners don’t want more theory.

They want clarity.

They want explanations.

They want someone to explain openings the same way a good chess streamer explains them.

In plain language.

One move at a time.

That’s when I decided to start building the tool I wished existed when I first discovered chess openings.

A simple daily trainer focused on understanding and remembering chess openings without drowning beginners in complexity.

Not for masters.

Not for grandmasters.

For players like me.

The players still climbing.

Still learning.

Still trying to understand this beautiful game.

I’m building it for myself first.

Hopefully, it’ll help other beginners too.

I’ve been building OpenlyChess to help beginners understand chess openings instead of simply memorizing them.

I’m curious about your journey.

At what rating did you first start learning chess openings?

And what made you decide it was finally time to study them?