What are your goals at chess.com?

Hi lovely humans, I recently got back into chess (~5 months ago) after 25 years. I am utterly in love with the game. I am even dreaming of chess . I always set tough goals for myself (trauma not treated ), so I want to achieve 2000 ELO at the end of July 2025 (1 year). However, I wondered if beginners like me also have goals for chess or just enjoy playing the game. My question is: What are your goals with chess if any? Please, help me understand also if you don't and why. I am super curious. Thank you, peeps.

Many people set goals. Often times they turn out to be unrealistic (like making GM.)

Your progress has been rapid to 1300. You haven't plateaued yet.

Who knows?

Thanks for the answer!

I feel plateaued now, tbh. I even bought my first chess book to learn how stupid I am . I am pretty sure that when I am at your level, I will understand that things get harder and harder. But I assume unrealistic goals are set when you have no complete understanding of how hard/realistic it is.

@justbefair, are most people here setting goals or just enjoying the game? Or both? How about you?

My goal is reaching 1800 next year - from 1000. Everyone says it's impossible. The more people say that, the it encourages me to prove them wrong.

my goal is to prove @chesstopcrown wrong. so its getting 1000 rating

@joga_bonito_entry What I would suggest to you is to play more slower games. You play about 15 games per day which is way too much. You can't remember all the mistakes you did and learn from them. Also interesting would be playing on real board like many titled players do (it would work only on slower games - they play on magnetic board and all their moves are send to chess.com) to get into playing OTB. It's very different. Sure, you would lose some time but habit of playing OTB is much more important than some ratings online.
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So my suggestions would be:.
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1st: play less games with slower time controls (first switch to 15+10 and then to 30+0)
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2nd: practise as many puzzles as possible (do easy ones on the other site, play for one hour until you get 300 or more - 300 puzzles solved in 60 minutes - this would help you to see most common patterns like 2-move forks, pins and others. Also practise some harder ones.)
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3rd: buy and endgame book and start studying it. I would suggest Silamn's endgame course (which I don't own) and 100 Endgames You Must Know, which I own. Silman should be easier.
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4th: analyse your games and create a simple "database of lost games" in excel. Fill all games you lose since today. And add the main reason why did you lose and in which phase. Then you can see that your weakness is for example middlegame and 90% of games you lost you started losing in middlegame. Or 50% of your lost matches you lost in the endgame - you had winning positon and made a mistake. So you need to study 100EYMK or Silaman.
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Bonus: I would also suggest How to reassess your chess by Silman which is the best book for middlegame. And try different openings. If you are playing 1.e4 there are many lines that can you opponent play. If you would play 1.d4 you wouldn't need to learn that many lines. I would suggest London for start with d4 and then switching to Catalan. But don't study it too much - don't waste your time here, use that for tactics, learn only basics and ideas + look at some games so you can see what are plans for middlegame, how you recapture the pawn etc. Don't play Sicilian defense. It's the most complex chess opening and it has too many variations. Rather pick French or Caro-Kann. I personally play French against 1.e4 and I tried to switch to Petroff but opponenst at my level always play weird moves so normally there are weird lines. In French you don't have to reply directly to their ideas. People play only 3 variations and they make up more than 90% of all games. 54% advanced (3.e5 - they push the pawn), 25% normal (3. Nc3) and 12% comes to exchange (3. exd5 - which is where I struggle most, that's only one that you have to really learn). You can play French also against d4 which I did for most of the time. If you want easy and aggresive opening against d4 I would suggest King's Indian Defense. I learn it in few hours and I never studied that too much. It's easy to play and opponents on lower level don't know what to play. Although I have only 85% accuracy on it after opening ends I'm winning by two pawns (-2.3) on average. With French it's -0.2 and if black is leading that's very good.
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Note that I haven't play for more than two years and a month ago I made a great chess comeback. An OTB tournament encouraged me to take up chess again.
If you use this plan I think you should realistically reach 1900 before the end of 2025. 1900 to 2000 could take a year. Set reallistic goal for first quarter and see how it goes. Good luck mate!

Beautiful, @SnrWoody

Thanks for sharing it, @ondrejzdrahal . Good luck on your journey, mate!

@ondrejzdrahal Thank you soooo much for the recommendations! This is really good! I will definitely steal some of the advice for myself! I recently bought the 100 Endgames You Must Know, it just arrived yesterday, I will try to devour it during the holidays.

We will achieve our goals, mate! If that's okay with you, I will add you as a friend so we can help each other.

Best!

Good morning,

I am new and only have one game played through chess.com. The rest were vs computer bots.

I played in middle school, basic stuff. I knew how the pieces moved, that’s it. No openings, no tactics, etc. I didn’t join a club or anything.

I then got into tcg games, mtg etc, and played those for decades. I spent a lot of money on those games and I have a very substantial collection, however those games now feel like cash grabs to me. I am now 44. I found out I have Autism recently and I felt like I needed a shift in my lifestyle. My brain has been experiencing a lot of sensory changes.

I watched some games on YouTube and I remembered playing as a kid, and thought to myself, this could be a lot cheaper, and productive than mtg or another famous card game.

My goals are:

to work my brain daily.
to work off stress from my actual career. 
to be better at the game. 
to smooth down my sensory issues.

I do many puzzles a day, and also use the lessons. 
right now I just play 3 day move games with a friend, who’s another dad I know in my community .After  that, I will move on to more playing.

be well.

@Disburden This is indeed a good goal, man! The experience you had with TCG games is quite interesting, it might show that your brain needs constant logic stimulation (giftness + autism?). Would it be right to assume that? If yes, does your career stimulate your brain the same or does it become predictable/easy over time? Please just answer if this is not too personal for you.

I am ADHD myself, but I would love to understand how chess helps you with the sensory issues in your personal experience if you want to share more, of course. That's a fascinating perspective tbh. Thanks for sharing it.

ok, I will try. 
For example, my world can overwhelm me, I have adhd also which is paired with my high masking Autism. Visuals, touching etc can become overwhelming, so I need things to focus on to smooth out those feelings. I work in finance and yes it’s boring at times, it’s repetitive, corporate and predictable. My entire life I have studied art and music. I have the high ability to draw (draftsmanship), and I’ve also studied music and music theory since elementary school. I play multiple musical instruments and I can read music. I’ve been highly involved with my own mind and developing my mind since early childhood.

I really agree with the playing otb vs online. Like I said in my post, I grew up with tcg games. In real life games we’re always more difficult than online games, due to life factors, people watching your moves at the table. People talking while you’re playing etc.

it’s very different.

My chess.com goals are:

1. To have fun

2. To understand several openings that were difficult for me to play when I was an active tournament player in the 1980s.

nice goals.

How to earn on chess.com on playing chess here.

I am entering year 3 of steady rapid chess on here and lichess. My goal is 1000. i was at 910 and am right back to where I was exactly one year ago, 778. I am myself one more year of chess play and study and if that goal is not achieved, find another hobby. Its just too frustrating when I see people do it in months.