When Life Moves Faster Than Your Elo

The Shadow of Neglect

The slide didn’t start this month; it began six months ago. When I turned 19 and finished school, I finally tasted freedom. But "whatever I wanted" wasn't always studying the Sicilian. I spent the summer tournaments coasting, salvaging draws from losing positions and relying entirely on intuition.

I look at a photo of myself from autumn 2015. I am nine years old, standing in a school dining hall just minutes from my own backyard. I had finished 14th in a local tournament, barely squeaking into the prize bracket. I remember jumping just to see my name on the results sheet. The prize was a small bronze plated trophy of a horse’s head. One of its ears eventually broke off, and my grandpa helped me glue it back together. To this day, that broken horse is more beautiful to me than any first-place cup. Back then, chess wasn’t a calculation of points. It was the magic of the horse head and the glue that held it together.
But coasting has an expiration date. The crash hit home during a recent club championship. Because the game had to be postponed, I sat across from a friend in a vacant school classroom. The silence was heavy. While my opponent calculated, I found myself staring at art projects on the walls, simple crafts made by students. All just to pass the time.

My opponent played into a Taimanov Sicilian. I felt a wave of self-reproach, not quite "hate", but a deep, stinging disappointment. I knew this line. I knew I hadn't studied it. I watched my clock bleed out in the hollow quiet, the rhythmic ticking of the classroom clock sounding like a countdown to a loss I had invited upon myself. I didn't open the engine after the loss. I didn't fix the hole. Less than a month later, I faced the exact same line and lost again in two hours.

The Gravity of the Plateau

At my peak, chess was my sanctuary. In dark times, I would turn on commentary for the Candidates tournament just to feel comforted. I never trained because I felt I had to; I trained because I was genuinely intrigued by the beautiful game. But at my level this isn’t enough.
At the FIDE-Master level it feels like you are fighting "knowledge decay." If you aren't actively running, you are moving backward. For a 19-year-old navigating university, that constant run is exhausting. My heart still dictates my study, but these days, my heart is rarely in the "boring stuff."

The Empty Passenger Seat

In Sweden, our tournaments are the heartbeat of the community. I think of the contrast in our circuit: the warmth of the Deltalift Open by the sandy dunes of Tylösand, versus the rainy, November darkness of the Gefle Open.
I miss the rattle of the Gothenburg trams and the post-mortem analysis over cheap pizza. But as my friend group grows up, the "we" becomes "I." When the game moves from a shared passion to a solitary task squeezed between university lectures, the fire flickers. It is much harder to fight for an IM title when you’re doing it alone.

A New Kind of King Hunt

I’ve spent years chasing the GM title, but I’ve had to ask: Am I chasing it because I still want it, or because I’m afraid of who I am without it?
I’m not quitting, but I am resigning from the "grind." I’ve always found more joy in providing for others than for myself. My new goal isn't to squeeze Elo out of my brain, but to offer a new perspective to others.

I want to help the kid who just finished 14th realize that the trophy is enough. I want to create content that makes people see the 64 squares differently. The FM version of me was a strong player, but the 19-year-old version of me is becoming a person who values the struggle more than the result. That is a transition worth more than any title.