In online chess communities there’s a common challenge to do “100 days of chess.” Usually it’s some program of tactics, studying a book, and some number of games that the player dreams up. The intent is always to work that program every day of 100 days straight.

It wasn’t my intention to do the challenge but today I realized… I hit 100 days of chess.

The last day I haven’t done some amount of chess was December 2nd, 2024. Several of those days were only 10 to 15 minutes doing tactics, but it was something every day. Some of those days were tournaments or single games that lasted hours and hours. Counting all the games, all the studying, all the tactics, all the time at chess club with Grace – I spent 10,005 minutes. That’s an average of 1 hours 40 minutes a day.

There wasn’t a point where I decided to start going on a streak necessarily, but there’s definitely a tool that made it more obvious I was on one. I use ChessDojo to guide my training and track my progress and at some point they added a “heat map” feature to your profile. The first place I saw a diagram like this was on Github, and it’s a good fit here too. It was pretty motivating to see at a glance when I’m putting the work in and what kind of work I’m doing.

I don’t intend for the streak to go on forever. I’m playing in a tournament in April and will need a break after that. But since I never was trying for a streak to begin with, that’s not a demotivating thought at all. A better challenge anyway might be like “300 days a year of chess.”