Any tips for a 1607 chess player who is trying to improve?

Any comments would be much appreciated!

Play games, analyse games, solve tactics.  Pretty standard boring reply oh well :)

Ok... something more specific... hmm...
When solving a tactic don't just look for your move... to see if it works you have to find your opponent's best try for a defense.  So try to use your "solving" mindset twice.  First for your intended move, then stop and look around at all your opponent's pieces, now your his advocate trying to disprove that move.

That can take some effort and not easy (or impossible) to do for fast game and timed tactics.

As this mindset slowly seeps into your standard games, you'll be playing a lot better because this exercise does two things for you actually.  You're looking for (what I call) your opponent's "most annoying" reply to your intended move, and by doing the tactics untimed your exercising your visualization ability.

If you're only interested in online chess where you can make use of the analysis board, I think it's still useful.  The variations you look at will be more focused instead of looking at all sorts of crazy lines very fast and with little thought on the analysis board.

Thank you for the reminder.  Can't think of anything thats improved my game more than this.  Still suck at chess.  But this has helped a lot!

One of the main reasons I started up with cc again... surprisingly, never really thought about it in relation to solving studies (its usually get through it as quick as possible so can move on to the next puzzle).

Even though it demands increased energy and patience (and can even be painful sometimes, like a player crashing into the wall to rob the opposing team of a home run) it also increases the level of pleasure and satisfaction in playing imo.  

Occasionally, if am for some reason struggling to look at things clearly from the opposing colors point of view (usually the case) I'll start talking to myself in dialogue of possible lines they could play and it will help get that reverse vision flowing.  Can be truly difficult to see things transparently from the other side's perspective, yet can be intensely rewarding when that vision leads one to recognize, for example, that a given series of exchanges in which the life of your king was hanging by a thread actually shows that your pieces will be knocking down their kings door first!

Would be wonderful to see other players comment on this principle.   

I would say (in case you are quite good): Study openings and understand ideas behind them. Focus on the part of the game you're the weakest (endgame or IDK). Do tactics, but the problem is that at tactics you know you'll win something, in real game not! ;)

splitleaf you said you'd like to hear others comment on that principal.  To further the example I find it useful to ask myself what my opponent will do in general... e.g. what his best overall plan or idea is in response to my general plan.

This is very useful in analysis when you have two seemingly logical and good ways to proceed... how to choose?  Choose the one that gives your opponent the least counterplay.

For example maybe you want to choose between:

Maneuver against a weak pawn (you can tie many defenders to it, or win it)

Trade off your bad minor piece (say a bad and inactive bishop with locked pawn structure), or

Open a file to attack his king (he currently has few defenders).

Each time you implement a general idea like this, it may offer your opponent a useful idea of his own.  In case 1, maybe the pawn you could win is not useful, and spending the time to win it only pulls you out of position.

In the 2nd case after you get rid of the bad bishop maybe your opponent can seek to alter the pawn structure with a sac and exploit the missing bishop, or go into an endgame that is not favorable to you.

In the 3rd case maybe you calculate a deadly attack, but in the process of opening lines, you expose your position as well, and your opponent's infiltration into your position happens first.

Anyway this is probably the most entertaining aspect of chess for me, weighing possibilities like this against eachother.  I try to remind myself the usefulness of a plan isn't evaluated in isolation (just like the usefulness of a move).  You have to weigh it against what your opponent will be able to achieve in return.

I just looked at one of your recent game against random1st.  In the first 10moves you made a lot of inaccuracies...here we go: first playing ridiculously passives (d4 e3)..be a man and play qg or atleast a more active d4 sideline,  blocking your c pawn when it is needed as a pawn lever or structural reinforcement (nc3 without c4 isn't very good in d4 openings unless you are playing veresov), moving a piece twice( bishop) without being threatened to and then trading it off for blacks horrible light squared bishop (french pawn structure).

What I just commented on was about the opening, but I think a big part of improving is understanding different positional concepts which apply to not just openings but middle and endgame as well.  Now the real question is how to learn all of these positional nuances and apply them to your game.  I've learned of these inaccuracies that I mentioned above long ago and now they are virtually nonexistent in my games, but for lower rated players it is easy to identify these mistakes in their games.  But as you get stronger the mistakes will be less obvious and that is where people plateau, so it will be necessary to get help from stronger players to help identify your mistakes ( I hope someone can help me with that too!)

Anyways I hope this helped

Thanks very much everyone! WIll be sure to keep everything that has been said in mind.  Wafflemaster, I will be sure to ask myself those questions frequently.  Spiltleaf, will keep that in mind.  bigyugi9, that does help.  I just took a look at that game and realize just how stupid a couple of those moves were.  Nonetheless  I just finished reading Graham Burgess's mammoth book of chess and it seems my game has improved since then.  My tactical vision is significantly better and I am always looking for a combination to execute, or to prevent counterplay.  I now play more aggressively than ever before.   But

I think one of my main problems is that I struggle to develop long term plans, or do not understand how valuable taking the time to do that can be.  What do I do when there aren't any obvious positional weaknesses to attack? Or to defend?  Does anyone have any examples of good long term plans to develop?

Play more live games

Also, bigyugi9, do you think 1. d4 d5 2. bf4 is a good alternative to playing 2. c4?  And, if white does play bf4 and black responds with c5, do you think trading the bishop for the knight is good for white?

Play better players, be prepared to lose a lot of games, and review each loss to see where you went wrong.  You don't learn from beating up on 1300's, and it's frustrating to lose 3/4's (and more) of your games, but it's the best way to have an error exposed.

Nice, wafflewarrior, the way you illustrate this idea of examining ones general plans against the oppositions general plans is eloquent and easy to understand.  

It appears that an appreciation of the beauty and art of chess begins to come into view when we start to ascertain that to do this well depends on an ability distinguish good plans and bad plans in the first place (((~rabbit hole~))) and eyes that can hold positions in mind over fairly deep reading - explicitly through sharp, bloody or strategically complex variations.  Still it also seems obvious, that the richness of chess can be appreciated at what ever level a player is at seeing the exhilaration (elation?) that comes to us as its properties and substance are revealed through our efforts.

Discussions like these sometimes make me wish for the time (say several weeks) to just buckle down and study books such as My System or Reassess Your Chess and play like a demon trying to break its way into the minor leagues!  Unfortunately (or fortunately) for my chess, this wont  likely happen any time soon as it would  be difficult to focus long enough to do either of those things - and there are other creative outlets which press somewhat more urgently for that time.

Congratulations Chessdude, not only on making it through the Mammoth Book of Chess, but on coming out the other end with a clearer vision of the game!  Though they were very interesting only made it through the first 40 games (annotations in that book just felt long and confounding).

Anyway, please allow me to add my thanks with 007' to all who have taken the time to contribute something here.  Cheers.

Chess does seem to have value and application to life beyond just being a hobby or sport we pursue (like many other things we might involve ourselves with) to the degree and passion we positively persist.  As we all can hold out hope to grasp some of the enjoyment that comes through aspects of it kicked around in this thread so far. :)  Nother 2 1/2 from this wood pusher.  Oh, need to be more careful, that almost put me over my tipping point (6 cents). XD   

Check my website linked on my profile. I have a free online lessons course that teaches you to teach yourself to become a chess master.

2. bf4 is certainly better than 2. e3 since it gets your bishop out of the pawn chain of d4-e3.  However, the positions tend to be dry and black equalizes pretty easily.  Often black has easy play on the queenside in these london-like systems while white doesn't have much of a clear plan (maybe some kingside tries, but not really).  About trading a bishop for a knight...if the knight is better ( for example, controls more squares) than sure exchange your bishop for a knight.  But usually the positions that arise from london-like setups are open, so you want to preserve the bishop pair.  Honestly, though I don't see the problem with 2. c4 it's just more active and better in my opinion.  You've got to learn to play actively! it's good for your development as a chess player.

Hope that helps

Oh crap, it's one of those winnersp things!...

Golly Andy, you say that like its a bad thing... well-hey-there-now-how-can-it-be, cause look there it is twice?

See too many of those things and you'll end up like this:

Not sure which urge is winning here - the one to push the bottle of pills closer or to pull it further away.

The sad part is, we secretly replaced Patty's dolls with these:

Poor dear,  bet she never saw it coming...