how to improve

ive been seriouly been playing chess for about six months now and have gone to some toruments. my rating has gradually incresed and it has been stuck at about 860 for the past month. ive been tryinh to improve my rating but evertwhere i look theres something different to do and i dont have all the time in the world to do it all. so if anybody can help me and give simple instructions on way to improve my rating it would a great help

I would recommend reading 

Chess for Dummies by James Eade

Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess by Patrick Wolff 

I have read both books among other books.

Also check out Chess.com's Everything You need to Know About Chess series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21L45Qo6EIY&list=PLD63FA8DDC8874CDF 

 Play games with long time controls 15min minimum. 

 Other tips:

1) Every move you make must have a purpose

ex: Pawn to e4 or d4 tries to control the center squares 

2) When you opponent threatens a piece see if you can

a) Capture the attacking piece

b) Block the attacking piece

c) Create a bigger threat

ex:Threaten the Queen or checkmate 

Have fun above all. 

Your rating will improve as your board and tactical vision improves. 

I have looked at a couple of your games. It seems that you are hanging pieces that is leaving pieces that the opponent can take for free

Simple solution is to look at the whole board and see which piece(s) are under attack.

Watch out for knight forks. This is one of the hardest moves to see.

You're right to try and focus your limited study time. If I were you, I would work on one or two things (probably opening principles and tactics) until you reach say 1200. Then you can think about extending your study plan to other areas. 

Maybe also think about playing only slow games and then analysing them after you have played.

I was in the low 800s untill about a month ago.Ive gained over 300 points just from doing tactics

The two most useful things to do for your long term improvement are probably studying tactics and going over annotated classical games.

Then if you can join a chess club, that would help a lot too, as on Internet, it's more difficult to focus, and it's easy to catch 'blitz disease', which doesn't help beginners.

As long as you enjoy it, it's okay. Your online rating is not important.

Though not an expert, I can share some tips which I found very useful.

1. You learn a lot by contemplating on master games. Make it a habit to go through at least 5 games by masters of yester years. I'd strongly suggest Morphy and Capablanca. There are many sites that have these games. Try to pause for a while and think what you would play. If you see something different, try to figure out why the master played that way. Cases are you miss some tactics or combinations. Relax and continue. Try to appreciate the beauty of the game.

2. Try to understand the basic endgames first. For example, if you are to give mate with two bishops, try to understand how the pieces are working together for a goal. This is the crux of chess artistry. Try to figure out this type of 'coordination' of pieces.

3. I am sure you are well aware of opening fundamentals. You can learn about it from googling.

4. Whenever you are on YouTube, make it a point to watch game analyses. This is a precious channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-ONC2bCHytG2mYtKDmIeA

Pay careful attention to watch Yasser Seirawan's and Varuzhan Akobian's video lectures.

5. Books! I think Yasser Seirawan's Winning ... Series is the best set at this stage. Then you will benefit more by going through Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals and Nimzowitsch's My System and Chess Praxis. Also, László Polgár's venerable 5334 puzzle book will help you a lot.

6. Have faith in yourself. You are going to make it. Every master was once a patzer. It is the persistence that made them what they are. Please don't let the losses bother you.

7. Don't play too much online chess a day. Probably at this juncture, one needs more time to study. Of course it is very easy to get discouraged by consistent losses at this stage. So, I'd recommend not more than two games a day (one would be ideal). Play when you feel completely relaxed and cheerful. Take time to think about your opponent's moves. It is quite a commonplace to play recklessly if you are playing with an opponent who makes quick moves. He may be thinking before the moves, but you may be, just to match his speed, are just making moves out of 'gut feeling'. This had been my experience.

8. In the beginning, it is very easy to fall prey to clever traps (they are simple tactics and combinations). Appreciate the idea of that cunning trap! Don't take it personally. Every player has to conquer it. You will also make it, no doubt. All it needs is a bit of intuition and subconscious alertness. Yasser said in his books (and my little experience also tells me) that serious players can sense the danger of a fork, pin, skewer, double attack, double blow, etc. quite early. It may be just that they have played enough chess and are acquainted with these evils!

9. Finally, it is worth buying ChessBase 13 + Mega Database and a Chess Software (I use Komodo 8). These definitely cost you some money, I agree. I am not sure whether free alternatives are available. If you use ChessBase's Komodo or Deep Fritz, you have a wonderful training section in it (Attack and Defence training). I usually play Rated Game (set to lowest elo of 1185) for my regular practice. It helped me a lot to understand and mitigate flaws in my playing.

All the best!

The hard question is if you are over 2000, how do you improve? 

At at 860 ratings, you only need to study one thing:

TACTICS.

Seriously, at your level, everything else is just noise and inefficient. All the positional stuff like bad bishop vs good N, strong pawns, etc., are all for naught if you miss a 2-move tactic on move 18. Similarly with endgames - right now, you'll get beat by tactics way before you even get to a favorable endgame.

Try not to study openings for now - only study a line if you find yourself being blown away in the first 5 moves. Spend your time on tactics.

Good tactics matter so much at <1000 level chess that everything else is just slowing down your progress. 

Even at higher levels, tactics are still crucial, but other factors like positional knowledge, knowing specific lines, and endgame skill play much more of an importance. 

Online videos are an awesome resource as well. Studying GM games is actually way too hard for you right now - all the time you'll spend trying to analyze how they handle equal positions is a waste since you'll get burned on 2-mover rookie tactics way before you even get to such a position.

You only need 2 resources:

- Tactics, like the free lichess.org tactics server, or a free account on Chesstempo. Do them like crazy and watch your rating rise/skyrocket until you're 1100-1300ish range where it slows without other skills.

- Youtube videos - watch Chessnetwork's blitz game video commentaries. That's more than enough positional and endgame demonstration knowledge for your level without deeper analysis.Spend your heavy lifting on tactics.

Alternatively, you could also pick some good annotated games by Morphy, Capablanca, Tarrasch and Alekhine. But I guess I'm old school

watch Chessexplained's blitzes.

First off only play longer games, as far as opening goes 1) Try to control the center. 2) Only move each piece once ( unless its nesscary). 3) develop knights first then bishops. 4) castle early. As for the rest of the game just try and make sure your not giving away pieces for no compensation. Look at every peiece on the bored and check and double check before each move. Try and think "if i put this here what would be the best move for my opponet". And as every one else said tactics all day.

I found chessnetworks videos far more relevant to play at lower levels than gm level strategy from the legends. Now that I'm stronger they legends are more useful but its def overkill for a sub1000

hicetnunc wrote:

hhnngg1 wrote:

(...)

- Youtube videos - watch Chessnetwork's blitz game video commentaries. That's more than enough positional and endgame demonstration knowledge for your level without deeper analysis.Spend your heavy lifting on tactics.

Alternatively, you could also pick some good annotated games by Morphy, Capablanca, Tarrasch and Alekhine. But I guess I'm old school

How I got the rating jump.. from 800 to whatever I am now.. wasn't at all about studying tactics. You have to make sure that you stop leaving pieces hanging. I am sure you have your own tactical ideas. None of them will really work if you have a crap posistion or leave pieces hanging all of the time. 

To try to have less pieces hanging.. try your best to not move anything to where its not protected. Exceptions apply.. however when I was 800 a lot of people tended to hang knights like A BUNCH.. by moving it to an unprotected square that I was attacking. For the better posistion.. maybe work on controlling the center.

I blunder less pieces then an 800 because I am aware of where all of my pieces are and what they are doing. With that being said I blunder all of the time. Just less often because my pieces are protected more and I remember where my whole army is... at least most of the time :)

There is only one type of tactic that I think you need to study at all right now. Work on check mates. You need to be able to know how to mate your opponent with more then the step ladder rook mate. it will help a ton.. If you follow my instruction.. you will be over 1000 in no time

Well, my advise to you is to keep on playing chess. Chess isn't only about competing  or enjoying, it's also about improving your strategic skills on the board. 

What do you think tactics mean? Since when are dropped pieces not part of tactics.

Hmm you got me there.. mcmodern .. 

Do you want to play me in a 14 day game and I can show you why I'm doing what I'm doing?