Typical beginner growth

Thanks Mika_Rao for this insight. That sounds good and now I have an idea what to expect with hard work. : )

stop hanging pieces, that alone should get you to 1000-1200

seriously consider each pawn move and what squares it weakens, when you are in the middle game and optimize each piece activity.

that alone will get you into the 1600 range

Paul Littlewood, Chess Tactics (1984), and a decent endgame book will give you the knowledge for USCF C or B Class (1400-1600).

All the rest is focused study, and practice over the board.  Keep your "study time" focused on tactics and endgames, not openings, IMHO.

Learn to play with a 5 second bonus, and find whatver time control lets you practice, but still keeps you moving relatively quickly.

Personally, I prefer using Universal Opening Systems, or Reversed Black Systems, until you break USCF 1800  -- which is the 90th percentile for OTB players in the USCF.

Above USCF 1800, those 10 percent of players account for fully 50 percent of OTB games played.  Very busy guys.

Chess is a life long addiction.  Enjoy the ride, if you can.

**And if you're really, really serious about improving, consider hiring a (good) coach.

But they don't come cheap.

Started last year with a rating of 800. Now Im at 1600. Literally

Good posts folks !

Thanks zborg, will look into those books after I finish my basics book. Other than that I'm already doing the things mentioned and glad to hear someone verify that.

originaleaz, thats impressing. How old are you & how much time you spend with chess daily/weekly? I dont expect to learn that quick, but I hope that Ill get there eventually, from what I understood thats about enough to compete in low class otb tournaments in my area, that'd be nice.

sorry, I'll read the rest of the forum later, but I started at 500 something when my rating finally leveled off. In standard, I have pulled myself up to 930 in 1 year, using tactics as much as I can.

I know I suck, and I'm probably worse than you, but I am still young, so I hope to improve. Apparently a chess player peaks at 35, so I've still got 22 years left :)

@Jouzer

The typical adult will take 2-3 years to reach a rating of between 2000 to 2200 with computers.

I write, with computers,  because wihout computers I had to build an opening tree by hand.  I took me 8 years. 

With a computer, after selecting your opening repertoire--to start 2 openings as White and 2 openings as Black--you will have to practice those openings for 2-3 years in order to become competent and proficient at understanding how to play your openings from both the White and Black side.

Simultaneously during those 2-3 years you will have to acquire by study and repetition 4 visualization  pattern memory banks.

1. Endgame visualization pattern memory bank

  a. Mating Net endgame forced mate visualization pattern memory bank

      (K+Q vs. K, K+R vs. K, K+2Bs vs. K, K+B+N vs. K)  (this is the easiest visualization pattern memory bank to acquire in about 3 months by practicing them until you can do them in your sleep. The following clickable K+B+N vs. K video is a great place to start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3EqM17jvOc

What will begin to happen to you after you have mastered this forced mating net and you can do it in your sleep is the following:

Whenever yo are playing a game or analyzing any position, if there are B+N mating nets in the position, they will seem to jump up off the board and smack you on he forehead in a flash!!

  b. All other endgame techniques visualization pattern memory bank

    1. K+p(s) vs. K

    Etc. thru to

    2. K+Q+p(s) vs. K+Q+p(s)

2. Tactics visualization pattern memory bank

3. Opening visualization pattern memory bank

4. Middlegame visualization pattern memory bank 

I am 17 years of age, started last year. I spent, on average, about 1,5 hour per day during 365 days on chess. So roughly 500 hours in total, to get to 1600. And all I did was play on this site, hence why I have 4500 played blitz games already. I mainly play 3 min games but I feel like beginners, 900-1300, should play games not shorter than 10 minutes in order for them to get the hang of the game.

I agree begineers 900-1300 need no short games, and to further your thought 10 minutes is actually a good time control for them because they do not yet have the patience or know how to get to much from a position

From your profile, it looks like you play exclusively blitz, and have not taken time to work in Tactics Trainer, or Chess Mentor. If you are also not reading any books, or articles, and you are just playing blitz, you will probably peak at around 1000.

On the other hand, if you were to actually study, read books, watch training videos, you could get to 1600. (You may already be doing this things, and you just come here for some off the cuff blitz matches, I do not know.)

manspider: yeah you got all the time in the world if you just keep at it. Being good at first isnt talent or lack of it.

Jimmykay: yeah I read books, solve tactics on my android and watch chess videos on youtube. Also my 15min+10s i try to analyze by myself afterwards. I dont play longer games than that right now but I have learnt to concentrate for up to 2 or 3 hours with tournament go games so I probably could, just dont know if its very useful to play long games right now. Or were you talking corresponce chess? That sounds lame because of the computer aids. Every move leave your computer calculate overnight, I dont think thats what im lookibg for in chess. ;)

Thanks for the tips yaroslav! It's a little bit off putting to constantly hear how much the openings matter, studying them sounds a bit boring to be honest. But I'll get to it a bit later.

What if you already have those? 

http://www.chess.com/article/view/qampa-with-coach-heisman-apr-4-2014 Correspondence isn't necessary, though, but slow chess is! It is absolutely crucial that you begin playing long time control games and actually think about chess when you're playing chess! You can visit the Dan Heisman Learning Center or the Slow Live Chess Association if you want to get some regular slow chess competition.

Also, endgames! Buy Silman's Endgame book or maybe one of the classic "fundamental endgames" book.

It is important to have some opening knowledge so that you actually don't fall for an opening trap / commit an opening inaccuracy over and over again, but if you're under 2000 elo (FIDE), actually sitting down and studying lines is unnecessary.

What kind of opening knowledge should I seek? Is there a well written book out there to give me the crucial stuff, perhaps?

I've been looking at the opening stuff briefly now and they didn't seem too boring after all. Interesting stuff and its fun to think what the certain moves mean in an opening.

I will try to arrange some more time to play those longer games, I'm slowly starting to get interested in them as I feel like I have enough understanding to make use of more time.

Thanks for the good stuff! :)

Before  going  to a survey of openings book.  Or a beginner's repertoire book  of a specific opening.    Read and study, "Pawn Power In Chess", by Hans Kmoch.  Begin reading the book on pg 107 and read thru to pg. 373.

You will recieve info. on pg. 107 that will save you hours and hours of time.  Then on pgs. 108 thru 373 he explains how to play the 6 characterisitic pawn structures that the position on the board assumes from almost every opeining.

At this point in your play, simply learn and let the rating take care of itself for a bit. I'm new and started using only certain material. I could care less about the ponies and focused on bishop play. Then I forgot about bishop play and started to learn how to win using knights. Then I forgot both of them and started to learn how to use pawns. My point is this. With each new level of learning you should expect to plummet in rating, if you are focused on the "new",  you will rise and fall as you learn how to use the new tools in your box. If your rating is staying constant, you are stagnat. Failing means you still have not got that part dialed in as much as you need to and it will come with a price (rating). Try and become balanced. I play some people who are great in closed games but in an open board, have no idea how to use two bishops together. How often are you beat but you watch in amzement at how weak your opponents end game is, unable to close the deal, the answer obvious. Your balanced play gets you a win you could have easily not. To conclude, I quit looking at my rating a few months ago as it told me nothing about my capabilities. I play to learn (against others in my range) and when I want to test that knowledge, I go and play much better players to see how well I have learned those lessons. I won't win many of those but that matters not. You can tell how good you are playing by the difficulty of your own game they must contend with. If you are going 50 minutes and 50 moves against much higher level players and then losing, who cares, you did real well. Your play will tell you when you are moving up, not any rating chart. I'm now at the point of teaching myself the habit of evaluating the position of every piece before any move (making sure I'm not missing something bad!). It is taking my focus away from my normal comfort zone to learn something new and I'm paying for it bad. If I focused on ratings, I may not be willing to play as I now do and risk falling. Like a BRICK ! !@#$

People usually use the e4 opening. I, however, have played the d4 since I started a year ago and I promise you, I really believe it has helped me to improve as a player. I learned the opening line (the first 10-15 moves, and the theory behind them) and it always lead to very creative play. At first, to reach a 1400 rating you'll have to eliminate blunders. Do not hang pieces, try to exchange in very complicated situations and try to ask yourself what your opponents objective will be the next move. Then, try to make up a plan. Will you attack the king? The queen side? Try to look for forks, tactics, etc. Is this bishop worth 3 pawns, as we are getting close to the end game? Exchange! Or not? Evaluate every position! To do so, you'll need to play at least 15 minute games.

Try to play d4, and once you get up to 1300-1400, you'll see how much creative play it can generate!

Hey I read your tips earlier this week but work has kept me busy from answering, let alone play chess. Oh I wish I was still a very young one and had all the time in the world. :P

Yes obviously I won't be looking at my rating now but I just wanted to know what I could expect it to be in half a year or a year of studying and playing. :) It's going up and down although I know I am getting better day by day, but there's a lot of newcomers and I don't expect it to start raising until I'm better than all the newcomers out there. Who cares. :)

Thanks for the d4, had some fun with it. I too usually play e4, as in my games it leads to long balanced games where I can often gain from patiently taking positions, which is my preferred style right now I think. I'm eager to try new things of course to learn what they are about and maybe pick better moves against the other typical openings.

Moving on! :)