How to Improve: Intermediate Players
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the 2nd post of my How to Improve series! Today I'll be giving some tips for players ranging around 1000-1800 USCF. Generally, the way to improve is simply to identify your own weakness and try to improve it. For instance, if you can't convert the Lucena position, then you probably want to study your rook endgames. (Here is a video about basic rook endgames, including the Lucena!) Consider the following list of topics things that you should know, and if you don't, be sure to study them! Now let's get started!
1. Openings
As a beginner, openings aren't important. However, once you start improving significantly as a chess player, you should start to learn some openings, and maybe prepare some variations. A good way to start figuring out what your opening repertoire should be is to figure out if you want to play 1.e4 or 1.d4 as white. For more information on which one is better, you can read this post. Generally, 1.d4 is considered to be more solid and 1.e4 tends to have sharper positions. But until you start playing them, you'll never know for sure!
Once you've chosen 1.e4 or 1.d4, you should pick an opening to play for each one of black's responses. These include:
You can find some great videos on specific openings here as well.
2. Tactics
As you get stronger, you also need to be better at spotting tactics. One way to do this is simply to solve tactics on chess.com. A good tactics rating is typically represented by your USCF rating, +200-300 points. So if you're a 1500 USCF, your tactics on chess.com should be rated around 1700-1800. You can also read some great tactics books, as they really focus on specific tactical motifs. If you're interested in playing puzzle rush, here's some tips and tricks on how to optimize your performance!
3. Endgames
Endgames are crucial for every chess player, but they are even more important as you reach the intermediate level. You should understand all or almost all elementary endgames, so that when positions arise, you can make decisions based on your knowledge of basic endgames. Here are some examples of basic endgames you should know:
