100 to 1800: A Guide to Gaining Elo (and what I learned from each step)

This blog post focuses on general advice and tips, as well as tips for specific elo ranges and is the sequel to "My Chess Journey", written in September 2025, which I'll update in the near future and can be found here.

I loosely divide players here on chess.com into three Elo groups (inspired by GothamChess):

Beginners: 100-1200 (subgroups: 100-400, 400-800, 800-1200)
Intermediates: 1200-2000 (subgroups: 1200-1600, 1600-2000)
Experts: 2000+

Many people say that anyone above 2200 should be considered a master, and while I mostly agree, it isn't really relevant to the topic at hand. I might tweak this when I revisit. Obviously, these groups don't rigidly define the type of player you are, but they provide a useful framework.

One important thing to note before continuing is that this blog post is mainly about rapid, so if you don't play lots of rapid/are more blitz or bullet oriented, this blog might not help you as much, though there may still be lessons to learn. Also, as one can see in the picture at the top, as of first writing this in March 2026, I am about 1800 rapid, so if you're better than me, you can suggest some ideas in the comments.

The first section will be context, the next will be general tips, which I guess might as well be the meat of this blog. The next multiple sections will be on the consensual descriptions of the aforementioned elo sub-groups, and specific tips. Afterwards, there will be a tl;dr, as well as a learning method that I believe you can use elsewhere in life.

Context:

I first got introduced to chess in 2019, though I forgot about it. In August 2024, I started getting serious about chess. I created this account and got to where I am now, as of March 2026, in roughly 1400 games across all time controls.

General Tips:

All of the tips below will help you at practically any elo, I think, whether it'd be 150 or 1500.

Do puzzles regularly and for calculation, not for speed:

This may seem obvious and cliché, and it is, but it will help you at any level. First of all, I recommend doing both chess.com and lichess puzzles to train your pattern recognition, though lichess puzzles are better in my opinion. If you want to do puzzles on specific themes or openings, you can do them in the custom puzzles section here or puzzle themes on Lichess. Also, I suggest doing puzzle rush, as that is good training for your intuition. Not only that, but doing the woodpecker method is highly recommended, as it heavily improves your pattern recognition and has been proven to be extremely effective.

Secondly, one should aim to do puzzles for calculation. Instead of getting good at guessing moves, calculating in puzzles makes one better at it in actual games.

Last but not least, you ought to do puzzles consistently. Unlike me, who does puzzles at an inconsistent rate, doing puzzles regularly and effectively essentially drills in tactical motifs and hones one's calculation skills.

Quit For The Day If You Lose 2 Games in a Row:

Losing two games in a row is a clear signal to stop. At this point, you have two good options: switch to a low-stakes chess activity (like puzzles or analysis) or step away from the board entirely.

This works because losing 2 games in a row usually means you're already performing below your Elo. You'll often find that your losses were due to simple blunders—the kind of one-move hangs or missed forks that you'd normally spot in seconds. This is the clearest sign that your brain is no longer in the game, that you're playing on emotion and that you are no longer focused at all. Since it's hard to regain that focus, it's better to quit than lose Elo while chasing for that win.

Also, it's important to stop after 2 games instead of 1, as one loss could just be a fluke.

Stop Playing When You Stop Calculating or Focusing:

The "quit after two losses" rule is a reliable safety net. But what if you want to keep playing? What if you genuinely feel fine after a loss, or you know you were just outplayed by a stronger opponent?

In those sorts of circumstances, it is often wiser to check if you're calculating and actually focused on the game or not. Stopping your calculation and relying only on what feels like a good move is not only a bad decision—it's one of the main signs that you've lost the plot and need to stop.

Not only that, but having your calculation stop is a great indicator that you're not focused anymore. Focus is one of the first things to go when you're tired, tilted or distracted. If you keep having to process the same position over and over again to play optimally, when it would usually take less than half a minute to play the same move, if you spend much more time than usual, or if you constantly play sub-optimal moves, then it is a good sign to stop.

Blunder-check:

This is probably one of the most, if not the most important tip of them all, especially for beginners.

Before you play a move, ask 2 questions:

1. "Does my move hang anything?"  Look at every one of your pieces. After you move, will any of them be undefended? Will your king be exposed? Would the opponent have a better position? This catches simple tactics and positional errors instantly. This is also incredibly useful after calculating a line/tactic, as it helps you see if a piece/pawn would be undefended at the end of the line. 

2. "What did my opponent's last move do?" This puts you in the shoes of your opponent and helps you foresee their plans and threats. Oftentimes, players are so focused on their own plans that they miss the plans of their opponent. Did the opponent attack my queen? Are they trying to start an attack? Are they opening up the position?

Now, this may seem like an arduous task that takes way too long for rapid, and for the absolute beginner, it often is, which is why I'll also recommend playing long time controls like 15|10 or 30|0 when you first start playing. Eventually, however, the process will become automatic and won't take more than a few seconds, and over time, you'll also learn when to slow down and when to trust your intuition. You'll start recognising which positions demand deep calculation and which ones are safe enough to play quickly.

Review Your Losses And Notable Games Before Your Wins:

It is often tempting for one to review a game where they won because of a Greek-gift sacrifice and had a brilliant move with 2 exclams than a game where they slowly lost in the endgame, but it is far more useful to analyse and review the latter, rather than the former.

It is also crucial to analyse and review games that were long and/or developed into incredibly complex positions with tons of nuance and possible plans, tactics, or positional weirdness, regardless of outcome.

This is because those types of games often contain the most info to analyse and review, and there are a good bit of tactics and positional concepts you missed. You can often learn parts of some positional and tactical motifs, and oftentimes, counter-play, as there will usually be moments when one side is losing but defends well and counterattacks.

Also, for all reviews, I recommend analysing without the engine first, then using game review/engine analysis.

Consume Chess Content:

This is quite an underrated tip in my opinion, but it's one that aided me heavily in my journey, especially when I was in the lower Elo ranges.

It helps because watching chess-related videos can be similar to practising, but you get a more understandable experience, and the content creator explaining something is usually easier to process than learning it on your own.

I recommend watching creators like Gothamchess because their content is quite consistently good, and his Guess the Elo series is quite hilarious to watch, and one can learn something from it. It is also advisable to watch smaller creators like Crossiant or sadistictushi, since they are, practically speaking, much closer to the average player than Hikaru or Gotham, but you can still get a whole lot from their content.

Alright, now time for the consensual descriptions and specific advice.

The Very Beginning: 100 - 400

One-move blunders and hanging pieces mark this Elo range. Although a player at this level might believe this is an overstatement, as I once thought when I was at that Elo, such beliefs can worsen their situation.

Players at this level tend not to notice one-move threats and often have no tactical awareness. This Elo range also has many players who just learned how the pieces move, which is fine, as we all start somewhere. A difference between why a 1000 hangs a piece in one move compared to a 100 is that the 1000 blunders due to not blunder-checking or limited board vision, whereas a 100 might have hung a piece due to not knowing how the pieces move.

I don't have many unique tips for this Elo range. I recommend simply playing long-time controls, like the aforementioned 15|10 and 30|0, to practice blunder-checking. Doing puzzles might also help at this Elo range, and it will certainly be experience for when you get better.

Getting Better: 400 - 800

Stronger players sometimes consider this range essentially the same as 100-400. I see it differently, as there are notable differences worth understanding. This is also the elo range that most of the chess.com playerbase is at.

First of all, tactics start to matter at this Elo range. While a single tactic won't decide the outcome of an entire game, it can certainly leave your opponent low on time or cause some other deficit, which can certainly help later. Secondly, players stop hanging pieces so constantly.

I recommend doing tons and tons of puzzles on various motifs, as well as following basic, general rules for positional play like putting your knights on outposts, trading a bad bishop for a piece, etc. The latter becomes very useful later, but even at this Elo range, it's useful, especially for less aggressive players, as your opponents will often overstretch and only weaken their position while trying to attack.

Consolidating: 800 - 1200

Games at this elo are sometimes described as a bad caricature, and honestly, it's quite accurate. Many players at this Elo range are genuinely good, for their elo, at some parts of the game, like tactics, while being bad at others.

This is the Elo range at which completely hanging a piece starts causing you to usually lose. Players will also usually start developing different playstyles here, though those playstyles usually haven't matured.

It's useful to learn how to attack, defend and convert here, not necessarily because those skills are absolutely needed, but because they will be of great use later. Also, it's advised to start learning an opening/opening line for both colours at this elo range. Opening traps also start getting refuted at this elo range, so you shouldn't stick to them. It is also in one's goals to consolidate and get good at a part of the game they're bad at. For example, someone who's bad at time management should try getting better at it. I didn't, and it's one of the reasons I got stuck at 1200 for 2 months.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 

It Starts Getting Serious: 1200 - 1600‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 

By the time you reach 1200 Elo, simply not hanging pieces is usually not enough; other skills are necessary to get decent at.

Players at this level will notice one-move threats, and relying solely on them to win is completely out the window by this point. Most games here are decided by 2 - 4 move tactics, and most players here have a solid grasp on the fundamentals. However, there are still things to improve and things to do.

Many players, especially those on the lower end of this Elo sub-group, don't have good positional awareness or good endgame knowledge. They'll often not activate the king during endgames and will often trade a good piece for a bad one. Thus, it's necessary to improve these skills if you want to get beyond this rating range. Also, being consistent with playing is needed to improve at a faster rate. I recommend playing at least 10 games a week, using the methods to avoid tilt I talked about earlier. Simply playing casually will often prove to be not enough. I got stuck at 1200, mainly because I was only playing a few games per week. Ramping up the amount of puzzles you do will become very essential here, and calculating thoroughly is even more necessary. It's also not a bad idea to do the woodpecker method here, even better if you plateau. Learning the middlegame plans for your openings is quite an intelligent plan here, and you'll be forced to learn it at higher Elos anyway. Also, if you plateau for a long period of time, I suggest switching time controls, like switching from 10|0 to 10|5, then switching back. I used it, and it was the main reason, I believe, for reaching 1600 from 1500 in just 5 days. This is also the elo range at which players who play distinct time controls start having notable dissimilarities in their skill. A 1400 in 10|5 rapid would likely be 1500 in 10|0.

Before we start, I play with the black pieces here. Also, can someone tell me how to reverse games in blog posts so that they can be viewed from the blogger's side, because I'm too busy to search for it? Here, my opponent plays the Bird, and we get into an equal position in the opening.‎ ‎Early on in the middlegame, I blundered my bishop, and he would've been up material if he saw the bishop trap, but my opponent didn't, so I managed to save it, though it still had almost no activity. Afterwards, I blundered a pawn, and now I had to form counter-play. I try doing that on the e-file by attacking the queen and getting onto the 2nd rank, but they had a single move that would've kept the advantage, a knight fork, that would've saved the game, but my opponent missed it. I managed to re-activate my bishop, blundered some pawns, had a perpetual but missed it, and finally managed to draw by agreement due to insufficient material. Overall, I think the main problem here was that we both had sub-optimal calculation skills.

The Road to Expert: 1600 - 2000

*As of writing this, I am currently 1800. I'll update it when I reach 1900, then when I surpass 2000 rapid.*

This part covers 1600 - 1800 rapid along with a few questions. 

By the time you reach 1600, you are more than firmly an intermediate and well on the way to being an expert. Also, something that is worthy to understand, even more important for people about to get to 1600, is that most games are still decided and defined by multi-move, usually 2 - 5 move tactics.

Also, I believe that by 1600, the rating scale starts to undergo a sort of skill compression. To put it simply, the gap between 1700 and 1800 feels far larger than the gap between 1400 and 1500. Each 100 elo gap becomes so dense with subtle differences that they start to effectively feel like multiple smaller, yet, in terms of skill disparity, larger brackets rolled into one. The climb to 1800 isn't one from 1750 to 1800; it's one from 1780 to 1815. Afterwards, there's supposedly a kind of elo hell where almost everyone plateaus for long periods. 

I believe the main difference between a 1600 and an 1800 is that the 1800 is simply slightly better at every aspect of the game. While a 1600 might have haphazard plans, an 1800 has solid ones that they fully commit to. While a 1600 might miss a two-mover, an 1800 doesn't. A 1600 might forget some endgame principles, but a 1800 doesn't. Is this true?

Overall, I have improved simply by being more and more consistent. I have noticed that it has taken me substantially more games to gain the same amount of elo than before. Apparently, there's a sort of elo hell at 1800 that's very hard to get past. Is that true? Also, apparently, you need to seriously start studying openings and endgames to get past 2000. Is that accurate?

tl;dr

General Tips:

Do puzzles for calculation, not speed, and visualise the full sequence
Quit after two losses; protect your rating and mental state
Stop playing when you stop calculating (that's the main tilt signal)
Review losses and complex games before your wins
Blunder-check: "Does this hang anything?" and "What did my opponent just do?"              Consume chess content: Learn chess in a more relatable, humorous and understandable way.

By Elo:

100 - 400: Stop hanging pieces so constantly. Play slower time controls. Blunder-check every move.

400 - 800: Tactics start to matter. Do lots of puzzles.
800 - 1200: Study simple endgames. Learn a specific opening/opening line. Stop using opening traps. Fix your biggest weakness.
1200 - 1600: Calculate deeper. Play consistently. Ramp up puzzle volume and consistency.
1600 -1800: Refine everything and be consistent with everything. The 1800 plateau is apparently real. Does anyone have tips to get past?

On Blitz & Bullet:

As of writing this in the second week of March 2026, I am only 1100 blitz and 1000 in bullet. I think the main reason for this is that I simply don't take them very seriously, certainly nowhere near as seriously as rapid. I mainly play these time controls for fun, and often go long periods of time without playing them. I occasionally try new things in these time controls. Oftentimes, I am tired, distracted, etc, let alone at my optimal performance. How do I improve at these 2 time controls?

The Learning Method:

If you've been attentive throughout this blog post, you'll notice that I mentioned a learning method. Here it is.

In essence, this learning method is incubation followed by application—several weeks of plateau with few games played, followed by a short spurt where you gain lots of Elo, often over 50, very quickly. I used this best when I went from 600 to 900 in 2 weeks and from 1300 to 1600 in 5 weeks, both of which I talk about more in my other blog.

How to use this method:

As I use it, I basically do some puzzles every day. I'll often first play on a Lichess account to determine whether it is suitable for me to play on this account or not. If I win, I'll usually play here, and I'll usually gain Elo. I'll do some thorough analysis of especially intriguing games, and sometimes, I'll even do some analysis in my subconscious. Combining all of this, alongside other useful things, means you're building skills beneath the surface of a plateau, and this will result in an eventual spurt, causing the gains I described earlier. You can most certainly optimise this to your liking.

You can use this for actually useful things?

I myself am not sure if it can be applied to actual, real-world problems, but since I managed to get to 1800 rapid in a bit over 18 months, including breaks, I think it could certainly be used for practical applications outside of chess.

If you have something to add, please do!

If you find flaws in my blog, please point them out in the comments!

I apologise if any of this sounds condescending, mean or negative.

Also, this is the second iteration of a blog with the same title I posted a few days ago. I chose to re-post as I had trouble re-editing it in the original one.