My key improvement takeaways

Intro

Hi! My name is Eero, and I am a 37-year-old chess hobbyist. I thought that writing a blog would serve as an excellent tool for self-reflection and reinforce my own learning. I intended to write this back in January, but the writing process took longer than expected.

I wanted to share the key methods that helped me to improve in chess with you, the readers. You will probably get the most out of this blog post if your rapid rating is below 1000.

I have divided my writing into five parts:

• My background
• Analysis
• Puzzles
• Tournaments
• What’s next?

Let’s get started!

My background
To give what I’ve written some context, I’ll share a bit about my chess background. I started my chess hobby pretty much from scratch. I knew how the pieces moved and how to win, but castling and en passant were new information to me.

I created an account in 2023 and quickly got hooked. The learning materials here at Chess.com helped me to take a big step forward and understand the game better: opening principles, controlling the centre, piece values, simple endgames and checkmate patterns. 

In 2024, I took a long break and resumed playing in the spring of 2025. At this point, I realised chess is a fun hobby. It suits an introvert like me who enjoys occasional solitude. Additionally, chess has incredible depth, offering almost endless opportunities to improve. From this point onward, I only ventured deeper into the rabbit hole of chess. 

For my development, it was crucial to identify my weaknesses. In 2025 (and currently), the major areas for improvement in my game have been:

• Hasty moves (Note: Finding the right time control helped; I started with 10+0 rapid but moved to 15+10, which I think is better for beginners).
• Sticking to opening principles.
• Finding basic checkmate patterns (like Rook and King vs. King).
• Losing games because I was down on material.

That is my brief background and starting point. The methods listed below significantly improved these areas of my game.

Analysis
Analysing my own games has easily had the biggest impact on my development. I’d say it’s perhaps the most important factor in my progress. My rating was around 850, and I noticed I was clearly stuck. No matter how many games I played, I wasn't winning or losing any more than usual. However, the losses became more frustrating, especially as I approached a 900 rating.

I began to wonder how I could improve and what my biggest weaknesses were. Analysis was frequently mentioned in online communities and articles as an essential part of improving, so I started analysing my games.

Initially, I focused on analysing my losses. After a game, I’d take a short break from my computer (5–10 min) to shake off the bitter taste of defeat. Once I felt calm, I’d return to the screen. I went through the game move by move, asking: Was this the best move?. If not, what would have been better? Was my move a mistake or a blunder?.

Throwing here a quick example analysis I did for this post. Sometimes I go a bit more in-depth and try out different variations. The comments should give an idea of my thought process and how simple the analysis can be. Do note that I compared my own analysis to computer's only after I did it on my own first.

The biggest turning point was watching John Bartholomew’s “Chess Fundamentals” YouTube series. In the first video, John explains the impact of undefended pieces and how important it is to notice them. So, I started asking: What weaknesses did I miss? And did the opponent have weaknesses I failed to notice?.

I quickly began noticing clear areas for improvement. Specifically, my own undefended pieces were often the deciding factor in my games. This happened often with minor pieces (Bishops and Knights) and, though less frequently, still too often with major pieces (Queen and Rooks). Once I realised this, I began focusing on undefended pieces during games. To my delight, I also started noticing my opponents' undefended pieces better. This allowed me to turn more games into wins.

Regarding John’s series, I also began examining my games through other concepts, like pawn structures and coordination. I feel analysis is an excellent tool for learning different aspects of chess. It’s easier to improve one area at a time , whether it’s undefended pieces, blunders, or checkmate patterns.

Analysis has also helped me visualise situations faster while playing and calculate moves ahead more effectively. I estimate this clearly helped me break past the 900-rating barrier after a long plateau at 800.

Takeways:

• Start with basic analysis: consider if each move was good or bad.
• Gradually introduce different concepts (e.g., undefended pieces, opening principles) and reflect on your games through those lenses.
• Self-analysis is a great for identifying your key areas to improve

Puzzles

The second most important thing on my journey has been solving puzzles. I had been doing puzzles since I started playing, but it wasn't until late summer (August) 2025 that I began using them effectively for improvement.

Earlier, I did several puzzles a day. I solved some quickly and others slowly, but I made mistakes. After an error, I’d usually reset the puzzle and try again, and if that failed, I’d repeat. I was "solving" puzzles by trial and error without really using much brainpower. Luckily, I realised how foolish this was and changed my approach.

I got the idea from a forum thread or an article to solve puzzles slowly and with thought. This was a massive mindset shift. I began visualising the entire solution in my head before making a move. Only when I was 99% sure of the solution would I even attempt it.

This leads to the benefits. I had trouble calculating moves in my head, and one of my goals was to slow down my play. A large portion of my blunders happened because I moved too fast without thinking. Solving puzzles slowly helped bring that deliberate habit into my actual games. It also helped me visualise the board better. Certain recurring patterns (e.g. Back-Rank Mates) became easier to spot, as did forks and pins.

Here is an example, where my improvement on board vision definitely helped.

I play Puzzle Rush as a warm up before I play. This has been a good habit to mentally prepare myself to play. Also, my warm up puzzle performance has been a good indicator if I'm not 100% focused and should not play.

Takeaways

• Aim to solve puzzles on the first try; slowness is a virtue. Take your time.
• Go through the moves in your mind before moving the pieces.
• Puzzles are good for warming up before playing. 

Tournaments
Lastly, I want to highlight tournaments. The “End of the Year Marathon” organised for the Improvers Club was a great motivator and gave me confidence for the future. Knowing I had one long, important game coming up each week for five weeks created a good training routine. It was more motivating to practice for a specific goal than to play aimlessly for a rating.

Tournament games serve as excellent weekly milestones. Furthermore, longer time controls allow you to utilise everything you’ve learned. Even if you don't want to play in tournaments, I think it’s good to play one longer game every week or two. In longer games, you have more time to think, which simply leads to better chess.

Here are two of the End of the Year 2025 tournament games. Didn't analyse the games for this blog post, but I'll write a short summary of both games. First game is from Round 3, which I won. Second is from Round 4, which I lost. Good games, and both opponents played well.

I think this was the most accurate and best game I played towards the end of last year. I played perfect opening and got a great position after. Rook was out in the open. I took advantage of my opponent's mistake and won material. In the end I found a mating pattern (which I was super proud of, as it involved a pawn).

Similar to previous game, my opponent played Pirc Defense as opening, but I couldn't crack it this time around. My opening was solid and I played a good game, but my opponent played better and took advantage of my weak pawns. Lost one pawn due to blunder and couple more due to miss calculation. I was down three pawns against my opponent, and foolishly went too deep with my knight. Allowed my opponent to promote a pawn and that was pretty much end of it. This was a good learning experience and it really made me think more about my pawns and pawn structure, which was definitely a deciding factor in this game. 

Takeaways:

• Tournaments can provide good goals to train towards
• Longer time controls are good for putting your skills to test  

What’s Next?

I want to continue my journey. I’ll keep doing the things mentioned above, but this year I also want to take on new concepts to learn. I just bought the books The Amateur’s Mind and Everyone’s First Chess Workbook. Having skimmed quickly the first one, I believe it offers great ideas to study.

Additionally, while still focusing on opening principles, I plan to learn a few more openings —specifically those I seem to lose to most often. My goal for this year is to reach a rating of 1100 and beyond. To reach that, I should also aim to play more.

Even though the things I’ve written are more or less common sense, simple things can sometimes be forgotten. I hope you, the reader, got something out of this blog post.

Thanks for reading, and good luck on your own path of improvement!