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The following is a improvement guide for members to use. The most important for a beginner to learn is how to think. I you are making move entirely based on intuition you will never reach a high level in chess. A great article explaining this can be found at: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/real.txt It is impossible to learn a thought process is live games, one must learn it in correspondent games and once comfortable with it one can start to implement it into their long time control live games and slowly into faster games. a great article about thought process can be found here: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman14.pdf a thread from chess.com outlining various thought processes can be found here:http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/thought-processes Once a player is comfortable with their thought process they need to start learning openings, tactics, strategy and endgames. A great and organized study plan can be found here: http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory In compliments the links provided by the chess.com study plan, Dan Heisman wrote a great article called Seeds of Tactical Destruction and it can be found here: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman05.pdf Once a player has completed the "plans for beginners" section they should go and get a written tactics book. This will help with visualization which doing tactics online cannot. A player should also start using a database program like SCID to create an opening repertoire. SCID can be downloaded for free at http://scid.sourceforge.net/ There is plenty of information all over the web on methods of creating an opening repertoire, a quick search of this site alone should yield results.

Welcome to Improvement Seekers Online. We are a group of players that are serious about to improving our chess skills. We work together to accomplish this goal by studying openings as a group, analyzing each others annotated games and discussing them afterwards, following a study plan so that all members are learning similar material, and providing chess information in the way of books, articles and videos. What is required for new member: -abide by the rules of chess.com -familiarize your self with the "model of chess improvement" and read the attached articles -start 3-7 online games and write down your thoughts for every move of play in a word processor (microsoft word, text edit, notepad etc...) -submit 2 of your best games that you have lost and annotated without the use of an engine. (you may post them in the forums) -stop playing live games for a week and do not play under 30 minute live games for another week -sign up for the free online tactics trainer at http://chess.emrald.net/ and complete at least 50 puzzles a week. use the same handle as you use here on chess.com when you sign up. This is not required for members that have access to the Tactics Trainer here on chess.com but is still recommended.

Hello everyone, I was wondering how everyone is trying to study tactics. What books/software do you use, what kind of problems do you study? How many time do you invest in studying tactics weekly? I myself am now working the book: Chess tactics for champions by Susan Polgar. Furthermore I use the tactics trainer feature on chess.com. However I seem stuck around 1600 tactics trainer for 1 month now. Any idea's? Greetins, Prutser