Introduce Yourself and Your Goals!

Move to Poland, unrated players here are considered 1000 elo B) But seriously, good luck man! Just remember to have fun and I can guarantee that you'll improve quickly.

Hello, I am Cold_W1nter, pleasure to meet you all. While we are more than halfway through the year, I just discovered this club and the best way to improve is to share your goals with others that will keep you accountable, so thought I would share.
My goal at the beginning of the year was 2150 Rapid, but I've already smashed that and reached a peak of 2230! Now my goal is 2300 Rapid, and 2250 Blitz, both of which I'm on track to reach. I also want to improve my Survival Puzzle Rush to 65, currently we're at 52 and this is my biggest struggle. Also want to hit ~45 in 3 minute, though I'm not too sure this is possible.
Also want to improve my Caro and Grunfeld theory. Excited to be here and share!

Welcome! Now is always the best time to start.

Onward!

Hi,

I'm ShattersOfChina and when I joined the improvers club in early 2025, my goal was to give chess a try and increase my rating from 400 to 750. But I didn't want to make it public ;-) I didn't think I would make it due to some medical condition.

Now that I reached 750 I would like to tell you: I'm gonna try to get to 1000. But most importantly, I want to keep enjoying the process of learning and chess itself. I love all sorts of puzzles, so tactics is one of my favs here

Nice to meet you! I'm sure you're gonna reach 1000 eventually and even go beyond that if you, like you said correctly, just keep enjoying to play and study chess. Anyways I'm rooting for you!

Hello everyone, I am Paschal from Nigeria. Though I have been playing chess since I was little, I finally took interest in chess late December of 2024. My goal is to be over 1k elo and a very good chess player in the country. I hope I will be able to achieve that.

Hi there, I just recently found out about this club and joined the challenge.

My story with this game is a story of challenges I used to play with family as a child but I would hit decision paralysis and get massively frustrated. Then, I joined the platform during the pandemic, lost every single game and stopped playing quite fast.

I recently came back because my dad is playing again and as a homage to my grandad who used to play with me as a child and recently died. My dad eventually got me interested in improving. So here I am, slowly sucking less and less.

I am hoping I can reach 600 by end of year. I do puzzles, learn with the lessons available in chess.com, but I don’t really know what else I can do. I tried Chessable but it felt a bit like torture, with the repetitive movements. Any tips will be appreciated!

I will make a calendar entry to come back to this post in 2-3 months and see how I have improved.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Welcome and all the best with your chess. As an avid user of Chessable if you like the set up and courses/books, try them but don’t get stressed about the repetition of moves. It can be daunting and if you do many of a course it only increases the amount you get offered to review. You can adjust the schedule of review if a pro member but if not just take your time and enjoy the training it offers.

Hello. I learned chess as a kid in school but have started actually playing last month. Im going to be honest, Im too new to really know where I should focus my improvement. A you dont know what you don’t know thing. Ive climbed from 400 to 600-700 range so thats good and I hang my pieces less than when I first started. I think maybe it would be helpful just to know what my weak points are and what to prioritize working on. 
I do puzzles a lot and honestly find them fun esp when a similar scenario comes up in games or vice versa. I learned a lot of funky tricks and traps from them. However I do find games repetitive because it tends to be that way when you and your opponents mostly play italian, scotch, and the caro so games tend to go the same way. I once complained about the repetitiveness of my opponent always playing wayward queen and was told Id wish for it when I climb a little and that is the truth. Im hoping to not only improve my games but also play in a way that adds some variety. I dont have any specific rating goals

do remember CCA

Chess is a very repetative game, unfortunately, but it's really fun and sometimes mindnumbing as well xP When you feel more confident, and you're around the 1100-1200 level (or right now, if there are any OPEN tournaments without an entry fee), you should go to an OTB tournament, it's an unreal vibe, especially the first one.

I think we had “Chess in the Schools” I wish I still had the green chess “board” and chess pieces they gave everyone

CCA is a chess "rule". It stands for Checks, Captures, Attacks. What it means is that basically you should check for any checks you have, and which your opponent will have after your move, captures which you have and which your opponent has and attacks.

yea

Update: I’m Apex, an 800 level rapid player and my goal is 1000 rapid by January 2026.

You'll 200% get to 1000 elo even before October. You should mainly focus on doing puzzles and improving your middlegame/endgame skills. And do use the CCA rule mentioned above, the main cause of losing at the 800 elo level is blundering a piece, so you should be good just playing it safe and letting your opponent blunder first.

I bet he will get 1000 before september

@semicolonexpected You seem to be doing great in general, as you've gone up hundreds of points in a very short period of time. You said you'd like to know about your weaknesses. I took a look at your last couple of losses, and have this to say:

1. Be mindful of the knight's movements. The leaping powers of the horse can be particularly hard to spot, and many of your blunders were due to ignoring potential threats or winning moves with this piece (such as grabbing a free queen, or forking queen and king, or two rooks).

2. When your opponent plays a move, ask yourself if there's a threat before you decide on your own next move. Chess is a two players' game, and, while you can't just let the opponent dictate your moves throughout the game (this would be passive play), you have to be mindful of what they're doing so that you can reply in the best possible way.

3. Pay attention to the interactions on the board, and which pieces attack which. Also, work on your basic tactics, mainly pins and forks. At one point you played a "brilliant" move, sacrificing a bishop that couldn't be taken on account of a pawn's pin to the opponent's rook. After playing the move, however, and your opponent not capturing, you brought the bishop back to a square where it could actually be captured, completely missing the point.

@Annoyelia Took a look at the last few games you lost, and can give you some tips:

1. Play long time controls. Don't bother with blitz or bullet. You're doing it right when you pick 15+10 rapid. That's a good time control for improvement. In general, you seem to be following this advice, but it doesn't hurt to say it anyway.

2. Spend your time. It's not enough to pick the long time control: you also have to use the available time. If you play a 15+10 game as if it were bullet, then you're going to get extremely frustrated as you blunder and your opponents are able to find the right punishment. You're barely giving a second's thought to your moves. Take a deep breath, and carefully consider both your options and your opponent's before making a move.

3. Don't resign. You seem to be resigning very early in your games. At this level, you shouldn't do that even when you only have the king left, as your opponent might still throw away the win with a stalemate, for example. You resigned in a winning position, when your opponent sacrificed a knight that could be taken with your bishop! I know it can be frustrating, as I used to resign very early too. Playing on, even when you're actually losing, will teach you about counter-play and resilience. Should you end up losing the game after a long struggle, you'll also be learning about converting a winning advantage, which will come in handy when you find yourself on the better side of a similar situation.

4. Avoid dubious sacrifices. Don't throw your minor pieces at your opponent without the calculation to back it up. You'll need that material in the middlegame and endgame.

Chessable won't do much for you at this level, so you're right in avoiding it.

Feel free to reach out if you want me to help you.

Hi i am 2000 and my goal at the start of the year was lower but now i would like to reach 2400 and cm title until the end of the year. I am playing a lot of rapid every day as well as looking instrutional videos and i hope i can achive my goals.