Introduce Yourself and Your Goals!

Hello, how's your chess improvement going? What are your goals for the year?

Hey everyone, I'm Brett. I'm 30 and with a young family, and a thriving career & business. I'm hoping to level up my chess - which I learned from my dad as a kid - and get to 1500 rapid by the end of the year. Here's my current study plan if you're interested:

Tactics - 15-30 mins every other day, using Bain's Chess Tactics for Students and CT Art for Beginners, (5 chessdotcom puzzles, puzzle battle & puzzle rush are on top of this, not included in time)

Endgames - Go through Silman's Endgame Course (currently at end of Class Bish), for 30-45 mins two times per week

Strategy - Go through Stean's Simple Chess for 30-45 mins two times per week

Playing and analysis - Play around 5-7 15 | 10 games per week, and analyze them using the Game Review function (engine suggestions disabled), making sure to understand why my move was wrong and noting the type of mistake made.

Looking forward to improving with you all.

nice plan but what about openings?

I watch some opening videos from time to time during the week (around 20 mins total). I don't like studying them at my level, as they definitely do not decide games - tactics and major strategic blunders do.

yes, you are right about that, what is your style of play, are you a tactical, positional or improvisor ?

as in like what kind of openings do you play, or do enjoy strategy or tactics more?

Oh, I see. My openings are the Caro-Kan for Black against e4, KIA as white and Slav against d4. I feel more comfortable in strategic positions rather than tactical ones. I try to improvise and play good moves where possible, regardless of if they are tactical or not.

In terms of what I like more, I like strategy in terms of gaining knowledge and understanding, but tactical puzzles (especially complex endgame ones) are quite satisfying.

yeah, I like both I've tried many different openings, the kings gambit was too aggressive and the Caro kann was too positional. You do seem to enjoy solid positions. I used to like e4 a lot, until Monday c4 changed my whole repertoire. I have won 60% of my games with it compared to 54% with e4, and for someone with a lot of games that's a huge difference. So I play the English, the nimzo/queen's Indian, and the Sicilian

Right on, that's great.

How much time did it take you to understand Sicilian theory enough to play it well?

before I learned the theory playing the Sicilian seemed easy for me. I knew where my pieces belonged before studying and few of the tricks I watched in lessons seemed new. It just suits me,

Nice! Sounds like a good fit.

GL & HF

Hi Everyone, I am from Las Vegas and I got Chess.com diamond membership as a late b-day present to myself a few years ago and it has been such an amazing journey since then. I have had a peak Chess.com rating of 1965 and would like to hit 2000 for the 2025 improvers challenge. I am currently 1800 chess.com. I have met many wonderful people online here but would love to find a local chess club and start my USCF and play in some OTB tournaments.

There is a big one in Vegas in December. https://new.uschess.org/35th-annual-north-american-open

I went last year and it was pretty fun.

Hi everyone! My name is Eero. I've played chess now for roughly one year. It has been 2 years since I started, but I had almost an year break early last year. Chess is a hobby for me, and I like to play for fun, but one aspect that makes it fun for me is the fact you can improve. I mostly play rapid 15|10 and daily games. Currently rapid rating is ~850 and Daily ~1050. End of the year goal is to reach over 900 Rapid rating (extra goal is to hit 1000). 
As for training routine, currently I try to play at least daily moves on the daily games I have on going. On top of that I try to find time to solve few Puzzles daily. Also, I've now started to analyze my games and try to identify what mistake me or my the opponent opponent did (which resulted in the win or loss). As for rapid games, I've found it hard to find focus recently, and try to avoid playing rapid games when I'm not fully focused. Currently aiming to play at least 1-2+ rapid games a week. 
Anyways, happy to join the club! Good luck to everyone in your improvement journey

you too

Way to go, Eero. You've got this!

I'm doing puzzles every day to improve my game.

simple but effective!