My goals for 2025

These are my goals for 2025

1. FIDE ratings improvement: 1542 to 1600
2. Lichess classical: 1900 - 2000
3. Lichess Rapid: 1850 - 1950
4. Lichess Blitz: 1650 - 1750
5. Chesscom Rapid: 1700 - 1800
6. Chesscom blitz : 1450 - 1550
7. Complete at least 5 middlegame books
8. Complete at least 2 endgame books 
9. Complete 3 opening repertoire books 
10. Complete at least 1 grandmaster-based book

Ambitious.

The plan is to complete 11 chess books in a year (Goals 7-10), and this will ostensibly take care of Goals 1-6.

Questions for you,

a) Which middlegame books are you considering?

b) Do you need more than one endgame book based on rating level?

a) I am reading Hellstein's Mastering Chess Strategy and Micheal Stean's Simple Chess. I will add some books such as Nimzowitch's My System, Constantine's Complete Manual of Positional Chess, and Norditski's Mastering Complex Middlegame.

b) I started to read Shervosky's Endgame strategy and Silman's Endgame but left after a few pages. Both books are lengthy and depend on time, whether I could complete them all in a year or not.

I have two books I plan on working through this year,

1. Mastering Chess Strategy by Hellstein

2. Chess Tactics from Scratch, 2nd edition, by Weteschnik

My hope is that these two books combined with "not dropping pieces" will take me to 1800 USCF.

How progress?

1. Complete at least 1 grandmaster-based book - done