The Truth Hurts (PSA for Beginner-Intermediate Players)

I'm seeing a lot of requests for help and improvement advice from beginner-intermediate players, and many of them fall into one of these broad categories:

1. What openings should I play to improve? / What should I do against this opening?
2. How should I get to X Elo? / Road to X ELO / How can I improve? (general)
3. "Looking for a free chess coach" / How do I stop my losing streak? / I want stuff/results fast!

As a fairly strong player who has put in enough work to know more than most people, and who isn't paid to be a figure of toxic positivity, I'm just going to tell you how it is:

1. Openings don't matter at your level. They are just a matter of preference, unless you're playing some really dubious trap. Obsessing about openings is like dreaming about your fighting style before you've thrown your first punch. It doesn't matter. Just pick an opening you "vibe with" as Black, and then play the same opening a tempo up as White. Spend the rest of your time getting better at finding good moves. For example, taking free pieces.

2. The "Road to X ELO" isn't a real thing. A road implies a straight (or straight-ish) path to a destination which you will eventually reach if you keep walking along it for long enough. This is not the case. Everyone has a maximum potential which is constantly decreasing due to age, and at some point you will plateau and then decline. If you're asking "is it too late for me to become a Grandmaster?" Yes. It's too late.
Nevertheless, most people in this forum are still capable of some amount of improvement. If you are <1200 Rapid, just about the only thing you need to worry about is taking your opponent's pieces and not letting your opponent take your pieces. If your rating isn't 1200 Rapid and you wonder why you're not getting better, it's because you aren't getting better at taking more pieces than your opponent. If you're rated between 1200 and 1800, you need to worry a little about theoretical endgames and openings, but mostly you need to get better at taking pieces. If you're over 1800, then you can worry about complicated stuff... like forcing your opponent to give away his pieces.

3. Stop asking for free stuff. It's frankly degrading to the game for people to be asking for a 2000 ELO player to do private coaching FOR FREE. Strong players are glad to help with some pointers, but they weren't given a handout... They worked for their ranking! Unless you're my friend, I'm not giving you a free lesson, and neither will an actually strong player!
And if you're in a slump, you can't just expect to get your elo back without hard work. Well, not unless you che@t. In any case, you won't get better unless you put in the work. And going on a blitz binge or exploring obscure lines of the Kalashnikov because the name sounds cool aren't going to help. You need to get good at taking your opponent's pieces, and that means playing long games (15|10 is not ideal, but bare minimum) and then analyzing afterward.
The only way to get anything for free... Is to go to lichess. Not only is that degenerated place totally free with no ads, your elo will go up (well, their ratings are inflated)! But we don't talk about that sort of hippie communism on chess.com forums!

This, in my opinion, is all the general advice most people need to know when starting out on their chess journey. Your next questions should be oriented around filling in the details of how exactly you will improve at taking free pieces. If you don't mind the facts and the challenges I laid out before you, I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.

This is facts. If you want to improve you have to work hard for it

Dayum

i agree with most of that but learning to play solid middlegame moves is probably the most important thing because on average the lowest accuracy is middlegame accuracy compared to opening and endgame accuracy, dominant positions are argueably better being a piece up because there is less blunders to be made

Also i started chess at 11 and in 2 years of solid work i have already gotten to nearly 2000 blitz and nearly 1700 rapid considering that i've been inconsistent until the last 2 months

so nothing is truely impossible and you are being too harsh with your statements

chess is not only about taking free piece come on. there's other important thing's to improve like positioal understanding. I think you have also underestimated about the level of 1200-1800.it's not that simple

I consider myself lucky to have gotten professional lessons- and a completely agree with you- it takes hard work and learning an obscure opening isnt gonna help, you have to play over the board games and analyse them. Its important to look at your mistakes and improve on them

Honestly, as one of those beginner/intermediate players, what I really want to learn is just how to analyze my games well. Just learning a system for that to notice where I consistently make mistakes and can then make a plan to correct would work wonders.

I imagine this also takes time to learn.

I guess you haven't seen the roads where I'm from...
Overall great advice though!

Absolutely, I spent too long improving to be simplified this much to “taking pieces”

Facts but don’t forget that you can be tilted, i got into a slump after gaining 150 elo in a day, then i lost 200. I took a 3 day break and my chess somehow evolved

Yeah absolutely I peaked at 1940 blitz and if you check now I’m at 1827 because slumps happen

If you want to improve, you have to accept FACTS even if they may be harsh.

absolutely but there are higher rated players than him, whatever is said in that post shouldn't be used like a gospel, everyone has different learning paths

Great pieces of advice overall. I agree with this except for a few minor details.

First, some clarifications I would add:

 If you're asking "is it too late for me to become a Grandmaster?" Yes. It's too late.

(Two sides of this are already discussed here. I am just adding my two cents).
This is harsh but true. Technically, you may able to become a grandmaster irrespective of age. But, this requires a ton of effort most people are not ready for. Remember that you can enjoy a sport or game, without being an expert in it, and savor the good moments and growth you had in it. If you are extremely dedicated to a goal and ready to put a lot of time, energy and money, nothing is impossible. But, one cannot set such goals for many things in life (again there are exceptions; but, there is a reason they are called exceptions).

Nevertheless, most people in this forum are still capable of some amount of improvement. If you are <1200 Rapid, just about the only thing you need to worry about is taking your opponent's pieces and not letting your opponent take your pieces. If your rating isn't 1200 Rapid and you wonder why you're not getting better, it's because you aren't getting better at taking more pieces than your opponent.

Just to be clear, he is talking about playing for material, not just en prise and exchange.

Minor points/opinions I don't agree with:

 If you're rated between 1200 and 1800, you need to worry a little about theoretical endgames and openings, but mostly you need to get better at taking pieces. If you're over 1800, then you can worry about complicated stuff.

While I agree with this overall, 'taking pieces' is too much of an oversimplification (as people already pointed out in comments here). At 1200-1800 level, playing for material all the time is not enough. One also has to learn about time and king safety (mainly by tactics training), at least a little bit about space, and at least some vague idea of basic positional concepts.
The only way to get anything for free... Is to go to lichess. Not only is that degenerated place totally free with no ads, your elo will go up (well, their ratings are inflated)!

Don't diss lichess. I know people who used lichess properly to improve rating to a good level. But, just like any other place you get free stuff, the selections will not be curated, and if you take something at random, a lot of effort does not go into making it. This is true of lichess studies too. Here is staff-picks from studies and puzzle packs. By the way, if you train using free material, it is absolutely important to follow a syllabus given by a very experienced player or author (or better coach), say in a book. I also feel like there is a rating inflation in lichess comparted to fide or chess.com rating. But, that does not matter if you only compare lichess ratings of two players.

I agree with the 'there's no easy way' and 'don't ask for free coaching' things, but I do believe playing friendlies with stronger opponents then analyzing the games has helped me a lot, and well, if they don't want to play, then at least I get to make some friends along the way.

Also, I believe that some opening knowledge did help me a lot, tactics and good middlegames come from active pieces that come from proper development, playing the damiano or philiddor defense won't get you there and will indeed slow you down.

In the end, it's a long way and I'm certainly just a beginner, I'm also sorry you are constantly dealing with people that want everything handed to them, but I don't think everything is black or white, some opening knowledge, analyzing your games and practicing tactics are all useful to all players unless you're already a titled player and actually would benefit from personal coaching.

Much of that is because the middlegame is where you are once you run out of prep but still have a lot of pieces to blunder away. And I'd definitely have an extra piece than even a +6 evaluation conditioned on a positional advantage I might not be able to execute on. I like to win simply, not to win by a lot in a complicated way.

Yeah, you're 13. Your brain still works fine. A lot of us are old men battling against the endless tide of senility.

Of course everything I said is simple, general, and to the point. It's a PSA. Like "don't jaywalk" is a PSA, even though technically if you're very sure there's no cars around and there's line of sight for hundreds of feet in either direction you can surely cross the street and be fine.

I was that level until a couple years ago. What I can tell you now is when I play weaker players OTB, I just keep moving around and doing nothing. I keep doing nothing until my opponent hangs a piece, and then I win. I did improve positionally, and occasionally I'll push all my pawns up and roll over my opponent, but even then it's more likely he'll hang a piece under the pressure than actually get choked out. I'm by no means a tactical player, but the truth is chess is 99% tactics. If you are "good enough" positionally to "hang in there" but you always punish your opponent's tactical mistakes, you will be much stronger than if you're positionally perfect but lose your tactical focus in critical positions a couple times a game.

Good question! Possibly one of the best questions! The most important thing is to annotate your games by hand without Stockfish, and only use the machine at the very end. Write down what you were thinking, what you were planning, what you think you missed, what you would do differently if you were in that position again. Consider elements like time pressure, material, activity, etc.
Once you're finished with all of your own thoughts, then turn on the engine and note where your ideas line up and where they don't. If something doesn't make sense, ask the engine questions by entering alternate lines and seeing how it responds. If there's anything you think is a systemic (rather than incidental) issue, try to identify why you made the mistake that you did and how you could fix it.

An optional but very helpful possibility is to seek another opinion. Often the best person to consult is your opponent, but the next best could be a coach and then a peer. These people are almost guaranteed to have different thoughts about the game than you do.
Also note that almost nobody does all these steps for all their games. Even the masters don't always do it. Nobody's perfect.