What helps me is playing lots of correspondence chess and analyzing my own games.
Got about 20 chess books! still can`t improve!
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Yes. All those claiming software has helped their chess in this thread still exibit unremarkable progress.
Playing the game of chess without assistance ( but checking through errors played afterwards ) is more likely to bring advancement.
I recomend You Play OTB chess if you have a chance,Join a local club or go to open tournaments, then take your games and study your games with your books and see how you apply what you study and what need to improve and focus on your own play.
Owning 20 chess books is a good start, but it is also important to display them in a nice book case. Appearance is crucial to improving your chess.
fburton wrote:
Conflagration_Planet wrote:
jambyvedar wrote:
Yeah with great effort and correct training 2200 is attainable for most people, but beyond that, a person must really have some talent.
Then why don't most people get there?
Because most people are unable, for whatever reason, to make the effort required and/or do not receive (or give themselves - which is harder) the correct training.
lol...in other words, CP, they must be able to do it because this guy said so! 
If only it were that simple, eh? I believe improvement is always possible. Its when people start attaching arbitrary numbers to it that I become skeptical.
Well, I was 1700 at playchess.com when it was more "free" and hence more difficult. I am now a weak player and I almost never play. Why should that bother me? I have fully read only one chess book as a matter of fact - Aagaard "Excelling at Technical Chess" - because I like endings a lot.
I don't think an amateur should train as much as u do. U lose your time and develop a fixation. 20 books - too much. Who told you you should improve at all?? A friend of mine plays kingside fiancetto + c3 (c6) for 20 years till now and he is happy with that. Amateur chess is for fun.
Besides, most of the books on chess represent neither good literature, nor good chess. The whole thing about the concept of examplification and that of "chess ideas" is a bit superficial. When I scrolled Kotov for several hours, I found that even in this masterpiece only 10 games are real examples of the phenomenons described in the text. Maybe the most honest account of that peculiar "senselessness" of chess can be found in Euwe and Kramer. Because it's never that simple, it's never exactly that and it's nothing "textual". They are constantly denying their examples.
Don't read about chess, mate.
Well, I must say I seldom understood a word of that.
Well, not that I did much on the issue of understandability 
Yet what I actually mean is that to my opinion, chess can not be well explained by means of the so called chess ideas, that no amateur is obliged to improve his/her play at all, that chess books hardly pay off in terms of real play, that the guy should stop studing chess books and should see more girls and drink more beer.
Something like that.
Besides, Mr. Clifton, why do u think chess is nice?
SirPeterRussel wrote:
Well, not that I did much on the issue of understandability Yet what I actually mean is that to my opinion, chess can not be well explained by means of the so called chess ideas, that no amateur is obliged to improve his/her play at all, that chess books hardly pay off in terms of real play, that the guy should stop studing chess books and should see more girls and drink more beer.
Something like that.
Since when chess books hardly pay off in terms of real play.Sorry this post does not make any sense at all(a post coming from a novice player),players improve from reading chess books(of course you also need to play, and read appropriate book for your level).A beginner reading advance chess books by Dvoretsky, will see little progress(a beginner should read books appropriate for him) By following your ideas, there are no GM by now. GM are at one time all amateur(and many GM study from book to achieve what they are now, a GM). Chess can be explained by ideas(it's called pattern recognition and GM have abundance of it). Exchange sacrifice of rook for strong passed pawns, bad bishops, bishop pair, typical isolated pawn plans, typical hanging pawns plan sacrifice on h6 or h3 followed by queen capture etc, these are chess ideas. The op simply wants to improve and not to stay at mediocre amature level. There are good amature, and mediocre amature.
So since you suggest the guy should stop studying books and see some girls and drink beer, then anybody who likes basketball should stop practising it and drink some beer. So I guess anybody should stop playing their passion and hobby and get drunk all the time( that's bullshit,crap).
If you friend is happy being mediocre for the rest of his life, so be it good for him. But there are players who are passionate about chess and wants to improve their play( and they don't aspire to be a master).
SirPeterRussel wrote:
Besides, Mr. Clifton, why do u think chess is nice?
Another question that does not make any sense. It's like asking why do you think card games are nice, why do you think cooking is nice, why do you think golf is nice. Each individual have passion.
And I am again to argue yet realising that in is difficult to express disrespect for the game of chess in this particular forum. Reading Dvoretsky is always nice since he always implies certain moral lesson in his examples and that makes them interesting and funny. And he often emphasizes the fact that there are no universal examples, i.e. something like going beyond the level of "ideas" lol
And I know what positional sacrificing is like, I even did it mysely once - sacrificed pawns to free squares for strong knight and diagonals for strong bishops. The thing is that I dont like chess that much any more. I think it does not help us develop any pattern recognition outside chess itself. As another big chess fan Martin Emis has put it, "Chess is not a matter of intellegence. It is only a matter of chess" (This is from the funny movie Win at chess by BBC).
That is why I mildly suggested that the initiator of this improvement topic should quit chess. Otherwise, I am a compulsive collector of electronic chess books myself (a bad way to kill my spare time). The improvement plan should look like that:
First and foremost: Kotov - the think thing, Euwe and Kramer and some elementary openings introduction by Chessbase.
Tactics and attack: Vukovic, Averbakh Advanced Tactics, Mueller - Tactical Puzzles, Aagaard - Attacking Manual 1,2, Khenkin - The Last Check..., Aagaard - Right Decisions chessbase, Pachman - Tactics 1, 2.
Positional: Hellsten, Aagaard, Gelfer, Grooten, Dvoretsky - Positional Secrets, Tactical Secrets.
Technical play and endgames: Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, Shereshevsky - All 3 books, Aagaard - Excelling in Technical Chess, Mednis - Rate Your Endgame, Practical Rook, Dvoretsky - Secrets of Chess Training (it's on endgame but a bit too difficult).
And on my experience with impressive personal style: Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Tal - you will never forget the games of these which is again dangerous 4 your mind,
LOL
SirPeterRussel wrote:
And I am again to argue yet realising that in is difficult to express disrespect for the game of chess in this particular forum. Reading Dvoretsky is always nice since he always implies certain moral lesson in his examples and that makes them interesting and funny. And he often emphasizes the fact that there are no universal examples, i.e. something like going beyond the level of "ideas" lol
And I know what positional sacrificing is like, I even did it mysely once - sacrificed pawns to free squares for strong knight and diagonals for strong bishops. The thing is that I dont like chess that much any more. I think it does not help us develop any pattern recognition outside chess itself. As another big chess fan Martin Emis has put it, "Chess is not a matter of intellegence. It is only a matter of chess" (This is from the funny movie Win at chess by BBC).
That is why I mildly suggested that the initiator of this improvement topic should quit chess. Otherwise, I am a compulsive collector of electronic chess books myself (a bad way to kill my spare time). The improvement plan should look like that:
If you don't like chess anymore, so be it, enjoy what you are doing at the moment. But you can't force other not to like chess too and do other things instead. Sorry your post would have more authority if you are not a novice player, but the thing is you are a novice player.
I had a rating quite similar to yours in a certain period of time. It is not that easy to say that I don't know chess at all. I think I just started hating it recently. And I do not try to force somebody to quit chess. Yet, if u feel you think often about chess, than quit it, just an advice. That's it. What authority, if I find myself teaching chess, that would be disasterous for both my students and me 
SirPeterRussel wrote:
I had a rating quite similar to yours in a certain period of time.
I don't think so
1700 online at playchess.com. That's what I meant. Never taken part in competitions on bord, never studied, never thought about it even. But never mind.
The actual reason for recommending these books on my part was not that I know chess. The list is not mine even - people like Silman and Haysman have made similar lists. And I don't know much about the books either. Why than? Because these books are findable on the Internet in chessbase format and if you have a hard copy, which is preferable to the electronic one, you can help youself with computer analysis. And these are well tested books, they have helped many.
jambyvedar wrote:
SirPeterRussel wrote:
Besides, Mr. Clifton, why do u think chess is nice?
Another question that does not make any sense. It's like asking why do you think card games are nice, why do you think cooking is nice, why do you think golf is nice. Each individual have passion.
Made sense to me. That and the thing about seeing girls and drinking beer.
The game itself is pretty fun. But this sort of tedious windy bickering...not so nice. 
The STEP METHOD is also available as software to Level 3, with further levels being released as they are completed.
http://www.stappenmethode.nl/en/chess-tutor.php
Thats is really very, very good software. (I have the 8 years old former version with ALL steps on 1 CD.)
But not wellknown outside of Europe, don't know why..
The last level Step 5 is going up to the level arround 1600-1700 Elo, maybe not interesting for him.