How to get better? Any Recomendations?

Hey guys I just became a platinum member andI have been going through a lot of lessons, puzzles tactics, openings etc...

I wanted to ask what are the best training, lessons plans to become an all around better player.  I especially want to learn how to look 3 or 4 moves ahead.

Any suggestions?  I’m open to anything.   

Thanks

Hello BBlanco. I think that doing all that you mentioned is important.

Lessons are important, but applying them is easier in longer games, so I suggest you play daily chess. Have a couple of daily games running at all time. And take your time in each move. Spend at least two minutes on each move. Otherwise, there would be no point of playing daily chess if you play every move in a few seconds

Also, tactics are important too. There is a lesson about tactic motifs. Learn about it. But I find that many of the puzzles irrelevant. Some tactics patterns come a lot in puzzles but don't come that much in real games. Yet, I still find them useful. An important point of doing tactics is learning how to calculate. Not only pattern recognition. I see that a lot of players' advice tend to focus on how puzzles help shape your intuition and pattern recognition. But, you cannot rely solely on intuition, without putting effort and calculating, you might blunder.

Finally, I suggest that whenever you feel addicted and play a lot of games consecutively, make sure you analyze every game by an engine as soon as you finish it. Have a break for 2 minutes and see where you blundered and try not to make the same mistakes again. I even find that if I don't take the analysis break, I tend to get tilted more easily.

You remind me of myself when I became a platinum member when I was also around 800. Now I got to 1400 in less than two years. I had some months when I got busy and stopped playing chess, but I eventually come back to it.  Also, I honestly did not put maximum effort because I liked to have fun and did not want to study that seriously. As I once told in our local chess club, "you improve in chess by studying, not by playing". I think although not quite right, there is some truth to it.

Good luck. 

you really need to play. that means playing slow chess with your level only. playing with much stronger players can hurt your neural nerve receptor in the brain. after some years of normal chess your body brain will search for stronger matches. you must solve tactics meanwhile.

Here are some interesting online books you can try, its more interactive form of getting the book in, I find it quite helpful https://www.chessable.com/the-fundamentals-build-up-your-chess-1/course/19145/ or https://www.chessable.com/tactics-time-1/course/21108/

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

I increased my rating 200 - 300 points by stopping drinking and paying more attention to my health. Once you gain enough knowledge and experience, your chess-playing is primarily a function of how many moves/second you can crunch. So, keep that brain fed on good and wholesome nutrition served up by clean blood with NO ALCOHOL or other bad things in it.

If you are in any doubt as to the veracity of what I say check my stats. I quit drinking forever in August of 2018 and have never touched another drop since nor any other inebriating substance.

100% STONE COLD SOBER and facing life with courage!

in my opinion one of the most useful things you could do is study the courses of Igor Smirnov. remote chess academy. he is one of the most brilliant chess teachers ever . he will make things simply and easy for you. he helps people understand the most essential principles. in my opinion he is the best chess teacher in the whole world there are many of course but in my opinion he is the best. I also think Simon Williams is exceptional.

You should consider private lessons. 

Email evan@premierchess.com and we can set up a free 30 minute demo lesson. 

You should check out John Bartholomew on YouTube. I was 400+ when I started watching his videos at about 3 months ago. Now trying for 1000 blitz. And tactics too....u should try to do it daily. 

quit.

 or private lessons.

There is a saying that our chess progresses very much like the game has progressed over the years.  Try to study games from the early era of chess or pick an early World Champion and study their games.  The early days of chess were dominated by many people who were just tactically better than their opponents and others who were very innovative for their time.  This will give you game situations that should be ripe with lots of tactics.  Study lots of tactics too.  The Polgar book on tactics has over 5,000 chess tactics exercises you can work through.  Combine this with Daily 3 day move games.  If you have a favorite white or black opening join a 3 day thematic tournament for that opening.  I think you can even create a thematic tournament for yourself now that you are a Platinum.

A book recommendation that is very common is the Zurich 1953 tournament book written by David Bronstein.  This was considered to be one of the strongest tournaments of that era.  Most knowledgeable chess players now rate it the greatest tournament since World War II, and possibly the greatest tournament of all time.  Zurich 1953 attracted fifteen of the strongest players in the world: Smyslov; Geller; Boleslavsky; Bronstein; Najdorf; Szabo; Keres; Kotov; Gligoric; Reshevsky; Taimanov; Euwe; Petrosian; Averbakh; and Stahlberg.  Almost all the games were hotly contested, and many are masterpieces of the first rank.

To get good at this game you need to play hundreds of games.  Crack on is my best advice 

When you play through a game in a book, work through as far as you can the sub variations, trying to visualise the final position. It's like lifting weights. Gradually your visualisation will improve. Of course, by all means move the pieces after, to see if it corresponded to what you thought.

In so far as anticipating your opponents moves - along with visualisation - ask yourself what would you do in his/her shoes. As your grasp of strategy and tactics improves this "anticipation" will also improve. Part of your improved judgement will also inform you to what extent looking ahead three or four moves ahead is necessary or not. Of course in an endgame, greater depth of analysis may be called upon. In a mild opening trying to think ahead three or four moves may be a waste of energy. Experience will inform you

http://memchess.com/ - do some daily practice with this to learn openings.  Italian game, Scotch, Spanish, French, Sicilian and Slav are probably the ones you should focus on early. Do white and black. Id pick one to begin with until you get through all lines before moving onto another one. Scotch, Italian and Spanish are fairly similar and all on King's Pawn opener. Solid one, two, three learning. Try to understand why each move is made instead of just straight memorization. Example - why does teh bishop move in this situation? Oh, he moved a knight to attack the center and this defends it or other basic reasons for moves and variations in lines. Once you start understanding why the moves are made, the openers all start becoming easier to understand and less about memorizing.  Chess.com has openers, but I find memchess a lot more compact and easier while tracking your progress and progressively adding more lines and variations as you learn. 

Hi! It would be a matter of looking at your real knowledge now. With most of my students we had to work on their basis and begin to teach them about the most important thing: how to think. Incredibly, most chess players dont really know how to do this, and when doing so we begin making less mistakes and of course, winning more games. Feel free to write me for any possible questions that might arise, this is a complex topic and specific for each person. Good luck!

www.rkcchess.com we offer excellent platform for online chess coaching. we have our own e classroom which has some interesting features of online homework , analyse your games and 121 coaching. I am FIDE 2170 with experience of over 39 years in International chess tournaments. if anyone is interested please connect with me on manthan.chokshi@gmail.com

Here is some Dutch with Simon Williams https://www.chessable.com/short-sweet-the-dutch/course/26772/ for some interactive learning, there is plenty of those. I think its good way to improve steadily, or at least add to it. 

If you are looking to get better i am an expert player, i just recently started a youtube channel and uploaded my first video, many more instructive videos to come, be sure to check it out, here it is- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YltF70LwE8A

This really helped me! I also liked this one, also to do with Dutch 
https://www.chessable.com/the-killer-dutch-rebooted/course/21812/