Lessons from a 2500 player

I'm offering lessons with live support.

$20 for 4.5 hours.

$30 for 8 hours.   

I'll offer additional support and advice on your games. Did not start off super talented and was stuck at class D and class C for a long time and figured out a way to improve that anyone can do without needing a lot of natural talent.

Be sure to check out some of my blogs where I worked with students and give examples of some of the guidance I gave them: 
Tips for 100 - 1000 players: 
https://www.chess.com/blog/SUPER-HEAD/tips-for-100-1000-elo-playersTips for 400 players and below:

https://www.chess.com/blog/Zipho-lunika-blog/escaping-400-elo-common-mistakes-made-by-16-million-players

This thread died for some reason. All the other ones are okay. Got buried?🤔

Do you have any tips on how to improve my blitz and bullet ratings?

I think improving at slower games first is important. Focus on mechanics first. So think about a QWERTY keyboard. The first time you use it, you may be slow. After a long time, you can find the letters on the keyboard much faster without thinking. If you played a musical instrument, you may notice that it's awkward at first. Blitz just shows the skills that you have trained to the point of being fast.

Be sure to check out my improvement book if coaching costs too much for you. It's about $5 for the ebook. Has good improvement tips.

I believe Chess improvement should consist of developing problem-solving skills and pattern absorption. Skill acquisition is about training your mind to follow specific procedures and algorithms. Pattern absorption comes from studying people's games and solving simple puzzles to the point of automaticity.

Can you please tell how much opening theory a player needs to know in order to reach your level of rapid.

Just have one good opening for white. 1. e4, 1. d4, or 1. c4 are good, classical openings. Get a repertoire book or a repertoire course. Follow it. Use Chessbase Reader or Lichess studies to store the lines. Review and master them.

For black, you may choose openings against 1. e4, 1. d4, and 1. c4... even 1. Nf3 and 1. Nc3. Find good, classical defences.

If you want to skip too many openings, simply focus on system-based openings. The London System, the Trompowsky, the Torre, the Colle-Zukertort, Stonewall systems, etc. The King's Indian System is also good.

Against the Sicilian, you may try the Grand Prix Attack and the c3 Sicilian to avoid mainstream lines.

So, get a good opening repertoire for black and white. You can use a book or follow a video course to help you. If you have lines that are not covered, you can always prepare lines and ideas using a computer.
I talk about this in my book as well as effective methods to remember opening lines.

To be a practical player, limit yourself and the number of openings you learn in depth. Chess has way too much theory and opening lines. Narrowing down the lines to learn is simply practical and saves time. Its okay to learn new openings superficially, but have a main opening repertoire.

Thank you so much for the reply it helps a lot. I asked because I saw cm akeem brown playing different openings with starting moves you mentioned at 2300 rapid and his opponents were non titled players but they knew theoretical lines.

I meant the king's Indian Attack system in my earlier comment...which can be very dangerous for black.

The thing with Akeem Brown (@ChesswithAkeem) is that he has the time to explore and play as many different types of openings as he wants. He is semi-professional and one of the best in Jamaica. He has a chess channel, which requires a lot of work and consistency. Having time and sponsorship can allow you the freedom to look more deeply into other lines.

But I don't think it's necessary. I know very few openings. I can play other lines, but I don't know them too deeply and well. For example, I can play the Scotch game, Evan's gambit, King's gambit, the elephant gambit for black etc. I used to play them over 10 years ago, but I don't play them too much anymore.

If you want to save time wasted on openings, I suggest you focus on a few openings and study them deeply. Better to learn chess strategy and tactics. Chess strategy allows you to find moves without memorization. It allows you to actually understand chess. This is more valuable than spending hours memorizing tons of opening lines.

Capablanca could, in his earlier years, play the openings well without studying the opening theory and analysis. In fact, when he actually prepared one opening line against Cuban Champion Corzo, he won that match. In any case, he was still playing well without knowing too many openings. So focus on understanding. Improve your positional play. Study annotated games by masters. Learn about pawn structures and the resulting strategy. Focus mainly on ideas and how to find them.

All the best!

do you have any tips for a 1600 fide rated to break through? I am ok with studying for long periods of time.

Also any tips on to prevent blunders? I blunder a lot on my games

I actually speak about this in my improvement manual book, which is about $5 for the e-book. But anti-blunder training is about changing your thinking behavior. It's a form of psychological conditioning.

In the early stages it can be extremely uncomfortable and intense, particularly if you are in the habit of playing short games and playing on impulse.

What you want to do is deliberately focus on checking for blunders before you play each move. You may catch yourself reverting to old impulsive behaviours in the first few weeks. This is normal and to be expected. Sometimes, when you are winning or the win seems easy, you may stop focusing. I recommend against this. Never lose your sense of danger even if you are winning. It's important to be calm, controlled and methodical.

Reducing blunders improved my rating from 1800 blitz to 2300. I still blunder, of course, but the statistical rate at which I blunder over many games has reduced, and as a result my rating has increased.

If you want the full training setup and how to gradually improve, I would recommend getting my chess improvement guide. I also talk about how to improve each phase of the game, chess psychology and bad habits that made my progress slower that it should have :

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNGXRG3K

It's cheaper than a 1 hour coaching session and cheaper than working with a coach for a year like some players. It makes for easy reading (you can read it lying down or relaxing). I think it's a good investment in the long-run.

Can you please tell what is the difference that you felt between a 2000 blitz player and a 2500 blitz player because when I see their live games, I can guess so many of their moves sometimes, almost all of them in every phase of game , this forces me to wonder why I am not 2500 myself.

Its easy to see moves when you are watching. Sometimes you find that amature players say the move is 'obvious' when they already see what the engine recommends. I think its how our brains think. Psychologists call these "cognitive biases." They are blindspots in how our brain processes information and even makes judgements. Thats why a 1300 player who reads many books feels like they know a lot about chess but when they play, they cant apply that knowledge.
The real solution here is a deep study of your own games and weaknesses. Ask yourself : "Why am I losing"? "Where are my weaknesses"? I changed my black opening from the nimzo-indian to playing 1... C5 as black and my rating increased from 2300 to 2400. I started playing the benoni and old benoni. I identified this weakness and improved on it. So you must study your games very carefully. Write down the reason why you lost. Have 100+ reasons.

Set up a table. How many of the same reasons keep showing up in your lost games? Focus on the weakness that keeps showing up more than the others. How can you improve it. This is also true when I played the sicilian. I always struggled when it was a closed sicilian and not the main lines. So I stopped playing the sicilian as black and my results improved. (Sorry I sent that message earlier. I didnt proof read and I cant edit it since I'm using my cellphone. So there may be writing mistakes).

No problem, thanks a lot again for your valuable time btw do you play games with players like me sometimes? If yes, then please consider me one day😅.

It would be really nice to play higher rated players

That's very ambitious of you. It's always good to play higher-rated players. When I play blitz, I always play higher-rated players. That's why my win percentage is low. Even in your private training, always play stronger bots and expect to lose. Maybe every weekend or two play a grandmaster-level bot or even the world champion.

As for weaker players, I played a few long matches against a few players I was coaching. One guy went from 1300 and is now 1700 after my instruction. So usually you have to be a student. But there are rare exceptions.

I think you are right, before 1500 I played so many bots that I thought were hard for me and now I just don't do it. I will start doing so.