What have you been working on to improve your chess lately? Any parts of your chess game you feel are holding you back from crossing into 1200s (or higher)?
I could offer some of my thoughts, but chess improvement is highly individual for each person even though some general advice may benefit most people, but this generic advice isn't as good as something tailored to you and your game specifically.
Rating barriers will happen often while you are climbing up the ELO ladder. Normally around your level, a person will either seek out a study partner or look for a coach to gain some insight. Neither has to be long-term to get your chess skills a boost. If you would like some general advice, just send me a DM. Good chess my friend.
Learn exactly how to think in the opening, middlegame and endgame — this is what I teach.
Always blunder-check your moves.
Solve tactics in the right way.
Analyze your games.
Study games of strong players.
Learn how to be more psychologically resilient.
Work on your time management skills.
Get a coach if you can.
take a break, find another hobby, return to chess after at least a month
i struggle on endgames if ur wondering
Learning endgames well was something that helped me a lot in the early stages of my chess journey. Your rating is already fairly high (1100 blitz is still a solid amount above the global average), so I imagine you already know the very basics like King + Queen vs King checkmate, or how to win with a single pawn via King Opposition. Are there any particular endgames you feel less confident with? Two Bishops checkmate perhaps? Maybe Rook versus Rook when you have more pawns than the opponent? Lots of endgames simplify into different versions of winning pawn endgames, but some others is just about learning to checkmate with the remaining material.
i think i am worst at endgames with pieces, especially rook
i just had a game where i was low on time when i had a rook and pawn vs bishop, and i blundered my rook due to time pressure but i won because it was 2 on 2 pawns and a bishop, but i did a draw because i won the pawns
i think i am worst at endgames with pieces, especially rook
i just had a game where i was low on time when i had a rook and pawn vs bishop, and i blundered my rook due to time pressure but i won because it was 2 on 2 pawns and a bishop, but i did a draw because i won the pawns
Rook endgames are known for often being complicated, but they are worth studying because approximately 1/6th of all chess endgames are some form of rook endgames.
In the case of a rook against a bishop (with pawns still on the board), I try to keep my pieces (namely rook and king) on the opposite color of the bishop; especially in time pressure, this saves me energy from looking to avoid situations where my rook gets forked (etc.) by the bishop.
Personally, I would advise to play in a longer time frame.
For all players below an amateur-intermediate rating (<1800 on chess.com), I would advice to player on longer time controls. Such as 10|0, 15|10, and 30|0. I would especially encourage it, seeing as how a majority of your losses came down to a positional disadvantage caused by rushed development, hasty calculations, and mistakes stemming from time pressures.
To transition to a Rapid playstyle, you'll have to be prepared to see more opening variations that you otherwise wouldn't find in blitz or bullet. Specifically, extremely positional and otherwise balanced variations. Therefore, you'll have to study opening theory.
After checking your game history, I noticed that 35 out of your 48 most recently lost live games went unanalyzed, while 2 out of your 50 most recently won games went unanalyzed. This is a troubling habit that most players fall into: only checking their won games. I call this "mirror analysis", or analysis done predominantly to boost one's self-confidence and not improving.
What I'm trying to say here is that analyzing your lost games is as important, if not, more important than analyzing won games.
This is because analyzing lost games gives you important insight into your weaknesses. For example, the variations you're weak against and tactics you often don't spot and get punished with
which brings me to, how should you analyze your games?
Games should not be analyzed solely by using Game Review. Game Review unintentionally leads to improper analysis by those who have little experience with it because they simply take the advice at face value. You should always analyze your games using the appropriately named analysis board located under the "learn" tab on the main page, or the magnifying glass on the "Game Over" GUI, Near the "Share", "Library", and "Classroom" buttons.
The analysis board is an incredible tool. Using solely the free functions, you can analyze lines, view the evaluation bar, and see suggestions which use the next best move of the best line. To properly make use of the analysis board, you'll want to disable the last function completely.
To improve while using engine-assisted analysis, you'll want to find your mistakes and inaccurate moves, while subsequently asking yourself "Why is this position now losing for me? What tactics can my opponent use to capitalize on my mistake?". After you find why it's losing, preferably after turning off the lines function, you have to find the best move in that position. Whether you find it via the line function or on your own, you should still be asking "Why is this position winning for me? What tactics can I use to improve my advantage?". Again, after you find the move, turn off the lines function to attempt to find the best line on your own.
Those are my basic tips.
Are you not progressing in chess? Don’t worry I am here to help. Just give me your credit card number and IP address, and I’ll get you beyond 2000 totally without using stockfish
Two advices (that really work):
01
You should partly give up on blitz and focus on rapid (the more time you spend thinking about various positions the more you will be able to recognize correct patterns). In blitz you just simply don't have enough time to think/calculate more complex positions so you will never ever improve in those just by repeated playing.
02
Do puzzles and puzzle storm (Lichess has better ones than chess.com) every day at least a few mins.
03 (optional)
If you feel you really struggle against some kind of opening/opening sequence just learn a bit of theory about that line (basic principles, counters)
help me im stuck at 1100 blitz for a month now helppppp