You can also study openings with a coach, it makes it a lot easier and a lot more fun.
I can tell you that if you do not care about your openings you will not be able to cross high ranks since middle and endgame revolve around the chosen openings as there are things like specific pawn structures and weaknesses and of course main ideas.
You should stop playing blitz and bullet. Many people tend to play a lot of games and don't take it seriously. Instead play only a maximum of 2 games per day. This way you will make sure that you are very motivated and focused. Apart from that you should study annotated games. If you have any interesting game, feel free to send it me, so I can analyse it.
You can also study openings with a coach, it makes it a lot easier and a lot more fun.
I can tell you that if you do not care about your openings you will not be able to cross high ranks since middle and endgame revolve around the chosen openings as there are things like specific pawn structures and weaknesses and of course main ideas.
Thank you for the advice. It would really be nice to have a coach because i dont see tactical oportunities arising so often, so i thinking the core of chess is to improve your position every move and i dont how to do that.
It would really be nice to have a coach because i dont see tactical oportunities arising so often, so i thinking the core of chess is to improve your position every move and i dont how to do that.
Well exactly! As a coach, I would not do tactics with you since you are pretty advanced at it already and focus on positional ideas and openings.
At chess.com/coaches you can find various coaches.
I also coach, but I don't do it for free. If you are interested, you can hit me up with a private message.
Also you can use the link to listen to an official coach. Of course there might be some members here doing it for free, but you can't expect a lot of preperation in this case.
So you gotta figure out, whats worth for your improvement at chess. You identified your problems really accurately tho, so really good job on that!
You should stop playing blitz and bullet. Many people tend to play a lot of games and don't take it seriously. Instead play only a maximum of 2 games per day. This way you will make sure that you are very motivated and focused. Apart from that you should study annotated games. If you have any interesting game, feel free to send it me, so I can analyse it.
Indeed I play mostly blitz and bullet. My games are a shame, i will find one game I struggle and send you later. Thanks!
Dear DenjiKenis,
I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. 
Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.
You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.
In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.
I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!
@Bgabor91 have you ever read what people write here? So far I have seen 2 different answers by you.
Study some openings, but only with complete games, that way you get tactical ideas, positional ideas, and the strategic plans associated with each opening.
Hello DenjiKenis, if you want to improve dont go under 10 mins games, indeed you have very big difference between tactics and play and you should definitly take someones help as coach just to underline your problems, learning opening in this phase is not so important, but you should find someone to help you to detect whats stoping your progress,
Best regards
You should stop playing blitz and bullet. Many people tend to play a lot of games and don't take it seriously. Instead play only a maximum of 2 games per day. This way you will make sure that you are very motivated and focused. Apart from that you should study annotated games. If you have any interesting game, feel free to send it me, so I can analyse it.
Here is a game where both me and my opponent had the opportunity to improve the position and take the advantage but none of us did it.
I really could not create any concrete plan as I couldnt find any weakness on my opponent position. I was planning to use my dark square bishop and my space advantage to create a threat on the queen side, but I failed as my time run out with the position getting more tactical.
https://www.chess.com/live/game/6495307436
You should stop playing blitz and bullet. Many people tend to play a lot of games and don't take it seriously. Instead play only a maximum of 2 games per day. This way you will make sure that you are very motivated and focused. Apart from that you should study annotated games. If you have any interesting game, feel free to send it me, so I can analyse it.
Here is a game where both me and my opponent had the opportunity to improve the position and take the advantage but none of us did it.
I really could not create any concrete plan as I couldnt find any weakness on my opponent position. I was planning to use my dark square bishop and my space advantage to create a threat on the queen side, but I failed as my time run out with the position getting more tactical.
Based on that game, I'd say that middlegame strategy is your biggest weakness.
You seemed to move around aimlessly, without any real plan.
You need to figure out which side of the board you're attacking on (usually determined by where your pawn chain is facing) and which side your opponent is attacking on.
Then you need to prepare the right pawn breaks, and be aware of your opponent's pawn breaks. Your opponent had so many opportunities to play that juicy f5 pawn break, but chose to hold back for some reason.
If you were trying to attack on the queenside, you needed to get your a-pawn rolling down the board faster and create some passed pawns.
Also, as a general rule, it's usually better to capture towards the centre, so pushing your b-pawn first and then playing cxb is usually not great.
Move 13... h5 is a big strategic mistake imo, as it shows that you don't really understand what's going on in the position.
If white is aiming for an f5 pawn break, then you want to keep your pawn on h7 instead, so that you can play hxg6 after white plays fxg6.
Instead, you should've played something like 13... a4 and prepared your queenside attack.
I also think your rook is misplaced on b8 and needs to return to the a-file.
Several articles containing resources relevant to OP's concerns here...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell
for example...
Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy
Move 13... h5 is a big strategic mistake imo, as it shows that you don't really understand what's going on in the position.
If white is aiming for an f5 pawn break, then you want to keep your pawn on h7 instead, so that you can play hxg6 after white plays fxg6.
Instead, you should've played something like 13... a4 and prepared your queenside attack.
I also think your rook is misplaced on b8 and needs to return to the a-file.
I was concerned about an attack on my king side, that is why i tried to defend with h5, hoping for a close position. Good explanation though. I do struggle to find what pawn breaks that are good for me or my opponent. Your ideas really made a lot sense to me. Thanks a lot!
Several articles containing resources relevant to OP's concerns here...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell
for example...
Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy
Hey, i will definitly check it out. TY
I've just returned to playing after a layoff of 25 years. After 3 months I've clawed my way up to 1900, which is less than it was 25 years ago - I'm still rusty. I've been really surprised at the number of times I win a lost or drawn endgame. I think a lot of players could win a lot more games if they had some basic endgame understanding. It is also helpful so that you know whether you should trade down into the endgame or not. A lot of my opponents trade down into losing endgames unnecessarily.
Im wondering what a beginner should focus to study. Im rated 2200 in Tactics but only 1200 in blitz and rapid gameplay. According to some members, the average difference between tactics and game rating is aprox. 600, so I should be 1400-1800 rating at least based on this, but that is not the case.
I really dont like studying openings, and now Im starting to think that might be my main weakness right now, but many defend that openings are not important until 1800 rating.