I just now 1000 for the first time ever, in Rapid!

I’m writing this both to celebrate accomplishing my first major chess goal, and encourage other novices (especially other late-starting old-timers like me). Getting here has taken about a year of regular playing, lots of tactics practice, and more blunders than I could remember even if I wanted to. If I can do it, I promise you can too.

A few pearls from my own journey thus far:
- Single-session games with long time controls are the way to get better. I personally prefer 30/0 or 15/10.

- All the expert players who say you won’t get any better playing blitz or bullet? They’re right, especially for those of us who aren’t kids anymore.

- Daily games give plenty of time to analyze, but those games progress slowly enough that, more than once, I’ve forgotten tactical plans midway through them.

- Analyze your games. Even—especially—the painful ones.

- Enjoy the highs and rise out the lows. They’ll both happen.

- If you win a couple games and can feel you’re in the zone, keep going!

- Similarly, if you lose two or three in a row, don’t keep playing tilted. Put it down and come back later instead of pressing on and making it worse.

Good luck to everyone! I hope this is a help. Here’s to 1200!

Is 1000 really that big of a milestone? I thought that was like the default rating?

Aphistis, congrats mate.  You put in a lot of work I see.  My short term goal is 800 in blitz then 1000.  

-  Long time controls - I just can't ey, my brain implodes  + I struggle to calculate so many moves.

- Daily Games! love them, I recently found out daily games have a note section!! so when you analyse a position and see some things write them down in the notes so you don't forget.

- Analyse games, yeah I agree. 

- Emotional Highs and Lows! tell me about them! sometimes i'm walking around like a peacock from winning and other times i'm passed out in bed from agony haha.

Good luck on your way to 1200!

Great OP! Congrats. All sound advice. 

Congrats. That's good advice, very encouraging. Thanks.

One question: You don't mention books. Do you use books? Would you consider them useful/not useful?

Books are very very important no doubt. One of the most effective ways of improvement is to study books.

I suspect you are correct Darknight; but I also suspect that like myself, most people much prefer more interactive methods of learning. Books are seen as a bit "old school" I confess I haven't the discipline to sit down and study chess books. Maybe this is why my stats are so low.....

Yeah, people learn in different ways.  People that can self study books are a good option.  I have more questions than answers usually when it comes to books/videos.  I prefer learning with someone.

I think what little I have learnt is from using the game analysis tool on here and taking note of the best move in common positions: doing tactics and also from simply playing. I have never studied opening theory as I don't believe this is so important for the beginner and infact can be overwhelming for someone just starting out. I think it's better to find an opening for white and black which you are comfortable with and stick to it; at least until you're making progress. 

Well done! 

Master Woo is watching. 

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the kind words. To answer a couple questions:

- I’ve read a handful of books. They’re definitely useful, and very helpful in conjunction with online resources. I’ll read some, then find a drill or something here to practice. The combination is much more effective than either by itself.

- Knowing a couple white openings that match your style, and common black defenses is definitely helpful, but going beyond that isn’t necessary at this level. I like giving Scotch games as white. They tend to get sharp, which affords lots of tactics practice. When I’m black, I generally just try to respond to white’s play according to the 4 principles.

Congrats! I’m jealous.

I started playing properly during May as was stuck at 500-600 (in rapid) for a couple of months. I was starting to think it was hopeless but finally took the advice to play 30 min games and really think carefully and play slowly. Then I started to improve. I’m 733 now.

It’s a bit embarrassing that 733 is still below the low end of “beginner” status which I keep reading is 800. But at least I’m making progress. And the wins are extremely satisfying.

I’m also trying to be more disciplined about doing at least some tactics and at least one lesson every day. At first I thought the lessons would be low value add relative to tactics but actually they’ve helped enormously and I’m often able to apply the knowledge in the very next game.

I have the same problems as you with daily games. I have to re-think what I’m doing all over again every day.

What is the “proper” way to analyze a game? Are you supposed to play through a few moves of different lines from each position and see what possibilities you missed? At the moment I just see what the app says afterwards and look at my blunders and aww what the best move was per engine. But I get the impression I’m supposed to sit down with a chess board and some paper and being doing a lot kore than that. But don’t really know where to start.

This is a game I finished a few minutes ago. Most of them don’t look as good as this, but it shows how you can use fundamentals to win even against stronger players. I don’t know the Ruy Lopez in any kind of meaningful detail, so I just tried to play carefully and not make the first big mistake. In this game, it worked.

As far as how to analyze, the easiest and highest-yield way is to just look at your mistakes, and see if you can follow the recommended line to see *why* it’s the better move. If it’s a 25-move line just to win a pawn, I don’t pay much attention; I’m not good enough to worry about those yet. At our level, though, most blunder lines become apparent within a couple turns. Those are the ones you can learn from. Treat them almost like tactical puzzles, except you get the first hint for free.

In this game,  ...Qe7 instead of ...Qf5 was a huge and obvious missed opportunity. It didn’t cost me here, but next time I might not be so lucky. Good post-game analysis is just about understanding what you did right/wrong and why, to apply in future games.

Congrats!

I remember through my whole elementary school career I never broke 1000 anywhere... it took me a 2 year break to get past 1000! Congrats, OP!

Congratulations!  The chess played on this website at the 1000 level is solid!  That's my experience anyway.  I can't seem to get past about 1070 and then it's downhill again.........  Keep it up!