650 elo, how do I improve?

I've tried a lot to improve and I understand my openings, at least well enough as I think I should for a beginner 600-700. On Youtube; Gotham chess sort of laughs at low elo 600-700 players are because they play terrible openings, they blunder a lot and appear to be generally clueless etc. Chess.com has placed me at this elo. These are deff not the 600-700s that I am facing that I see in Gotham's vids. At my elo, which I assume to be considerably low. Players are playing solid openings, solid lines, with decent theory. It looks, like most of the time they're semi-responding properly.

I would like to improve but I'm unsure how. I do puzzles to see tactics, my puzzle rating I think is 1600-1800. Which I know gives people a false sense of skill. I've followed Gotham chess for basic opening content. I have the Magnus trainer app on my phone, and have read a lot into the Vienna lines. I understand the basic principles/ideas behind the Vienna/French that while obviously I'll never be anywhere near a master, I'm very surprised that most of these people I'm facing are able to deal with these openings so well, especially into the middle game. That it feels like I'm facing some. It often feels like a wrong pawn move has the computer telling me I'm losing in the after review, when I've put a lot into memorizing the core ideas behind these openings.

In end games, I can checkmate in a King/Queen, King/Rook, and even a Bishop/Knight. Which are essential for beginners, I also do coordinate training, I know all the squares on the board, I can tell you if a square is white or black. I can tell you what the core ideas are behind the Vienna/French, and the common openings that I see at this level. A friend of mine has been playing for a few years, and they're like a 1200 ish. They told me that they solely got better by watching Gotham and playing a lot of games. Following their advice, what I'm seeing isn't exactly what I'm getting, It's just deff not what YouTube/GothamChess is advertising for my level; And when in a video, if they're criticizing a skill that you need to improve, I try to learn it.

My 2 biggest issues that I'm aware of, are blundering, because I'm slow, and not properly understanding pawn-chains or the computer. Even in this game here which I felt like, was one of my better games: https://www.chess.com/game/live/164698287856 - The computer is yelling at me on move 6 to push my pawn to d4, which completely destroys the idea of creating a pawn chain and pushing my f pawn to f4-f5; And on move 12 I'm pushing my king to h1 to remove tactics from black later on. If I push to g4 at this stage, I feel like I'm significantly weakening my king. Note: Most of my games aren't nearly as good.

I'm not really sure how to improve, I'm analyzing my games , but not entirely sure that I'm avoiding the same mistakes or understanding the analysis. I'm semi aware that I'm still blundering under time, which I imagine I'm doing more than my opponents; which I hope will get better as I put in more games. But at this elo, in my head, these people are like 1000+. Not that I really have any understanding of elo. (And side note: I'm not good at math. But in my head, Being 650 out of a maximum of like 3300? Puts me in like, the 19th percentile. Which tells me I'm super-super bad.)

In short: I'm not fully understanding the computers ideas or how to improve. In theory I'd have imagined learning my opening theory, puzzles, more games, and coordinate training, would have shown a steady improvement. I'm not good yet, I'd like to know where the difficult road to improving is. But I just don't understand how, How do people learn to play Chess better?

Food for thought...

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond.....

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

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

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy

Pawn Play and Structure - for Beginners and Beyond…

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/chess-books-on-pawn-play-and-structure

I can help you to get to 1200 and prove that openings does not matter at all at this level you can PM me if you are interested

@RussBell I looked at what appears to be a copy-pasta, it seems like you've posted these links in other forum discussions before, or at least the first one. While it's great that you're providing instructional content, I'm not entirely sure if you read my post or had any insights. - Just looking at your first link here about defending, what I've found appears to be overwhelmingly beginner. Just your Defender link: - Those are literally the first defensive concepts taught after learning how pieces move. I'm trying to stay optimistic and hoping you don't just copy/paste these and call it a day. Although the blanket knowledge is welcome, and I'll take the time to skim through some more of these links, such as the pawn-play-and-structure. If this isn't a blanket copy/paste, I really appreciate you trying to help and sending resources. I feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of links though, and I’m not totally sure how relevant they all are to my specific problems, questions. After reading through the Defender Link. - I won't be looking at or purchasing any new books, I still have Kaufman's New Repertoire for Black and White which has been hard to read, now that I know my coordinates however, it should be easy to digest. It's absolutely incredible however that 600+ players are all reading heavily into chess theory, I thought for sure I wouldn't experience that until way later since all the super good chess tourney people are like 1200 at the minimum and I'm still under the assumption/told new players are like 600-900 level. I'd also like to express my frustrations as Mangalgrahi below you, is saying something that sort of goes against this introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy link where the author explains that tactics don’t come from nowhere, they come from good positions. Which I can't imagine coming from openings not mattering.

@Mangalgrahi I feel like you sort of skipped my entire post. While I'm sure you're good enough at chess tactics to beat me without a proper opening, and I'm sure there's something I could learn from you. Out of every instructional video, and everyone I've ever talked to about chess, none of them have told me openings do not matter. Nor do I believe that will that help me improve my play, weakening my position with something not structurally sound. I hope you're not messing with me. That would essentially be the equivalent of making up an opening, if I'm explicitly not caring about an opening / going by the openings does not matter philosophy. I'm very sure that if I were to go by that mentality, I would be hurting my chances in early game, especially if you take two stronger/random players who are both semi-equal. If not, this goes against everything I've seen related to chess, including chess.com's very own tutorials. And in one of Gotham's videos, In this video at 3:25 GothamChess talks about that specifically here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2tt60oKKtI&t=543s - Who is a 2400 Rapid/3000 blitz player.

Chess is a difficult undertaking. It really seems like you cling to certain things dogmatically and rely too much on content creators whose main focus is to create content for views. For example, pawn chains. Pawn chains are structures that helps you maintain space and control over key squares that are hard to break by your opponent. They aren't the goal of chess. You can break chess down into a series of goals. The overarching goal is to checkmate your opponent (in a well-played game this doesn't happen until the endgame which is an important area of study), which is also their goal, which means the next corresponding goal is king safety, followed by development and central control because if you control the center and have your pieces in play, you can more easily attack their king and defend your own. Then, you have to learn to identify and exploit weaknesses which is mostly awareness and understanding of pawn structures. Then, you need to utilize tactics; maneuvers which force your opponent to need more moves than they have to deal with the problems at hand which then leads to you having a material advantage which now gives you more force to attack their king than they can defend with. All tactics involve checks, captures or threats. Tactics are built up by succeeding in the prior goals first, but they might be the first thing you need to strengthen because they are kind of the glue that binds everything together. You need to be able to see them to defend, you need to be able to make use of them when they present themselves and by knowing them, you will have a deeper understanding of the goals preceding them.

Therefore, you should study tactics, endgames and opening principles rather than blindly memorizing openings. This is the knowledge portion. You also need to train visualization, analysis (being able to correctly judge your current position as well as the position after a calculation) and calculation.

Essentially, you need to do the same thing at chess to improve as anything else, and that is to do and then study. The best form of study in a game based on thinking is self-reflection. Analyze games on your own without the engine and then use the engine or a stronger player to compare. Preferably at least 15|10 games because you need to have to time to form clear thoughts about which move to play. If you can't form clear thoughts, you essentially make moves without thinking and then, while bad moves can be pointed out, you won't be able to pinpoint thinking errors. Also, if you don't have time to think and miss a lot because of this then your problem is literally not having enough time which can only be fixed by playing longer games until you build up the intuition needed for faster time controls. You won't necessarily become great at chess from analyzing your own games, but what you will start to see is emerging patterns. You will see that you miss, say back rank mates the most or knight forks, or you will see that you fail to use central pawn pushes to control the center and you can isolate those problems and specifically train them.

If you use the engine to compare and you don't understand why a certain move is good, you can typically just follow the most forcing follow up to understand deeper and if you still don't understand you should think about what you know, the opening principles, pawn structures etc. until you have an aha moment. If that moment never comes, then you can always ask somebody. Maybe join a club on here or in real life.

Edit: If you're already doing this then just give it time. You will see jumps not gradual improvement.

@Sunken_Ignorance All I have are the resources provided to me. Which mostly come in the form of media and whatever links I can grab. Dogmatically is sort of a strong word. In reference to openings. (Everything) I've experienced and learned / been-taught thus far, says Openings are important. To undermine what (every) single media influencer says about openings, especially when they are also such highly rated players, seems odd, how can I freely ignore their advice and not place faith in them? Even if it's their job to generate views. Which is why Mangalgrahi's comment about openings not mattering seems very polarizing, even my Kaufman's Repertoire book, talks about the importance/intricacies about openings, point values, and computer analysis for the mechanical edges that some of the openings provide. Even if I can't properly implement them at my level.

Separately, my takeaway from your comment besides social-media tutors are, Core ideas: Which have been explained by those media influencers, and chess.com's tutorials. Then, play slower games, how much time am I supposed to spend per move on a 15 minute game? Just keep doing puzzles? When do I stop doing them? What puzzle rating do I aim for? Then how do you train in analysis? That's one of the core issues in my post.

Lastly, Vision, I do. I know all the pieces and colors on the board, I'm just trying to recognize the diagonals in my head a little quicker, but otherwise I can see it all with my eyes closed. Although I don't think or feel like this part has helped me with Chess, like at all.

I have a lower elo than 650, but you should probably read chess books and use a variety of openings so you have one that best fits a proper defense for the oponnent's style of play. (Magnus Carlsen said something like that)

With all do respect, I don't really agree. I have a 368 ELO, but I can beat 5 year old Magnus Carlsen. But he absolutely cooks me in the grown-up bot of him in chess.com. How'd he change? Practice. Keep trying!

@BaseballBoy12345678910 This is sort of an off-topic rant, but at 368 elo I would assume you just got a chess set for Christmas and are still figuring out how the pieces move; haven't read any theory, barely know the rules, Don't use any tactics, and probably think en passant is a cheat move. While I'm still late to learning chess. (didn't learn when as a child) I've learned core ideas, basic theory, coordinates, puzzles etc. I own only one chess book, I do puzzles, use the Magnus trainer app, frequently watch instructional videos, can read you the squares on the board, and I'm still playing terribly. It also still doesn't help that the videos from different content creators advertise on YouTube, terrible players with terrible openings for my elo, from as early as 1 year ago that show 600s-700s playing like absolute beginners, and nobody on chess.com in this elo is a beginner. They all have very solid play. They all know which moves to play for basic theory in the Advanced French, the Vienna, and I've often found people creating challenging moves when I found myself playing the Vienna Gambit. I'm so shocked by how much I'm going to have to learn to improve.

So first off, you played really well in that game you linked to.

Looking at your profile, the absolute most important take away I have for you is that almost all you play is blitz, and the majority of people will not get better playing under such fast time controls and actually might pickup bad habits and become worse. There's a tendency to think, "I'm playing a lot of games so I'm gaining a lot of exposure and experience" but chess improvement comes from practicing and developing calculation skills, and internalizing what you have experienced. Playing anything faster than rapid is not going to help you with that. Think quality over quantity. So I'd definitely switch to 15|10 time controls and use as much of your time as possible. Doing even 1 or 2 games of that each day is going to be more valuable to your chess improvement than dozens of blitz or bullet games.

Endgames matter and knowing basic mating patterns is important. But I think the most important thing is consistently adhering to basic chess principles in your opening and into the middle game.

Levy is great for entertainment but there are far better chess youtubers for you to learn from. Daniel Naroditsky and his multiple ratings climbs are much more valuable - he is the gold standard for chess content. Dina Belenkaya is also doing a rating climb right now. GM Aman Hambleton has a youtube series called, "Building Habits". All these are far more valuable than watching Gothamchess.

Ultimately, books are better for most people than watching youtubers/streamers. Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess series of books comes to mind as being very beginner friendly.

If you can get someone higher rated who's willing to review your games with you, that would also probably be really useful - not just relying on the chess.com coach. The last thing I will mention is to be patient with yourself. If you are just getting started with your chess journey, improvement isn't measured in days or weeks. If you stay positive and believe in yourself, you'll get where you want to go. Might be a cliche sentiment, but it's true.

@HeckinSprout That game was a luckier game, most aren't nearly as good, the computer was still giving me an analysis that I didn't understand on it either. I'm a little afraid of the slower games because I don't know how much time I'll need to invest per move to make sure I don't blunder and use the right tactics. I'm also told people are more likely to cheat in the slower games. A friend of mine is 1200 in blitz, they didn't help me improve much, but they told me I was fine for someone who isn't as experienced and that they watched GothamChess and played blitz for like 3 years which is how they got to 1200. Which was the only sort of real advice from a human that wasn't a YouTuber. Someone else mentioned the building habits video. Each is an hour long, so it's slow content to consume. I'm hoping the 600-700 players on YouTube are more accurate to what I'm seeing here on Chess.com. Otherwise, I might have to throw away the idea of YouTube for chess improvement.

If anyone can verify if Kaufman's New Repertoire for Black and White is helpful before I invest my reading hours, that would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to just throw a bunch of money at random books. I like to not waste money on shopping trips.

In 15|10 time controls, you and your opponent each start with 15 minutes on your clocks, and after each move you earn an additional 10 seconds. So it's very hard to get into a situation where you are completely out of time. In general, using a 3rd of your time for each phase of the game is recommended. I'd suggest giving it a try. And there aren't that many cheaters - they exist, 1 in 20 games might be with a cheater. But they exist in the blitz pool as well. And good on your friend for getting to 1200 with nothing but blitz alone but they are definitely the exception rather than the rule.

@HeckinSprout I'll give the slower games a try. Perhaps more time to look at threats will help. I just hope that's enough to see new tactics and actually play better, rather than spend more time per game. My friend was so nonchalant about it too, if that's not normal, well.. That's not alarming..

I had a quick look at two of your games 🙂
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/164698287856/analysis
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/164698077720/analysis

Here are a few thoughts — mostly about the opening and some typical patterns.

About the won game

Overall it was a solid opening 👍
A few ideas that might help you going forward:

• Focus on piece development: Try to develop all your pieces first and avoid moving the same piece multiple times while other pieces are still on their starting squares.

• c-pawn / center control: Playing c4 is generally fine, but without bringing the pawn properly into the center, the knight on c3 can become easier to attack with enemy pawns later.

• Fianchetto bishop: The idea itself is good, but later the long diagonal was partly blocked by your own e-pawn. When fianchettoing, it’s useful to think about whether the diagonal will stay open.

• Simple development over early attacks: At one point the knight was moved twice to directly attack a piece and ended up on the edge of the board. Knights on the rim usually have less influence — calm development is often stronger than early attacks.

About the lost game

Here the main topic wasn’t really the opening but attacking play:

• To deliver checkmate you usually need at least two attacking pieces.
  The queen alone can give many checks, but rarely mates unless you are aiming for perpetual check and a draw.

• It could really help to practice basic mating patterns and combinations. Typical examples are the lollipop mate or bishop-and-queen batteries. Knowing these patterns makes it much easier to recognize attacking chances.

Overall you already show good ideas — with a bit more focus on development and common mating patterns your games will likely become much more stable 🙂

Funny enough, my last rapid game actually had some of the same themes 😄
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/164735827360/analysis

a blocked c-pawn because of my knight and even a knight on the rim. The difference was that it was part of a concrete plan for the position.

I was considering long castling in a French-type structure to play for a win. The knight move on the edge defended the b2 pawn and attacked the queen, even though it allowed the d-pawn to fall — so it was more about activity and initiative.

In the end, though, I decided to go for the safer option instead of forcing complications. Sometimes choosing the more solid continuation is simply the more practical decision, especially in rapid games.

And maybe one more general endgame idea from that game:

In bishop vs knight endgames, it often helps to put your pawns on the opposite color complex of the opponent´s bishop. That way you avoid creating targets for the opponent’s bishop and make your position much harder to attack.

watch the 'Queen of Chess'

trust me, I know I can defeat Levy

The game you showed (even though you say that most of your games aren't that well-played) shows that you have some good chess understanding.

I wouldn't worry about the engine telling you to play different moves - I've climbed all the way up to 2400 by mostly ignoring what the engine suggests. I say "mostly", because I still pay attention if the engine points out complete blunders that I've missed (hanging pieces, or tactical combinations that I failed to notice). But you have a clear idea in that game (getting the king away from the dark diagonal and expanding on the kingside with f2-f4, and you played it fine.

What I try to do, and what I try to tell others to do, is to aim to learn *one solid thing* from each game you play. Not five things, or a few things - just one. One practical idea, or pattern, or "thing to watch out for" or ... something. Whatever it is, try to find that one thing, from each and every game. Because eventually, all those "one things" will add up to a wealth of knowledge and practical ideas.

Sometimes that one thing might come from the engine pointing something out to you. Sometimes it's an idea you notice yourself, while looking through the game. Sometimes it's something as simple as "I need to remind myself to slow down and think more", or "I need to remember to speed up and not overthink" or "I need to avoid leaving a backward pawn on a semi-open file" or ... whatever it is. For the most part, every game has at least one thing to teach you.

The trick is to actively search for that one thing. Don't take the lazy way out and click "Game Analysis", glance at the results, then shrug and start a new game. That's what a lot of players do, and that's not learning. Really take your time reviewing each game until you find something solid that makes you think, "Huh ... Okay. That's something I didn't think of before." Then take that and roll it around in your mind a bit, until it actually sinks in.

This is where the improvement comes from.

@danielamgrooven Funnily enough for the Vienna my opponent knew to create an escape square for their bishop to create constant pressure and make it harder for me to advance my f-pawn. But I guess they forgot or gave up on that idea, which makes me feel like that game was a bit lucky. On the French I was totally winning and miscalculated a super basic trade with plenty of time. It hurts to blunder games so poorly.

For Vienna specific ideas, the Knight is really there to clamp down on the central square, and later trade with the dark squared bishop, the main disadvantage is obviously the c-pawn making it difficult to form a pawn center, which is just sort of how the Vienna is played. Contradictory to the Ruy Lopez or the Italian game, all stuff I've read over and over in the Magnus trainer app. If/After black brings out bishop, We go after it to allow my f-pawn to advance a bit more easily later on for the Kingside attack. Simultaneously the idea is to fianchetto our bishop on the light diagonal to make us harder to combat, and place the Dark knight that usually goes onto f3, onto e2, also preparing for f-pawn push. These ideas are covered by Magnus Carlsen and Levy Rozman.

In that specific game, black decided to trade bishops, but later on you're supposed to open up the game for your bishop to become more active. There's tons of Vienna variations. It's not really covered in the app, but I feel like It also helps me handle the Sicilian. I've gone through the lines of the Vienna, many-many times, and the most difficult part is really remembering the order of when things are played, or I guess here explaining why the moves are "supposed" to be played a certain way. Like moving my King to h1 to prevent later tactics from black. I can only pretend to understand these concepts so well, "Eventually black king will check me" Is sort of all I have for that.

Those concepts on the c3, fianchetto, f-pawn, are all talked about in the app; With different openings I would deff play them differently, a more developed knight on f3, probably a more active bishop on like c4 etc, but that's what the super good chess people say to do with Vienna. According to the Magnus App, It's not extensively played at the higher levels, but it's structurally sound, If I'm really hurting my chances with these tactics in mind, perhaps it would be better to play a different opening? But I'd like to stick with it if possible.

back to the lost game, for my level, I think even without the special pattern knowledge, I would have been fine if I didn't throw away a winning position in a bad trade/blunder. On the.. lollipop mate? or bishop-and-queen batteries. I don't really know what those are, but on Lichess, they have checkmating patterns, King-Queen, King-Rook, and on YouTube I learned a bit about the Bishop-Knight mate, which has never come up in a single one of my games. Where do I learn those specific techniques that you're referring to?

Lastly: In that game you showed, take away the strong end-game and that's exactly how well my opponents are playing. ಠ_ಠ

@MaetsNori Thank you, I'll try to keep that in mind. Unfortunately, If I do have a good chess understanding, there's still a huge disconnect preventing me from advancing. I deff struggle to find all the answers on my own. I usually equate time-invested into skill, which absolutely does not transpose into chess. Some suggestions have been to play slower, which gives me a bit of anxiety because I may blunder less, but I'm not necessarily sure that I'll tactically play any better or have a better understanding of the match afterwards. Sometimes the computer tells me things like moving a pawn was terrible, but it doesn't exactly say much more that that. I'll give that a try, but it's also a little hard with so many people having completely different ideas.

I also have a lot of links to browse through, perhaps some of the ideas in these will magically unravel my chess brain.

I don't understand how I spend 10 minutes thinking, play a blunder, and realize it within half a second. The sad thing is that my opponent will probably miss it, but I lose most of the time anyway.