a 1500's struggle/ Asking for Tips to grow as a player

So the last few months of quarantine (since November) i started playing chess again. I used to play when i was younger and now that i finished school and have some free time i feel like i want to become a better chess player alongside my uni studies. In a span of 3 months (November-January) i was able to go from like almost 1200 to 1540. Since January i am trying to stay above 1500 and im kind of stuck which i guess is logical because im starting to face intermidiate opponents. Im regularly watching youtube videos with gameplay openings etc. and have tried learning a bit theory by downloading books or using chess apps. Is there anything else i can implement on my training and also how did all of you more advanced players get out of this elo range and started to move forward?

I'll just copy and paste this since I posted in a similar topic recently.

IMO there are 3 main activities: Study, play, and drills.
IMO there are 5 main areas of study: openings, strategy, tactics, endgames, and annotated game collection.

Drills are things like tactical puzzles, but you could also drill endgames or openings.

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The important thing is after playing a game, or reading some pages of a book, or solving a tactical puzzle, you, in a sense, create a lesson for yourself. Let's say you fail a tactics puzzle. Ask yourself why. Usually it's a pattern you don't know yet, or don't know very well. A few days later try to solve the puzzle again. It's very important to re-try old puzzles. Let's say you get it right, and it was a pretty interesting pattern to you. Wait a few days and see if you can recall it. Can you construct a puzzle of your own using the same pattern? This is what I mean by making it a lesson. You're really trying to understand and remember it.

Same for games you lose, just like you saved tactical puzzles, save game positions and write a few notes to yourself, and then save it as a picture, or literally write it on a piece of paper. From time to time review your collection of positions from games. Review your notes. By doing this you're moving "new and interesting ideas" into the part of your mind that is "I know these ideas so well they're almost obvious to me"

Same thing yet again for when you study. If it's a video you can save the time and URL. If it's a book you can save the page number. Save positions and lessons that you think are particularly interesting or instructive. Revisit them.

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If you study each of the 5 areas, and play, and do drills... and if you do these activities while trying to make lessons for yourself and really learn, then you'll improve.

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

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

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

Dear Loumidios,

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! 

When I look at your last few games, it seems to me that your biggest problem is tactical awareness. You've missed some 2 move combinations or simple 1 move captures. 

Doing more tactics will help, but also being more aware of tactics during your game. Make a point to look at possible captures, checks and threats. A good idea is to try and look 1 move further than you're inclined to stop right now. So instead of 'I can't take that piece, because he'll take me back' try and see what move you can do in the resulting position after he takes back your piece. If you normally look 2 moves deep, try 3 moves. etc. 

In general, I think it's very important for 1500s to become aware of middlegame strategy. Try and actively avoid creating a bad bishop. Try and actively keep the bishop pair if your opponent has parted with 1 or 2 bishops. Don't give your opponent a space advantage unnecessarily. Basically trying to keep all of your pieces happy. Studying the perfect response on move 6 is not nearly as important as not making a big mistake trading the wrong piece that will haunt your position till the end of the game. 

While training my pupils, I've always used 'How to reassess your chess' by Silman to improve their strategic awareness. When we'd analyse games, I'd point out and ask questions about the static characteristics of the position and get them to think about good moves to improve based on those static characteristics. I say static characteristics (like strong square, bad bishop), because I do think that being a competent dynamic player (initiative etc.) requires a solid understanding of strategic threats of a static nature first. If you can't spot strategic threats, being effective with the initiative becomes exponentially harder.

Wow thanks for taking the time to look through my games. I get what you are saying about the lack of  middlegame strategy, I've noticed it sometimes after analysing. I found the book on PDF and will try to study it as much as possible. Thanks again!

Alguien puede ayudarme y decirme que hago mal y recomendarme un libro para estudiarlo

Just to add, I thought Amateur's Mind by Silman was also very good. I think it is more of an introduction to his Imbalances framework which Reassess then covers in greater depth. It's also aimed at a lower rating than Reassess so might be a good place to start. I find Silman also very helpful on psychology.