Curriculum for a 1000 rated player.

I wouldn't say I'm new to chess, I've been playing for a while but I can't seem to get much better. I watch a lot of youtube and solve a modest amount of puzzles.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to see this translate into my rating. I feel like I'm consuming a lot of information but not learning the right way.

Can anyone who has had a history with getting to 1700+ or getting someone else to that rating help me with the main areas I should focus on that helps a lot of novice players?

The usual...

You're playing speed chess.  How do you expect to use what you're trying to learn when you're moving fast?

I'll try to slow down

sorry for repeating everyone else but play long time controls. G30 or longer. It's important to realise that improvement (at anything) comes from output not input. Reading, watching you tube, (to a certain extent puzzles) is all input. You only improve when you have the opportunity to apply well what you have learned by connecting together the some of the parts during games. Longer time controls will help you do that.

also are you developing your chess skills as well as knowledge. for example, when you do puzzles are you guessing the solution based on pattern recognition or are you calculating and visualising. also what is your expectation of improvement. I've practised puzzles every day for 6 months and am starting to see stronger calculation and visualisation come through to my games. I tend to reflect on my improvement on 3 to 6 month cycles. anything shorter is noise.

If you cannot go through all of this on each move without losing on time.  Youre playing to fast.

Opening Principles:

1. Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5.
2. Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key. Centralized piece control more squares.
3. (King Safety)
4. Connect your rooks. There should be no pieces between your Rooks.

The objective of development is about improving the value of your pieces by increasing the importance of their roles (Piece Activity).  Well-developed pieces have more fire-power than undeveloped pieces and they do more in helping you gain control.

Now we will look at 5 practical things you can do to help you achieve your development objective.

They are:

1. Give priority to your least active pieces.

• Which piece needs to be developed (which piece is the least active)?
• Where should it go (where can its role be maximized)?

2. Exchange your least active pieces for your opponent’s active pieces.
3. Restrict the development of your opponent’s pieces.
4. Neutralize your opponent’s best piece.
5. Secure strong squares for your pieces.

Don’t help your opponent develop.

There are 2 common mistakes whereby you will simply be helping your opponent to develop:

1. Making a weak threat that can easily be blocked
2. Making an exchange that helps your opponent to develop a piece

Beginners Advice.

1. Stop playing blitz, and bullet.  Play longer time controls of at least G45, or longer.  
2. Follow Opening Principles:

• Control the center.
• Develop minor pieces toward the center.
• Castle.
• Connect your rooks.

3. Study tactics...tactics...tactics.  One of my favorite quotes is this: "Until you reach Master, your first name is tactics, your middle name is tactics, and your last name is tactics”.
4. Double Check your moves.  Before making a move, ask yourself: "Are my pieces safe?"
5. After your opponent moves, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"
6. Analyze your games WITHOUT a chess engine, then have someone stronger go over the games, or post them online for review.
7. DO NOT memorize openings. Learn and understand the pawn structure, and piece placement for the opening you wish to learn.
8. Learn Basics Mates:

• K vs. KQ
• K vs. KR
• K vs. KRR

9. Learn Basic King and Pawn endings.

• KP vs. K
• Opposition

10. Have Fun!

Pre Move Checklist:

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.
2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board.
3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.
4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.
5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"

Play 1.a3

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If you are sub-1200, you will have 1 glaring weakness:  tactics!

To improve your tactical skills, do not just sit around solving puzzles on the tactics trainer (at least not the randomized method).  You need to focus on specific themes to build your pattern recognition.  There are a few ways to do this.

1. Get a beginner-level tactics book.  Something like "Chess Tactics for Students" (https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Tactics-Students-John-Bain/dp/0963961403) is a good starting point, but there are others that are equally good.  The main thing is you want simple tactics organized by theme that get more difficult in the same theme.
2. Get beginner-level courses online.  Chessable has several good ones, but "1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners" (https://www.chessable.com/1001-chess-exercises-for-beginners/course/8038/) is a good starting point.  Like the book mentioned in #1, it is organized by theme with puzzles in each theme getting more difficult.  It also has a couple of "mixed" chapters to help test your pattern recognition and the ability to combine themes.  There are also several courses by Susan Polgar on the site that build up your tactical skills.
3. Use a tactics trainer in learn mode.  You can (or at least you used to be able to, I have not tried it in a while), set the chess.com tactics trainer in non-rated mode and limit the tactics to a specific theme and rating range.  You can use this to practice the tactical themes in this manner.

If you watch the POGChamps tournament, you can clearly see that just improving your tactics is the quickest way to ~1500 on the site.

hello if anyone can be good on chess its should be work hard and define his strategies or study the tactics of the opponent and he will use an analytic chess notebook its very helpful

Hi, I'm Oliver Prescott, and I'm a decent chess player I think, cuz I have a 2100 blitz rating and 2400 puzzle rating so hear me out

Once u play chess for a long time, u start to recognize certain patterns in positions and games

The pieces may not always be the same, but the concept will always be

For example, the famous discovery check:

This is a game between this asian grandmaster and Leela, and Leela falls for the discovery and loses her queen. There are many positions similar. As long as there is a king on g8, a bishop on d3, a queen on both d1(or d2) and d4 respectively. Here is a link to the original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2BWmSBog_0

Just be yourself.  That's all anyone can really do anymore.

Thanks, what tactical themes should a novice focus on.

back rank mates, pins, forks (double attacks), discovered attacks, skewers, removing a defender. There are many more but these are a good start. Also familiarise yourself with the idea of forced moves. Recommend Chess Tactics for Students by John Bain. Amazon have it.

Pins are either relative or absolute. A pin is absolute if the piece is pinned to the king, it cannot move. A pin is relative if a piece is pinned to a high value piece such as a queen, the pinned piece can move but may not want to. A pinned

You need to work on all of them.  The key is to limit the rating range you are working with on each one.  So, assuming you are a complete beginner, start by limiting the range to 0-800 until those puzzles are too easy for you.  Then raise it to 800-1200, 1200-1400, 1400-1600, 1600-1800, etc.  If you do this with each theme (Pins, Forks, Double Attacks, Removal of the Guard, Skewers, Discovered Attacks, Double Checks, Mate in 1, Mate in 2, Mate in 3, Mate in 4+, etc) you will build up the pattern recognition and start seeing these patterns in your own games.