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
#1
"I’m 2,400 puzzles but can’t break 1,000 in Blitz."
++ How much time do you spend solving a tactics puzzle?
How much time do you spend playing a move in a game?
That explains the difference.
"Watching videos does nothing." ++ Right
"Somehow, after 200 hours of effort, in the exact same rating as where I started."
++ So you did the wrong effort. Switch to 15|10 rapid. In 200 h you can reach 2000.
Whenever you lose a game, analyse it to learn from your mistakes.
#1
"I’m 2,400 puzzles but can’t break 1,000 in Blitz."
++ How much time do you spend solving a tactics puzzle?
How much time do you spend playing a move in a game?
That explains the difference.
"Watching videos does nothing." ++ Right
"Somehow, after 200 hours of effort, in the exact same rating as where I started."
++ So you did the wrong effort. Switch to 15|10 rapid. In 200 h you can reach 2000.
Whenever you lose a game, analyse it to learn from your mistakes.
Let’s do some math.
200h is around 400 15|10 games leaving no time for study or analyzing or anything else.
Now you’d have to gain 1000 points to reach 2000 from 1000. Let’s assume you gain +8 for a win and -8 for a loss. Let’s say you win 2/4 and lose 1/4 and draw 1/4 of the games you play. Draws are considered to not gain or lose points. You would gain 2*8-8+0=8 points every 4 games. This would only take you to 1800.
It is not an easy task to reach 2000 from 1000 in 200 hours. Even if you play well for your rating and keep improving all the time.
Stop focusing on ratings, start focusing on learning.
Let enjoyment come not from winning, but from expanding your chess mind.
Compare it to being a musician; are you going to enjoy your life based on the number of fans and the amount of cheers you got, or are you going to simply enjoy the music and make it better and better?
The internal reward trumps the external one.
Many people forget that chess is a mind sport; it primarily takes place in the brain rather than on the board you see in front of you 
. You could even say that what you see in front of you is your brain, just the superficial layer of it. You're not looking at an outside world, but at your own visual cortex.
#6
"200h is around 400 15|10 games leaving no time for study or analyzing or anything else."
++ You should split time about 50% - 50% between play and analysis.
Key is to analyse your lost games and learn from your mistakes.
#7 I appreciate that comment because if there's less of a focus on learning from mistakes etc, one will be stumped as to what's happening and burnout.
#6
"200h is around 400 15|10 games leaving no time for study or analyzing or anything else."
++ You should split time about 50% - 50% between play and analysis.
Key is to analyse your lost games and learn from your mistakes.
Yes, of course, but if you split the 200 hours 50/50 you only have 100 hours for the games. You would have to win with a very high win rate to gain 1000 points in 100 hours in 15|10 rapid since you can only fit like 200 games in those 100 hours.
i just gave the math to illustrate, that it is very, very unlikely someone would go from 1000 to 2000 in 200 hours, even if their playing strength reached that level within said time limit.
200 hours is not a lot of time.
I have a hard time too, I am going to start lessons and practice puzzles and playing a lot more, I was playing over the board for a year with a very limited group of players, now I took the plunge and have committed myself to getting serious on chess.com....I hope in a couple years I am much stronger than I am now.
Play new openings, maybe you will discover new ideas.
Do lessons so you know why you're making the moves you're making in the opening. Also try to be the guy to win a pawn early because you used some sort of trap, like removing the defender of a central pawn, or the fried liver attack, or scholar's mate, etc. Use your 5 puzzles and the daily puzzles before you play games, to get warmed up. After you lose, analyse the game to see your mistakes. And ignore your rating, what matters is actually improving and understanding the game. Losing 8 points cuz you blundered your queen or didn't see a checkmate unfolding shouldn't affect you, if you don't make the same mistakes again.
I’m 2,400 puzzles but can’t break 1,000 in Blitz.
Every game is the same - the same generic openings until somebody forgot what to memorize.
Every game is the same - somebody wins a pawn early on and then trades everything until their one pawn in the end game wins.
Everybody is horrible and has no clue what they’re doing , yet everybody can play the same openings.
Watching videos does nothing. Puzzles does nothing. Trying some cool tactic does nothing.
There’s literally zero progress. Somehow, after 200 hours of effort, in the exact same rating as where I started.
Fun game.