How To Improve Your Skills in Chess - Advices from a Coach

Dear Chessfriends,

I can see a lot of forum topics with a question like 'How could I be better at chess?'. I usually write a comment to these forums separately but I thought I would create an own forum where everyone can see my recommendations. I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. Please, read my post carefully and if you have any further questions, you can write a comment or you can ask me in private, too. I know that a lot of people like trolling and writing rude comments, it would be great if this forum was an educational one instead of full of trolling. Thank 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 games!

thank you for making the time to pass on some of your advise will follow it closely

You are welcome. Please, let me know about your progress and if you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to ask me in private.  

Thanks for the advice and reminder to look up about all these things and not focusing on studying your games and doing puzzles only

You're welcome, good luck for your games!

You're welcome. Yes, chess is too complicated, so you shouldn't focus on only 1 area. But I would like to highlight that at beginner level you should spend most of your time on solving tactical puzzles, you have to improve your tactical skills the most at first.

#7
There is a hierarchy in the areas:
1) Blunder prevention
2) Tactics
3) Endgames
4) Openings

There is 1 problem with this hierarchy. The stretegy part and analysing your own games are not mentioned here. For a beginner, these are much more important than learning deep endgame theories because they usually don't get an endgame with the same material. But I agree with putting the opening part to the end.

#9
Analysing your own lost games and study of annotated grandmaster games help in all 4 areas.
Strategy is linked to later tactics (like central control, occupation of outposts and open files) or to later endgames (like restraint of pawn majorities, smart trading).
As long as a beginner blunders pieces and pawns all the rest is in vain.
Middle game tactics decide 99% of games. Engines destroy even grandmasters by just middle game tactics: the GM does not even reach the endgame.
Endgames are where grandmasters beat masters.
Openings only become important at top grandmaster level, where both players play without blunders, without missing tactics and with equal endgame skills.

I want a coach but it's out of my budget. Anything else I can do?

Strategy is linked to later tactics but if you don't know how to create the position for you where you have the tactical chances, you cannot apply those motifs. But of course, at completely beginner level, one move blunders decide the game, that's why I wrote earlier that beginners should spend most of their times on solving tactical puzzles. I cannot agree your last sentence because openings are also important above 2000-2100! I'm not a Grand Master, I'm a FIDE Master, and believe me, this is extremely important at my level, too.

You can solve puzzles online and watch educational videos (on chess.com, Youtube, etc.) for free. Of course, it cannot be as effective as a personal coach, but better than nothing.  

#11
You can buy a book written by a top grandmaster, that is like 200 hours of top coaching for $20.

I would recommend videos instead of books for beginners because for some beginners it is difficult to follow all of the lines in the book (even if they set the positions on a chessboard) and in my opinion, videos are more entertaining. Of course, none of them are personal, so if you don't understand anything, you cannot ask the writer or the Youtuber directly and these things cannot reveal your personal weaknesses and help you with leaving them behind.

#12
"openings are also important above 2000-2100! I'm not a Grand Master, I'm a FIDE Master, and believe me, this is extremely important at my level, too"
I do not believe that. Proof: play white against an engine and force it to play 1 e4 b5 or 1 d4 g5. Can you win that? If not, then the opening is not important. 

Getting at 2500 online in so short time without coach is not the norm and almost impossible even if you are talented, but i agree that a coach is needed to improve a lot.

Isn't needed i wanted to say.

Come on, man! Is it a proof if you are playing against engines? As I know at over-the-board tournaments you are playing against humans, not engines.

I agree, I think we have a troll here , without coach it is not possible to reach 2500 in a few years, everyone knows that who is in chess deeper. But that's what I wanted to avoid on this forum.... I wanted to start it because of educational purposes, so I'm waiting for beginners' comments who want to improve their chess knowledge.