I hit 1500!

Im so happy I just hit 1500 rapid! It was my goal to reach it by the end of 2025, but it’s only March and I’ve done it!!! I think I’ll raise my goal to 1700 now. I posted here about a month ago about hitting 1200 (https://www.chess.com/forum/view/for-beginners/i-hit-1200-in-rapid), and I did not expect to be posting again so soon 😁.

If anyone is below 1500 and has any questions I’m willing to try and answer them.

That sounds great!

How do you train, by the way?

I wish I can reach 1000 in Rapid as soon as possible .

@Schachpferd1 I mostly solve puzzles on Lichess (which are free and generally more stimulating then the chess.com ones), around 10-20 before I start playing rated games to sort of get into the right mindset.

Once I got to around 1000-1100 elo, I picked 2 openings to learn decently well (Queens Gambit as white and Caro Kann as black), and I have stuck with them, allowing me to have solid openings in most games (usually 90%+ accurate), and which also lead into familiar middlegames, although below 1000 I did just fine following basic opening principles (pawn to the center, knights out, bishops, castle, etc...).

Finally, the best thing I do is just play a bunch of games. I started playing 4 months ago (29th October 2024), where I was rated around 450 elo. In that time I've played 1,084 ten minute games and that has helped A LOT. Experience is the best teacher.

I hope you will make good progress, and if you have any more questions, please ask!

Congrats !

About puzzles, I currently use lichess, chesspuzzles, and most recently I found also chesstempo.

Lichess has good "easy" puzzles, the other two can be much more challenging.

Everyone has different ways of learning.

good for u

I disagree with experience being the best teacher. I've played 600 games in under a month and can't even break 1200. Meanwhile you and some others are able to get to the 97% in a few months. I think we should all just admit that some peoples brains are wired to absorb chess patterns much better than others.
I've played 2 years nearly every day (mostly casually not on chess.com) and haven't held 1200+ at any point, so many others on here same thing. I guess it all depends on the persons ingrained ability at pattern recognition. 
GG on reaching 1500.

The improvement is real. Keep grinding brother.

@MariasWhiteKnight I had a look at both sites and they look great! Thanks for sharing, I will definitely incorporate them into my practice. 🙏

I remember when I hit 1500, you must feel absolutely fantastic. Keep going!

@CattlesRevenge You are probably right. Everyone has different aptitudes for different activities, otherwise everyone would be a master at everything. But I still think that playing a lot of games and reviewing them thoroughly, which is the key part, won’t do any harm. 

As for being stuck, I think even now the main culprit is blunders, it’s just they get less and less obvious the higher the rating. All the games I lose, I lose because I blundered, but instead of hanging a Queen like I used to at 500 elo, maybe I hung a pawn after an exchange, or I allowed my opponent to take a strong outpost without having any way to refute it. For example, I picked one of your recent losses at random:

I am still a very bad player, so take this with a grain of salt, but some things I saw were:

1. Your opponent played 13.Rb1, setting up a very obvious discovery on your queen once their knight has moved, and you respond with c5, blundering a pawn and losing castling rights after 15.Nxd7 Kxd7.
2. Your opponent played 16.Qb3, doubling their rook and Queen on the b file, to which you respond with Bc5, offering a trade, completely ignoring the threat of 17.Qb7+, winning your f pawn with 19.Qxf7. You had been up 2 pawns after your queen infiltration and set up for an easy endgame, but now your opponent has equalised the material.
3. Your opponent plays 20.Ng5, and you respond with Nh6, attempting to get your rook involved, but again ignoring 21.Nxe6+, blundering another pawn, although that doesn’t matter by this point, as all of your opponents pieces are on top of your king and this game is already dead lost, with stockfish giving M5 on the board.
4. Ok, your opponent traded for some reason? So after 22.Qxe7+ Kxe7 23.Nxg7, it’s „only” +3 rather than M5, so if they stumble again you have a chance to get back in the game, although you are down 2 pawns in the endgame so it will be very unlikely.
5. You play 23… Rhg8, attacking the knight on g7, but allowing the opponent to infiltrate with 24.Rb7+. Luckily they didn’t play it, but still.
6. By move 38 the game is over as you are down 4 pawns in a pawn and rook endgame, it was lost anyway, but the rook blunder on move 48 prompts a resignation, which is justified.

Please understand that this is constructive criticism, so I hope you will take it into consideration. But on that note, I’ll change my stance to „Experience is the best teacher paired with proper review”.

Congrats on breaking 1500!

Your rate of improvement is so fast! How did you do it? I remember when I hit 1500, I thought I was a very good player(I was young). However, 2 years and 500 points later, as a 2046, I still make blunders. I appreciate your humility, keep growing, and good luck for 1700 and beyond!

🎉Congratulations!🎉! I wish to become like you one day.

I dont know what the value of analyzing a single game at random is, but I would have described it such:

White made a really poor trade, lost the bishop pair, their better bishop, and strengthened blacks center. Black didnt bother to develop their king side and went on adventures on the queen side. They got pawns but that just opened lanes of attack. White happily obliged.

Black really should have made the moves Ng8-e7-f5/g6 or possibly even c6 (because the other knight was traded for whites good bishop), and then Le7, as its typical for the French, and then castled, instead of allowing white to infiltrate with the queen.

As a Caro-Kann player i have learned to pay attention to such things. After all the structures in the Caro-Kann are compareable to the French.

The rest looks more or less random to me. Mainly black had no plan and white sooner or later had the plan to collect all of blacks pawns. A bad plan is still better than no plan. White entered the endgame with an overwhelming pawn advantage of four.

Ironically whites king was until the endgame completely safe.

@DCthedestroyer Thanks man, good luck with 2200 rapid! As for what I do, I mostly just play games. I've played around 1,100 rapid games these first 4 months. Just some puzzles on the side, but not much. I will start studying when I get stuck.

Any suggestions for me I'm 745 rapid I just got tilted I believe I will recover my elo that was 786

Btw congratulations 🌟🌟

Congrats, you are now better than 90% of players on chess.com, if you want help getting to 1700+, I don't mind training with you

@Sensei-T Thanks man! I'd love to try training with a much stronger play than me. I'm usually free from 4-10 PM UK time (so 12-6 PM for you, I think). Let me know how you'd like to go about it!

@newtochess1100888 Thanks! My 2 main pieces of advice are don’t play when you’re tilted. I’ve tried, and I regretted it to say the least. And when you’re playing games, try and understand why your opponent made a move. I watched 2 or 3 of your losses and you mainly lost because you’re not reacting to your opponent, which usually allows them to win some material.