I love all the naive people telling you people play fairly at low Elo. They seem to be living under a rock. I want to see them make a video claiming a ladder and see what they think. This isn't the same site it was in 1705 when you signed up buds. The site is infested with sketchy behavior and the mods are literally silencing people for a reason they know it's true. I'm stuck at 1100 and there is something I FEEL is wrong. I've played 1500s otb and these guys have more positional knowledge than those guys. It's not possible. I'm beginning to hate this entire game just because of the cesspool that is online chese. My suggestion if you want to ever improve go play otb never touch online chess. Only way to gain Elo is by getting lucky here and landing on honest people the rest will become Magnus Carlson as soon as you are up points. What an absolute joke!!
reaching Elo 800-900
Be happy, I've been stuck around low 400's for ever (but it's not such a bad place to be)
Well, I see @Habanababananiro posted a list of guidelines. I feel like if you are a little bit of serious about chess, you must have heard them tones of times. At least I did. But here I am. Stuck around 700. And now 650, because every time I manage to climb up to 750, it is followed by a 5 win out of 15 games. What is the secret of consistency and improvement man? I am not getting anything but frustration!
It is useless, I played over 300 games and I can't get past 300 ELO. Its quite simple really, Chess needs to clean up its act because a lot of cheating goes on. I paid for Diamond membership, I was going to refund because Chess.com can not provide with enough guarentees that opposing players are not cheating. I decided to keep my membership and try and get better but nope, I run into cheaters time and time again. Reporting does nothing and I am fed up to the back teeth with it. I dont want to become a GM, I just want competative, fair chess and chess.com can not provide that.
Its not cheaters its actually game is being very competitive they still do horrendous blunders but its just we can't see it through yet and sometimes we dont do blunders but still misses will be there ,
I was 700s in beginning of this month but now Im at 390-400 the games either ends with 100 game rating or 950-1200 game rating meaning all we need to do is be more careful learn defences for the common opening variation and also some for the english which Im trying to do with exploration thing.One thing I dont understand is chess bots of range 1K-1.4K are pretty easier than 400 Elo thats make me think this way that now players have reached certain level as such they are grinding.To find if they cheat go to their profile and see wins and loses.
Hello!
If you're looking to seriously improve at chess, here are a few key habits recommended by TSCA coaches:
Start by analyzing your games. Review them first without an engine. Ask: Why did I lose? What went wrong? Then use the engine to check your ideas—but remember, it won’t explain the "why."
Solve puzzles daily. Just 10–15 minutes a day on basic tactics like forks, pins, and mates can quickly boost your pattern recognition.
Play longer time controls. Games like 15|10 or 30-minute rapid give you the space to think, plan, and improve—unlike fast-paced bullet.
Play unrated games against stronger opponents. This helps you learn faster without worrying about your rating.
Watch structured content. For clear, practical lessons on openings, tactics, strategy, and game reviews, visit our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkSquareChessAcademy
Want more? At ThinkSquare Chess Academy, we offer 1-on-1 and group lessons, online events, and full training plans—all tailored to your level. New students can try a free trial lesson to get started.
Visit: https://www.thinksquarechess.com
Good luck—and see you on the board!
I am playing chess for short time but may be can good advice what need to focus to achieve next Elo?
I started as with big drop to below 400 and it took for me quite time to get out of that. 😁 but it was good practice to see all fast and easy checkmate’s ( still sometimes fall for them or dont know how to counter so that do not lose to many peces). But overal I pass that phase and now I am stuck in 600-700 elo. I did not have some good tactic but mainlly use one opening on both black and white but no I see it is not enought coz I see people at this ELO can easly counter this.
May be some advice what I can pay more focus to keep rolling?!
I try to check nee openings but atill cant find ehat can be good to keep up when playing with black.
Ty andvance
Dear Iraks,
My name is Gabor Balazs. I’m a Hungarian FIDE Master and 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 given way to learn and improve.
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 analyzing your own games. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem is that it can't explain to you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why it is so good or bad.
In my opinion, chess has 4 main areas (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames) and 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 enjoy the lessons because they cover multiple aspects of chess in an engaging and dynamic way, keeping the learning process both stimulating and efficient. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.
If you would like to learn more about chess, you can take private lessons from me (you find the details on my profile) or you can visit my Patreon channel (www.patreon.com/Bgabor91), where you can learn about every kind of topics (openings, strategies, tactics, endgames, game analysis). There are around 39 hours of educational videos uploaded already and I'm planning to upload at least 4 new videos per week, so you can get 4-6 hours of educational contents every month. I also upload daily puzzles in 4 levels every day which are available with a FREE subscription.
I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck with your games!
I am 600-700 elo and i use the fried liver Attack and the London system . I think they are good openings for this Ranking and they Work very good
Me too, it is usefull up to 1000s I think. London System is used recently by super GM too.