ugh!!! still at around 1200 :(

It happens. Sometimes when we start playing and climb the rating ladder we forget that for every rating zone we need something extra. For example if you are below 1000 then that zone require making less blunders and avoid hanging pieces. Once we start making less blunders our game improve. When we reach 1000-1200 it demands tactical alertness and patience. And i think many people stuck here. Just solve puzzle rushes everyday and you improve. Above 1300 requires some good opening knowledge also that suites your style and gradually when you develop pattern recognition and understanding of position you will see your rating will improve. So try to broaden your horizon, play rapid 30 min with patience, stay tactically alert, play solid openings that have simple principles and learn to defense properly. And more you study and apply it in games the quicker you improve. Most importantly have fun in chess.com. also you can post your games so that we can provide our views. Hope it helps. Thank you.

@ashutosh thank you 😊

Such a great piece of advice. Definitely picked up a thing or two from what you just stated earlier. Thanks.

I reached 1232 rapid then got addicted to speed chess lol kind of afraid to play rapid again

Play some Over the Board games, maybe that will spark some new ideas for you. You can find someone to play with on the OTBChess community

Thank you @ashutosh. The message was helpful to me as well

@KMWS exactly when l dropped down to 1200 even I was scared to play rapid thinking my rating would decrease

A good way at the 1000-1600 level in improving is simply by not making outright blunders, you can avoid this by doing puzzles and extensively going over and understanding each one, as well as analysing your games with a computer.

A chess.com membership might help (I'm not an advertiser for chess.com don't report me for this)

Puzzles do help me a lot I recommend that, and also you have to practice. I also recommend daily games, you have lotsa time to calculate. Learning openings also might be a good way to find what you are comfortable with and you can play easily.

I was stuck there for months, but I got out of it. I eventually used my gifted membership to help myself get to a high puzzle rating and got better by doing lessons.

Thank you everyone for your advice wil consider all of them 🙂

It's happened to me multiple times. Once I reached 1300, I tanked to 1150. During this moment, I tried the Queen's Gambit as opposed to just the e4 stuff I was playing. I was able to win a few games and I studied the Queen's Gambit. I was eventually able to get back to the 1300s.

Then I got to the 1400s and I started to tank again. This time, I didn't study a new opening but I did puzzles from a chess book. I did it for about 12-20 hours within 2 weeks and I reached 1500. I probably would have stayed there but my membership expired and I stopped analyzing my games. But I'm on Lichess now and I'm doing alright

     Play longer games. Play otb. Spend enough time per-move to actually learn something. You must learn to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the positions you encounter, and to calculate to sufficient depth to feel confident of making a solid move. You cannot do this with just a few seconds spent on each move. Play more seriously and go over your games to learn from your mistakes. This will build your chess strength much more quickly--and solidly--than hundreds of speed games.

If you continue playing you will improve. The improvement rate slows down as you get better. That's normal.