what/how to study

I've written a beginner's guide of sorts in order to answer a question like this one. It might give you some directions:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

Good luck.

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

#1
"I’m rated about 600."
++ A rating of 600 is a sign of frequent blunders. Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it. This little mental discipline alone is enough to get you to 1500. As long as you hang pieces and pawns all study is in vain.
"I’ve heard about “studying” chess, but I don’t know what to do."
++ Most useful to study are endgames, especially rook endings.

"I’ve learned the London and the kings Indian"
Do not waste time and effort on openings. Just think carefully and play by the general principles.

"How do I study and what should I study?"
++ Study annotated grandmaster games. Study the position and write down what you would play. Then compare with what the grandmaster played. Then figure out why.

Apart from this little thing, I believe you are correct. But 1500 is a bit too high for this. 1 500 needs to be encouraged to blunder (if they are playing longer time controls), which we should if we want to improve. 1 500 understands something about weak squares and pawns, bad pieces, they rarely do excessive pawn pushing in the opening etc. 

As far as my low level chess experience goes, people roughly around 1 200 get the hang of opening principles and cease to blunder every game.

Now, that doesn't mean that someone rated 2000+ wouldn't beat me in 20 moves because of my blunder. But the reason is not a straight piece blunder. The reason is that 2 000 would make the position uncomfortable for me in majority of games. But the same sometimes apply in games where GMs play someone rated 2 000. Up to say 1200, people will just hang a piece even in equal position because they can implode every move, so it is a bit different I would say.

Of course I don't apply this to 10 minute per side games. I mean for me, that is more closely to blitz chess, and it is a bit different. I feel that in those games it is easy to blunder even if you are 1 700 for instance.

#6
"All games between players rated <1800 are decided on pieces being blundered on almost every move" - Carlsen

Yeah but that is of course an exaggeration. For someone like him, 2 200 FIDE rated player is little more than a beginner. 

Here are the only 2 games I've played against 2 000+ players in somewhat longer time controls (30 minutes per side, though that is still a bit fast for my level). 

In the first one against 2050 rated opponent I misplayed the endgame, and I was lost, but my opponent couldn't find the win and we ended up repeating the position. So it wasn't a straight up piece or a pawn blunder but just me playing worse in the endgame, and with some pressure on the clock (as he was ahead).

The second one against 2 200 rated opponent was completely equal (he had one inaccuracy where I could've seized the initiative but I didn't figure it out at the time). In the end he offered the draw and I was ok with it. At the time I had a passed pawn but I felt his pieces were a bit better coordinated than mine so I felt that maybe my pawn can be weak as well. It was objectively equal at the time.

So yes, I can blunder like the rest of chess players, but far from it that I do it every game. A straight up piece blunder without pressure is not that normal on this level in longer games, but of course it happens more than on 2 000 level. In most cases just before I blunder I either feel uncomfortable because the position seems new to me, or it is because I am slightly worse and I feel the pressure so I just implode. 

You can follow the chess.com study plan (https://www.chess.com/blog/webmaster/your-guide-to-chesscoms-study-plans). And solve as many tactics as possible everyday. If you play games, play 15 or 30 minute games. After the game make a quick check of your biggest mistakes.

     You are new to chess, but you probably realize it will take a considerable amount of time and effort to become a competent player. The first thing to do is to play longer games--give yourself enough time to think about the positions and calculate the outcomes of your intended moves. These are the basic skills you need to develop and you just can't do it in the few seconds/move most rapid games allow you to spend. Then analyze the games with the help of the analysis feature here--be sure to see the top 3 or 4 recommendations, notice which ones make sense to you.

     Several posters here have provided links to beginners' resources, and many strong masters have written books intended for beginners. A good one is Tarrasch's "The Game of Chess", which starts with endings, displaying the powers of the different pieces in the simplest settings, and the section on the middle game provides the classic explanation of  positional play. (Be sure to get the algebraic edition.)

1. Spend time to analyze your games after playing.
2. Spend time analyzing your positions while playing (!)

If you take time to analyze your games, you’ll get an insight in what areas you need to improve, what skills you need to develop or what openings get you into trouble etc.

I’ve taken a look at 2 of your games. 

First one is your game against harsh3769 (https://www.chess.com/game/live/22881596383). You played a very high level game, with an accuracy of 76%, including your blunders, is excellent. Without blunder that would easily be 80% accurate. That’s enough to pass a rating of 1000. The first 11 moves are really great.

And then you just blunder a piece with 12. Bh4 (he can take your Bishop and if you take back with the Knight he takes your Knight with his Queen). It’s really to prevent a blunder like this. Don’t spend 9 seconds on the move. Take the time to check for mistakes and take time to review if you have considered all candidate moves. You had 29 minutes left of your initial 30 minutes. Lucky for you he didn’t see it. You continue to play reasonably well.

Then on move 16 he plays b6, locking in his Bishop (if you play b4 his Bishop is trapped). Instead of just winning a piece you play a more aggressive move, that doesn't really threaten much. But you thought you threatened the Knight on c6 and after spending 4 seconds you blunder your Queen. This shows you need to work on your tactics (play puzzles).

Then you resign. At your rating level, this is still winnable, especially with 25 minutes left of your initial 30 minutes. 

So start with studying your own games, make a habit of looking for alternative moves. Consider his potential responses, etc.

The other game I looked at was your game against labellenichelle (https://www.chess.com/game/live/22970990325). This is of course a very different game, with an accuracy of 4-5%, you (both) played a lot of bad moves. Just two situations I'd like to highlight:

Move 12. Nxe7+ is played. You have two legal moves: 1. Move your King to h8 (an equal position according to the engine) or option 2 play 12.Qxe7 and lose your Queen. If you have 8 and a half minutes on the clock, there is no need to spend just 4 seconds on the worst move. 

However, you are lucky. On move 17 your opponent blunders a Queen. Not easy to see, but you had the chance to win back a Queen. Instead you played a very unnecessary Nxa2, missing the chance to capture the Queen. Your opponent also plays a random move so you can still take the Queen. Two more random moves are played, and you get a third chance to win a Queen. Then you resign.

My advice is to practice your pattern recognition, play puzzles, lots of them. It will improve your game significantly and counts as studying.

Anyway, good luck on your journey!

Dear Drd9955,

I am 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 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.

So, the question you asked is not so easy to answer, but I can tell you one thing for sure. 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 chess games!

keeping your pieces and pawns safe, and making sure you can get all of them or almost all of them to work before you try to launch a general point of attack, or start a confrontation somewhere in the board, are good things to focus on for now. pick openings that lead to open positions and relatively simple strategic concepts, and where you can mostly go by with general principles and blunder checking your moves. make tactics a daily routine. it doesn't have to be headsplitting work, but it needs to be constant. you need to build a database of patterns in your head that you can use in your games. learn basic endgames and checkmates, and stick to the ones with the most likely occurrence if you are short of time.

I'm happy to be getting some good tips from this thread. Thanks!

Tactics and endgames, nothing worse then grinding for an hour long then messing up a k+p vs k