What was the first thing you started learning after getting comfortable with the basics?

I'm wondering how people started improving their game after getting comfortable with the absolute most basic concepts in chess. I'm thinking of things like:

• Try to get two pawns in the center of the board
• Generally, develop knights before bishops
• Castle early
• Don't hang pieces
• Capture your opponent's hanging pieces

I've noticed that after about 300 ELO (while definitely the exception rather than the norm) I'll face opponents that don't commit total beginner-level blunders that allow me to win the game. For instance, I had a recent game in which neither I nor my opponent made a clear mistake within the first ten moves, but then, I missed a couple of opportunities to defend against forks which my opponent, of course, also missed. My game review then showed that I ultimately lost because I missed an "obvious" ten-move forced checkmate with 20 seconds left on the clock. I also failed to capture a couple of hanging pieces with less than 10 seconds left on the clock, so maybe better time management is what I need. I just don't see a systematic way to improve my time management other than just play more games.

If I had to guess, I would say looking for basic tactics like forks is probably the next thing to add to my beginner-level bullet list, but I'm curious what other advice people found useful early on.

openings

Just some slightly more advanced principles such as:

- Rooks like to be on open files or on a file pointing at your opponents King/Queen

- Your Rooks work better when they can see each other. So try to connect them

- Don't trade a bishop for a knight unless your are getting something else in return such as forcing your opponent to double pawns

- A pawn that is defended by another pawn, is more powerful than a pawn that is defended by a piece

Something else I realised around the 300 ELO level was that I was absolutely clueless when it came to converting end games in to wins.

I would often lose a winning position or run out of time trying to win with a King & Rook vs a King.

So learning how to win King/Queen & King Rook end games really helped me win more games

Learning how to escort a pawn up the board with just your king and learning about the "box" when it comes to deciding which pawn can be promoted

Once I learned those basic guidelines, one of the first things I started working on was some theoretical checkmates and endgames. Things like Queen checkmate, or Rook checkmate, or How to win with just one pawn via king opposition; they were great confidence boosts because I knew I could usually win from those situations. The pawn one is especially important:

https://youtu.be/orCBaFAyqSs?si=cQJ6aEuTWHTmHTnl

Aside from the obvious talk about tactics, you need to learn how to checkmate with the bare minimum amount of material required to do so. King + queen & king + rook are very simple checkmates to do, but if you don't know how to do them you're going to have a bad time because they occur quite often in practice.

King + bishop pair & king + bishop and knight are a lot more difficult to do, but they rarely occur in practice. Some masters argue that learning them is optional; others argue otherwise.

Basic tactics. Advanced tactics.

Model checkmate patterns.

Pawn structure.

Development, when it matters and when it doesn't.

Yes, they do. But as a 300 elo player yourself, you are just not punishing them.

300 elo players will give up pieces early in the game and do mistakes.

300 elo player don't follow the basics in the opening. Maybe you think you do, but you don't.

I've looked at a few of your games quickly. You're not respecting the opening principles. You're bringing out your queen too early without really knowing what you're doing. You're giving away free pieces or missing the ones your opponent gives away.

At 300 Elo, you need to focus on two things for now: stop giving away pieces and stick to the basic principles of the opening. By doing this, you're letting your opponent blunder first, and at 300 Elo, blunders happen very quickly.

Once you've "mastered" this, you should be around 800-900 Elo. From there, you'll need to focus on the middlegame and develop your tactics.

You talk as if you already have a good foundation at 300 Elo. Sorry, but that's not the case. At 300, you barely know how to play chess. The good news is that at the beginning, there is a way to progress quickly.

Honestly, the 1st thing I learned past the basics was that chess is hard.

Tactics- all kinds of tactics, and studying games of the Masters (starting from Morphy).

This . . . is why I said they are the exception.

But, to your credit, I've been playing a bunch of dumb stuff trying to catch people with tricks like a scholar's mate and doing this gimmicky early queen line with a Scandinavian that is basically the only "main line" of an opening that I know.