Advancement in chess skills

  9) Set goals.

Do I need to say more? Set your goals and be realistic. If the only thing you want is to play good on line blitz then everything I said till now is pretty much useless. Ignore it or even do exactly the opposite. 

Just a nonsense he invented or another ignorant told him. Don't pay attention.

Improving your skills is not easy. It needs hard work and all the pieces in the correct places. Imagine your study like a chess game.If you have one well placed piece and everything else badly placed it's not going to be a good position. You want all your pieces well placed. That means you must do alot of correct things consistently and intensely.

Can you walk without an idea where are you going? Can you talk/write without the slightest idea of what are you going to say? (of course, some people will say is possible, but the point is you are not going anywhere, nor you are going to say the wrong thing, or you are going to get yourself in trouble) Plans will become more sophisticated with time, and better too. But still, a bad plan is better than none. Sometimes you will learn from the bad plan, or you will realize that the plan is a wrong one, and you can change. never be afraid to change plans, but doing it too often is as bad as none. 

About endgames: Sure a good start is Capablanca's books. here it's one, free under the Gutenberg project: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33870/33870-h/33870-h.htm

"A Primer of Chess" is good too: I couldn't find any free, but you may find it. this is a preview from Google books: https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Primer_of_Chess.html?id=pi37L2kBk4UC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

Old books, but older is chess  Pretty sure as well you can find more modern books too. 

Just a nonsense he invented or another ignorant told him. Don't pay attention.

Improving your skills is not easy. It needs hard work and all the pieces in the correct places. Imagine your study like a chess game.If you have one well placed piece and everything else badly placed it's not going to be a good position. You want all your pieces well placed. That means you must do alot of correct things consistently and intensely.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Endgames.

All phases of the game are equally important but endgame helps you improve 2 of the most important skills: Analytical skill and calculation. Without them , it really doesn't matter how good you are in the opening or how many tactics you do every day.

2)Always analyse your games.

You need to identify your mistakes and yout thinking deificiencies and fix them.The fastest you fix them , the fastest you improve.

Record your thoughts and examine what you did wrong and what you could do better. Go deep in your mistakes and find all the thinking process related to them. If for example you blundered a knight , examine why the knight was there and why it became a target. You will realise that most mistakes can be prevented by just applying a proper thinking process in your game.

3)Always play long time control games.

Forget blitz , even rapid. Nothing less than 60 minutes with a small increment( 3 or 5 sec). If you want to improve your thinking process you need to think in your games and do thinking mistakes.

4)Prioritise.

A mistake many chessplayers do is that they don't really realise the hard work chess needs.Let's assume you played a game and you did 10 mistakes. You can't fix everything in your thinking process with one game. It would be great if you could but you can't. So find the worst. Fix first the ones that destroy your position(blunders). Once blunders are eliminated start working in positional and tactical mistakes.

5)Study games of great masters.

   Collections of annotated games are invaluable. It is sad how few understand that.Reading a game where a good player expresses his thoughts about the position is one of the best ways to improve your thinking process and open your creativity horizons.

6)Don't let anything in luck

    That is important. Do you want to improve?Find players that will offer you a tough game. The random selection of opponents is for those who wastetheir time. Not for you. You want serious chessplayers that will do their best. You want instructive defeats that will clearly demonstrate what you should fix , not meaningless wins.

    Choose the books you will study wisely. Find the best.

7)Tactics.

   You need tactics but it is better to improve your analytical skill first. Many will tell you that up to ...... rating you only need tactics.

That's a pure nonsense. Most players under 2200 don't understand  much.They see a game , a player lose because of a tactic and they have their conclusion. He needs tactics. Usually(alweays actually) there is a whole wrong thinking process that eventually leads to a tactical mistake.If you don't fix your thinking , tactics won't do you much good.On the other hand once you fix your thinking process , tactics will help you improve immenselly.

    8)Openings.

2 words: Forget them.

Opening priciples are enough for now but choose your openings wisely. You need openings that create position that have universal instructive value and you need openings that are simple and can be played without memorising lines. Forget nonsense about aggressive or drawish or strategic. People put labels in things they don't understand and chess is no exception. 

 9) Set goals.

Do I need to say more? Set your goals and be realistic. If the only thing you want is to play good on line blitz then everything I said till now is pretty much useless. Ignore it or even do exactly the opposite. 

10)Focused Study.

Last but not least. Your study must be focused. A real board , a good book and isolate yourself from everything. Focus in trying to understand what the author tries to explain. When you study and when you play all the rest of ther world must not exist for you.If something distracts you , or if  it feels easy , you are doing it wrong.

For me, the best method is to play as many games as possible against players better than you.  If these are not available, play as many games as possible against players at your own level whose style differs greatly from your own.

There is no magic formula, but every player of any real ability (C rank or higher) has to have figured something out.  Superior players can introduce you to entirely new concepts, but different-style players of similar level can also help you fix some of the things you are weak at, since their strengths will be different from your own.

The main point is that you can't be afraid to lose, that is essentially the same thing as being afraid to learn.

www.chessmasterschool.com

In 37 months, you'll be improved.  I'm currently on Month 7 of the first of the three courses and already seeing a change (didn't start seeing that change until after month 5 - might have to take some painful losses in the beginning).

 Read the Amateur's Mind.

Does this website charge any sort of payment ??

what do you mean??

  I checked it out but couldnt get a feel for it from the samples. Is it better than say, The school of chess excellence or Yusupov's series? Or is something that can be done on top of those lessons? Basically, I have those courses and I want to know if this is worth the extra money in comparison.

Hey, Srinibas. Welcome to the pit.

Seriously though, if you are asking those questions, that thing of pattern memory bank is an overkill. [However, he is right, although, again, why should I tell you when giving you water, that the chemical composition is H2O -and you are 2 years old?]

So this is your question:

"Although I have read many articles and blogs. All of them have nearly same opinion, like solve tactics, focus on openings, have good strategy in the middle game, never give up etc.

Except all these thing I am more interested to know that how one can think of some new tricks and strategies resulting in development in your rating."

1-Solve tactics. On point. Not only because you are going to become better at spotting good moves, as well you are going to avoid making bad moves. Also, that thing of "one can think some new tricks..." Well, if you become a good tactician, that's where the good tricks are coming from. forget about new tricks, everything you think is new, is somewhere, is some PATTERN MEMORY BANK

2-Focus in openings. Bad advice. learn how to develop the pieces efficiently instead of learning like a computer lines and lines of moves sequences.

3-Have a good strategy in the middle game. I don't know how to start with this one, is too general and teaches nothing. Probably what you read is "play with a plan in mind". Learning "good strategies" in the middle game comes with studying masters games, analyzing your own mistakes in your games, etc.

4-"Never give up". That's a very general advice, and not very wise. What is good for a 5k marathon (and maybe bullet chess) is not really interesting advice when playing serious chess. If you are in a serious disadvantage, you are just wasting time, and if your opponent is a seasoned player, you are disrespecting him, and you are taking his/her good will to help you out in a post-mortem analysis.

So, some healthy advice:

Tactics! (you didn't see this coming, aren't you?)

Find interesting books you can learn from. If you don't have access to those, lessons over here (and some articles) are good too.

Chessgames.com has an interesting feature, that you can find collections of games with certain themes. Also, the number of moves. Reproduce tons of miniature games, (15-20 moves) because at least one of the sides has committed a serious mistake and the game ended really bad for him/her. that will teach you and will give you pieces of PATTERNS FOR YOUR MEMORY :'D

Play games live and ask your opponent analyze with you. You will be surprised how much you can learn.

Tactics!! 

And when you get to 1600-1800, post again over here, so we can give you more advanced tips.

Good luck.

Of course!  Nothing of quality is ever free.

Those "free" videos you see online.  They are CR@P!  Total, utter, CR@P!

You get what you pay for!

The Amateur's Mind is the name of a book.  If memory serves me right, I believe Jeremy Silman wrote it.