1100-1200 blitz plateau

i got to 1100-1200 in blitz and conpletely hit a plateau. I even went down a little bit. I feel like if I play someone over 1200 they simply don't ever make mistakes. did anyone else hit this plateau? what differentiates a sub 1200 with a 1300 level player? is it at 1300 that mistakes are rare and chess becomes more positional? and dont tell me to play standard, timing i do play it sometimes but blitz is just funner. i play blitz 5|5 and the time is not so bad.

AlNoss wrote:

i got to 1100-1200 in blitz and conpletely hit a plateau. I even went down a little bit. I feel like if I play someone over 1200 they simply don't ever make mistakes. did anyone else hit this plateau? what differentiates a sub 1200 with a 1300 level player? is it at 1300 that mistakes are rare and chess becomes more positional? and dont tell me to play standard, timing i do play it sometimes but blitz is just funner. i play blitz 5|5 and the time is not so bad.

Any chance you study chess? How much? What are the last three Chess books you read?

The factor involved, that you described, is {chessboard} 'pattern- recognition'. .. With continued practice, and 'middle' and endgame study; Anywhere, from several months from now.. to, as much as, a years worth, of time..{of practice & study}; You'll probably become better!

As with every area, requiring some skill; The more hours, you apply yourself; The faster, should be your progress!  0:

I began chess by just playing (poorly playing) blitz games online, so I feel like I can relate. Here's how I got over that plateau.

1) Look for short sequences of forcing moves to see if you have a tactic to win material (the more consistently you can do this the better, your goal is to do it 100% of the time in 100% of your games). If one move order doesn't work, sometimes capturing in a different order will win material. 

2) Now the part that makes some players feel mysteriously strong. If there is no tactic then be patient! Simply continue development or improve your worst placed** pieces. Only attack or initiate a capture when you have no other choice (or it wins material).

3) Only after all pieces are developed and the king is safe should you look for ways to attack. Development means your knights, bishops, and queen are off the back rank, and your king is castled so that now the two rooks have no pieces between them.

** A quick tip for poorly placed pieces is when most (or all) forward squares are blocked by friendly pawns. If the pawns need protection then that's ok of course. But for example a bishop or queen behind friendly pawns on the same color square is usually not good. A rook behind pawns, or a knight that only looks at friendly pawns in the center is not good.

mrD ty.

after alot of nonesense on the forums its refreshing to actually find a post that is instructive....

hey, thank you for the instructive answers. i just bought silmans complete book of chess strategy and havnt quite read it thoroughly. just skimmed through it on some occasions. the reason for this is that i am disappointed: i feel like studying chess is tedious and doesn't help as much as i wouldve hoped. the key os really thinking your moves. but ...thinking only works if you outsmart your opponent ! i guess it is normal for improvement to become slow once you hit 1200 blitz. it is 70th percentile. not everybody gets to stay there.. i thought i was okay at chess and i started online at 800 rating. 1200 blitz games got me to 1100-1200.. maybe to get to 1300 its 1000 more games abd so on! also playing someone with a higher rating would help, but I havnt someone here to play a 15|10 and guide me like a child through my ocean of blunders.

Yeah a lot of people plateau at that point (including myself). I may still be in that plateau (1250 atm but have done pretty well as of late).

I've just done a bunch of tactics and have started playing correspondance games (3day/move) on the side.

I have that book, and HATE it.  there are much better books IMHO.

BTW, I don't think 1200 blitz is very good- but I'm not sold on the idea that blitz is the right time control to learn to stop blundering so much.

its too fast.

instead G30 gives me time to think.  Still I blunder, but I have time to be more careful and second guess my choices and I think thats important for us patzers...

I know you said you didn't want to play standard.

but.think.  if you're to stop all the blunders  that means to change your mind, take more time, and make a better move.

can you really do that in a G5 ?  (without losing to time trouble)  I can't.   thats my speal.

I was totally plateau'd at 1150-1250 for a year. 

Was really, really frustrating. I studied a boatload of tactics (like 95% of my study was tactics), and my rating barely budged after 1250. It's like I'd study all these beautiful tactics, but never even get a chance to execute them during the game. This was confirmed by computer analysis of my lost games - while sure, I blundered from time to time, it seemed like my opponents NEVER blundered, and I had like at best one shot for a winning tactic, whereas they'd have like 5-7 chances to knock me out. Most games I had ZERO winning tactics per the computer analysis. 

Turns out you can't win chess on tactics alone, especially if your basic positional knowledge and openings setups are weak. My losing games had a lot less to do with blundering and everything to do with poor basic positional knowledge and instincts. 

When you get backed into a markedly inferior position, it's shockingly easy to blunder. Whereas when you have a strong, solid position, you almost have to intentionally make bad moves to blunder.  

So you really need to balance your game and work on your basic positional stuff. Basic things like don't move pieces twice in the opening, develop at all costs in the opening, preserve pawn structure - simple stuff that I'm sure you THINK you're doing, but you're definitely not. Watch Akobian vidoes on youtube, and if you can actually guess most of his moves in the opening-middlegame (even the 'easy' ones), you'll be doing pretty well. 

The worst advice I got as a plateaud player in the 1200 range was to 'keep working on tactics predominantly.'  It's not that tactics study makes you worse, but it ignores the really rate-limiters in your improvement. 

After a bunch of balanced work/playing in chess, I'm now 1500-1600 range in blitz here. And my chesstempo tactical rating is only 50 points higher than it was when I was a 1200 chess.com plateaud player. So I'm not just winning because of better tactics. At my rating range, blunderamas are still super common in 3-min blitz, and the norm when you're <30sec left. But the games are mostly won positionally before that - one side gets a big space advantage, a vastly superior minor piece (super knight), or passed pawn, and then all the blunders occur as a result of trying to cope with that positional advantage and missing easy tactics in the fast time control.

There's still no quick fix though - you still have to play a lot of games and add to your chess knowledge. Speed counts for a lot in blitz - I can play 1800-rated players pretty regularly into completely won positions for myself where I'm up more than a rook, but lose on the time control as they do everything else so much faster than I do. 

I'd also say at your rating level, dump the Silman. It's way too hard.

Silman's book is even too hard for me, at 1600 blitz level. Don't get me wrong - I actually understand and appreciated the concepts he's trying to convey, like minor piece imbalance, space advantage, etc., and they're critical. But his level of writing and analysis his quite high level, and not appropriate even for players at my rating. He routinely points out what he calls an 'obvious' refutation to a seemingly good move, with a 8-10 move complex tactical combo, and will even say it's 'obvious' or that anyone who didn't see that was just 'lazy'. (He does this repeatedly on his chess.com columns analyzing class-player games.) 

Stuff like Akobian's videos on youtube are much more important at 1200 level - emphasizing basic, easy stuff as I mentioned above, that you almost certainly are NOT doing.

I will suggest that for annotated games, Dan Heisman's "Amateur Game Book" is the closest to what you will find for an annotated game set that will actually give PRACTICAL advice at your level (<1600) to improve. The games in there are about 1500-1900 level players, and you'll see all the seemingly 'ok' moves they make that are actually mistakes because they violate things like neglecting development or the center. This sort of stuff is so basic that Silman's book jumps completely over it - in fact, I'll bet you get WORSE with positional chess and analysis with Silman than if you hadn't read it at all, since he spends so much time on positions where atypical moves are the best plan (often due to complex tactical refutations as mentioned above), whereas at 1200-blitz, making atypical moves is almost surefire incorrect play for you and will tank your game.

i got stuck in that range, keep playing blitz and read a chess book and then just wait basically and let the magic happen.

a dip in performance is good because that means you're going to reach a new all time high very soon.

Everyone is a Patzer in their own way.

Fast chess is more about showing what you know, than it is about learning how to play chess.

When you reach a plateau it is because you have reached the upper limit of your current skills and knowledge. The first step to moving beyond the plateau is to gain a understanding of your current weakness. The best way to do this is to review your games with a stronger player. You can also review your games with a chess engine.

If you are hanging pieces I would recommend the book chess maze.

If you are missing tactics I would recommend the mates in two books. Yes book. With the book you need to visualize more, which is a key skill. Also while studding tactics always determine the best response to your move.

But I would spend more time replaying master games from the 1800, than on tactics. The key to improvement is to analyze your own games and stop making the same mistakes over and over and over, and replaying master games from the 1800. First play those games that use the openings you like.

This was my first thought too, but he does say it's the strategy book, not the HTRYC book. From what I've heard the strategy book is more accessible.

Tactics. More tactics. Even more tactics.

Not Silman just for now. Most 1300 games are decided by tactical blunders. Learn to exploit them. Most of all, doing tactics is fun. I recommend getting a premium membership and recommend starting do do as many tactics as you can per day.