1200 wall. Please help

Hello all. I posted about a month ago asking about improving my game and have thus transferred from 10 min blitz 100 percent of the time to 30 min about 90 percent. but as of lately I have hit a block. for 3 weeks I was able to maintain a 1300 ish rating and then this last week I have just plummeted and am just losing consistently. I wouldn't be bothered so much if it was a few days but as I examine my games and my play it's just like I hit stagnation. on the flip side my tactics correct percentage has gone up. It usually is me up a piece or a pawn or two mid game and then I move a piece and I just lose. my training regiment has been an hour to 2 hours daily of tactics. I watch game analysis by Jerry from the chess network since he goes into great detail and is very straight forward. maybe 5-8 videos a day (also mato) and then I also do my regular games. any help would be greatly appreciated. I know I am not good but I think it's specifically my positioning because I can't for the life of me end up with a good attacking position without rearranging my units for 5 moves.

The one piece of advice I would have for you is to slow down. If you are practicing tactics for an hour every day, you should be improving, so you might be approaching it incorrectly. Don't ever worry about your tactics rating. Take as much time as you need on each problem to understand the concepts behind it. If you understand the concepts, you will be able to recognize them more and more quickly. I don't know if the chess.com tactics trainer has this option, but I know that at chess tactics server (chess.emrald.net) you can choose to solve problems based on a constant rating as opposed to having them based on your current rating. Just choose 'sign in as guest' then go to 'select problems based on' and choose 'rating 1100.' Now don't worry how much time each problem takes you and don't even pay attention to your rating. Just try to solve the problem. If you fail, look at the solution and try to understand why the solution is what it is.

I have had a similar problem (and probably still do). In my live standard chess games, I've had my rating graph look like an ocean during a windstorm (with REALLY huge waves, like the kind that could sink Titanic). However, I don't really have a precise rating "wall", like you do, although I'd mark my said wall at 1700, even though my rating now fluctuates from around 1550 to 1670. 

Unlike you, however, I have no/very lenient training regimen, mostly involving playing games, reflecting on my games, with the ocassional tactics training session. I own one chess book (which is very general and doesn't go into much detail for anything), and I have difficult access to OTB chess clubs and tournaments. 

Not sure how I can help you, but you have my sympathies. :)

I will definitely try harder with the tactics. perhaps I am rushing too fast through them and not reflecting enough. @ vulpes lol. well I appreciate it. I read a lot of stuff online regarding tactics advice and positioning. you bring up a point I am trying to focus on though in that while there's a lot of information online it's difficult to say if I'm approaching it all in a manner that is beneficial to my chess development. I believe while I'm getting a lot of good information it's kind of across the board. I was thinking about purchasing the GM package from the International chess school website. from what I've read it has a lot of information but it's all setup in a coherent, structured manner. on the other hand I am also a very big skeptic and am hesitant as I don't know if that would be beneficial. what do you think? my goal is to be a class a player uscf and am able and have put in a lot of time into this.

You could be really fun to teach. I bet you need to iron out some gaps in your thinking and continue to study tactics hard and things will begin to "click".

@ longislandmark how would I be able to do that? I have seen them posted on these forums but haven't tried it yet. I will do so.

I read this and just wanted to say that some positions simply don't offer you attacking chances.  When you have to spend 5 moves to create threats that's a big clue you're in this type of position.

Moving pieces around takes up a lot of time, and if your opponent can spend 1 or 2 moves to defend something that took you 5 moves to set up, then it's as if you let your opponent move 3 or 4 times in a row.

Seriously breaking the 1200 wall is not hard.  Just stop hanging pieces.  Do a ton of tactics and you will improve.  I'm not talking just an hour a day.  You have to commit if you want to see serious improvments.  The one thing I see at my club is that 1500 and 1600's do not really understand how much time it took to break 2000 let along try and get master.

also this may help.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/a-guide-to-posting-your-games-on-chesscom

Something else that may help. It could be a case of simply not yet being exposed to as many patterns as you need to progress past your wall yet.

I'm no expert by any means, but I did experience the same type of frustration before smashing through that wall and continuing to improve.

Instead of taking all the great advice of spending a lot of time to solve each puzzle, I took the opposite approach.

I simply solved as many as I could and did it quickly. Now, I only averaged about 47% pass rate...but this was over 10,000+ problems.

So that means instead of getting really, really good at a couple of hundred that I spent several minutes on, instead I was able to solve nearly 5000 and commit them to memory much faster.

See, what happens is, you fail one. Then you look at the solution, play through the moves and learn it so you get it right the next time. Try to understand why it's a better move than the one you tried at first.

Then, the next time that problem repeats itself, you'll remember it and pass it.

Sure enough, you'll play games where the same tactical opportunity will present itself.

And because you made simply exposing yourself to as many new tactics as possible your goal, instead of solving them all perfectly and slowly, you now will have your memory banks full of new tactical patterns you never knew before your training.

And because you always looked at the solution to learn from it, you get the same success as if you struggled for several minutes on it, because you have the correct solution. And correct is correct. No matter how you arrived at it, you now recognize it and know why it's the best move.

With this as a strategy for doing the tactics training, I saw more of a playing strength increase than any other approach. Maybe it will work for you. The worst case scenario would be you now recognize thousands of new tactics you can use. There's not really a down side. 

Now before someone comes in and says, "But you should take your time!", hear me out first.

I agree with you. But each approach has its purpose, time and place. 

Taking your time surely will help you improve your calculation.

But it doesn't help you when it comes to storing massive amounts of patterns that you recognize instantly without the need to do much calculating when you reach those positions, because you've already drilled those positions in your training and know them cold.

I think it helps big time to understand the difference between using puzzles as a calculation skill buidling tool and training tactics as a way to store more patterns in your memory.

Ideally, you can train both. 

But my point is simply I think there is something to be said for sheer exposure to as many new tactics as possible and playing through the moves to learn why the solution is the best move so you can increase your tactical strength.

At the end of the day, like so many have already tried to stress, despite our different ways of suggesting it, you'll need to solve/train/drill tactics to reach the next level. If you set aside a month where you solve at least 100 tactics for six days of the week and then 1000 one day of the week like on a weekend, you'll probably find your rating increasing at least a couple hundred points just because of all the new tools you'll have in your new tactics toolbox. 

It's up to you to decide how much you want to put in and if what you get out of it is worth the consistent effort and time to you.

Just learn the basics, and don't worry about your rating. Sample:

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=849532788

Playing 15...Nxd3 under any time control (possibly excluding bullet) means that you have a crapload to learn yet. Of course the same applies to your opponent as well (19.Qxd6).

SO: First learn not dropping pieces randomly, and after that, you can start worrying about subtleties like rating.

You don't need to "pay a local GM", as you don't need a GM to learn the absolute basics. Oh, and forget that crap about being "aggresive" or "offensive". You attack will fail if you drop half of your pieces while "attacking". A player at your class cannot have a style.

Just practice tactics. Simple ones, a lot of them. And play long time controls (30 min. per game or more), trying not blundering your pieces.

As I am in a similar boat, I can tell you what I am doing: 

At first I was really conscious about my tactical rating - I wanted the graph to go up at a constant rate of 5 points a day and show this really steady, regular, perfect improvement, but that's just not how it works. While I was nursing the rating, I would sign off after a certain number of failures in order to preserve the rating and similarly, if I hit a hot streak, I signed out at peak rating to keep it high and create this illusion of improvement (because the integer is counting up!). Now I ignore the rating, set my chess clock for a predetermined time, and don't allow myself to sign out or give up until I flag. 

My rating dropped like a looney toon anvil at first - because my inflating it caused me to skip a lot of tactics I needed to review, but because they were totally elementary to learn (1000 level), my rating shot back up again by the end of the two hours. The end result is that I now have a lower rating ceiling but a higher rating floor - which is *actual* improvement, and I don't have these 100 point hills and valleys anymore. 

Another thing I'm trying to do is simply think *smaller* - I was trying to frontload a GM level opening repertoire, ever tactic, every ending, every immortal game, every GM lecture on youtube, just EVERYTHING all at once. I still study all of those things, but now I divide it up for the week and pick one thing in each category to do for that week: One opening to improve, one type of ending to work on, one lecture to absorb thoroughly, one chapter in a book. Thinking on a micro-scale has helped me appreciate each thing a lot more....because I'm not longer mastering ALL endgames - I'm mastering three specific rook endings, so these three endings keep my full attention.

Finally, if you're studying something you're not using OTB, drop it and study something you can. There are PLENTY of things a 1200 can improve on and use immediately, so working out the nuances of positional levers in certain pawn structures can probably be saved for next week.

Oh, and, as much as you can, be happy with losing....it's fun to lose because losing means you played to a decisive result - reset, lose again, but lose more stubbornly. When great chess players are asked about memorable games, *many* of them recall some horrendous failure and an important lesson from it - 800 strength to 2800 strength, losing often teaches you more about chess than winning :)

You're talking as if a couple weeks is enough to noticeably improve. Give longer games a while before you jump ship. It may take months before you see improvement. Chess isn't an over night game. You've got to pay your dues and that means slogging through long periods between jumps in performance. Keep hitting the Tactics Trainer. That will help greatly.

One thing I've really been trying to do is follow some advice of Dan Heisman: "move every piece once before moving any piece twice, unless there is a tactic"(a chance to gain material or one of your own pieces is in trouble).

In my opinion, the problem with tactics puzzles is the next: 

In tactics puzzles the chess player doens't obtain a good feedback. The feedback is the result of the puzzle (I find the move or I don't find the move). The reality is not black or white. You can doing things bad and equally find the right move in the puzzle. 

I doing puzzles with recorder, i don't take notes with pen I speak all my thoughts. Then I review the record, i listen my and I value not only find the solution. I examine the thoughts to. I have noticed that normally i find the solutions but my thoughts are full of disorder, superflous lines, incorrect variations and other mistakes. I can examine only the results and congratulation me for resolve the problem or I can examine to thoughts and obtain a best feedback to improve. 

I appreciate the words of encouragement and advice. I won't be taking time off from chess anytime soon and I highly doubt I could ever quit. there's something about chess that makes it so appealing. Taking what everyone has said I will study tactics in different ways and end game more while work on preserving my units. anyone have suggestions for good videos online to watch?

@ pfren I have a question. In that Nxd3 move I was thinking that it was ok to trade the knight for 2 pawns in that it was killing his center with the fall of the supporting back pawn. I was thinking it would make my king side attack easier and hopefully over burdening his queen should he want to keep it. This is the kind of stuff I need help on

Videos are both a treasure and a trap for people at our level - it's easy to let the video do the analysis for you, so you're 'going through motions' of learning while actually getting comparatively little information. That said, all of the lectures by the St. Louis chess club are great - the vast majority are taught by GMs, and there are tons of amazing games and indispensible ideas.

HOWEVER one hidden trap of studying master games that I hadn't considered is that it *totally* skips basic tactics - GMs don't die to hanging a piece or missing a discovery very often, so their games invisibly neutralize tactical threats that we're not seeing when we look at them. There's a reason my chess mentor says that I have the knowledge level around 1700, but my rating is stuck, and that reason is too many master games and not enough boring tactics. 

Trainer Dan Heisman had a very nice quote that I've remembered.  He said when you're under ~1700 don't look for exceptions... more often than not you're just wrong.

Here the exception you were looking for was the basic material count.  You wanted to sacrifice a knight for two pawns.  It may be a bit discouraging in the short term, but Pfren is right, you'll gain so much by learning the basics first... here that means don't lose material!  As you get better you'll learn when exceptions are appropriate (and have the technique to back it up).