The genie granted my wish! In 30 days, my blitz has risen from 1446 to 1687: 241 points. It's likely to go higher as I'm winning about 7/10 games lately. While my current rating isn't significant, I think the rapid improvement is. So, if it helps anybody, the main thing I studied in those 30 days was GM Akobian's videos on youtube for the St Louis Chess Club. I loved watching him explain stuff and I think something finally clicked after all those thousands of blitz games to bring me much closer to my standard rating.
Has anyone else seen an unusual improvement in an area and if so, what do you think caused it?
You need to look at the longer term trend. You were basically at 1600 at the end of the 2015. You had hit 1500 several times over the last three years.
The increase over time is good but not spectacular. You may have achieved a long term increase of about 100 points in the last year. (The only way to tell is to come back and look at it in about a year.)
In the short run, I doubt that you can tie an increase to any particular video series.
The genie granted my wish! In 30 days, my blitz has risen from 1446 to 1687: 241 points. It's likely to go higher as I'm winning about 7/10 games lately. While my current rating isn't significant, I think the rapid improvement is. So, if it helps anybody, the main thing I studied in those 30 days was GM Akobian's videos on youtube for the St Louis Chess Club. I loved watching him explain stuff and I think something finally clicked after all those thousands of blitz games to bring me much closer to my standard rating.
Has anyone else seen an unusual improvement in an area and if so, what do you think caused it?