4 hours a week to get better - what should I do?

I sympathise with you. Started playing a year ago. Family, work etc limits me to about four hours a week also. But, happily I've now beaten my own nemesis once, which is encouraging (he's about 1300 otb rated). Did notice a big jump in understanding after playing through lots of exercises. But I still play erratically: from very solid and patient to lazily and poorly. So, I'm not one to give you tips methinks...

Read and "learn cold" two books --

1)  Paul Littlewood, Chess Tactics.

2)  Jeremy Silman, Essential Chess Endings Explained Move by Move.

Both books are relatively short., and involve well defined, bite-sized tactics and strategies.  You can't play decent chess (ever), without learning this relatively small "body of knowledge."

The knowledge you acquire therein, will surely (and eventually) catapult you above 1200 Blitz on this site.  If not, maybe you need to try a different game than chess.  Sorry.

Lastly, put a 5 second bonus into any time controls you play.  That will allow you to reach the end of the game "on the board," instead of "on the clock."

Very Simple.  Good Luck With It.

Some good advice here.

With only 4 hours a week it may be difficult to overcome your rival. But you can improve if you work at it. Good luck!

If you are playing Blitz, make sure you know what opening you are going to play and what type of position you are aiming for. You don't need to fight for an opening advantage, but rather be prepared so you can gain time on the clock.

4 hours isnt really a barrier, it's the quality and effort put into the 4 hours. If you are willing to get up at 5 am, when the kids are asleep and you have total focus for 45 minutes you can accomplish a lot. 

With that schedule what you can't afford is to mess around with 6-7 different time wasting activities like updating a database, reading chessbase.com etc. You need a disciplined schedule with all the materials ready so that when you sit down to work, you are ready to go.

If you can commit to that, for 12 weeks I will recommend a course of action.

Tactics Trainer....Tactics Trainer....and more tactics trainer. Chess is 99% tactics, especially at that level.

Based on his blitz games, what he is lacking isn't really tactics, but simple vision. I'd suggest some sort of starter course, like chessmagnet perhaps.

Ok, go ahead. I can commit to 5 hours per week (sometimes more, but I could extend out on those weeks).

• once a month, you play a long OTB game
• on the next week, you use the 4hrs to analyze the game with a strong player and then work on one specific kind of mistake you found in the game (for example, if you missed a fork, you spend some time doing fork problems)
• on the 3rd week, you do anything chess related you enjoy (ie. have fun ! )
• on the 4th week, work on one fundamental aspect of the game : either train tactics, or endgames or go through annotated master games.

Yes it's true. That's because slow chess helps you internalize chess patterns, and these chess patterns develop your intuition, intuition which you use in blitz games to be able to play fast.

You need to study your own games. You have to find WHY you thought the bad move was good, WHY you won't do it again, WHY you missed the good move, WHY you will see moves like this in the future. Then play some 30 minute games to try to solidify your conclusions. First review your game without an engine but after, use an engine to see what your analysis missed.

I'm really eating up all this interesting advice.  I see a lot of overlap.  A few of you have given me interesting specific proposals and a couple have contacted me directly. I think I am close to adopting a 4-hours a week regimen - and it may indeed include getting up at 5am, while the children sleep.  

I will let you know when I begin.

 What is simple vision? Is it not tactics when he is dropping material or missing what the other person is doing? Is forgetting to capture hanging material not part of tactics?

Basic tactics is still tactics. What do we teach beginners when they first start? Simple back rank mate, forking pieces, capture pieces that are unprotected, those are the most basic tactics.

"For many people with little time for chess the default option is internet blitz, in which the players have five minutes or less for the entire game. I cannot warn too strongly against taking this route if you want to improve, the problem being that playing too many games at a fast time limit will corrupt the decision making process. Instead of playing good moves, a player honed on blitz will look for moves he can make quickly and perhaps bring himself closer to a win on time. Needless to say, this is not a good way to play 'real' chess, and the habits acquired at faster time limits do spill over." - GM Nigel Davies (2010)

I wouldn't say it is. That's not really knowing how to play, ie, simple vision. No use looking for forks and pins unless you can see one move captures.

But I guess what really matters is... does the tactics trainer do one move capture problems? I don't mess with much outside of groups here.

Except for missing a lot of hanging pieces ??

That's the whole point of lacking the requisite "body of knowledge" of fundamental tactics and endgames.  The OP played a set of memorized opening moves -- then he didn't have the foggiest idea what to do next.

AND IT SHOWED, very clearly, in the game above.

The OP's play seemed "clueless" beginning around move 10.  Probably because he ran out of choreographed / memorized opening moves.  The rest of his play kept getting worse.

Players that study (cover to cover) the simple books cited in Post #49, or follow the recommendations in Post #56, will rarely make those kind of mistakes, unless the're drunk.

"Hanging Pieces" is the flip-side of being tactically clueless.  Why construe that problem as a "vision thing" ??