On your profile you say you're FIDE 1400 and your chess.com online has been 1735. I guess to get those extra 15 points you'd need to improve your FIDE 200 points.
Hehe, but anyway. Maybe you're talking Norway chess again. This site has an international user base. In Elo (FIDE) B class is 1600-1799.
Chess.com online ratings can be inflated 100-200 points and even more. A 1600-1799 Elo player could be over 1900 or 2000 chess.com online. Of course it depends how seriously they take it.
i hope anyone found my posts instructive...
I hope so too. Arguably you had the best reply.
thanks!
Maybe the OP is using the USCF standard. Ok, for USCF it is long established that USCF is inflated compared to Fide ratings, something like 150-200 points above it. This might go some way to explain the conundrum, but again, his blitz is still kinda low..... That said, good luck to him over the next 4 years, lol.
My FIDE rating at the moment is 2080. My blitz rating on chess.com has no value as I've played 3 or 4 games on my mobile phone just to try... ;-)
i hope anyone found my posts instructive...
I did, thanks!
youre welcome
sorry but your plan is trash. Studying one year tactics then one year positional chess... what the hell. Thats NOT how you should do it. You should at least mix things up. I will tell you how I got to master level without even having such a strict plan as you. First of all I worked on my opening repertoire, I chose a pretty easy one that I can play at all levels and which gives me solid play and fits my style(d4 with white and e5 and Nf6 with black. Mostly main lines and solid variations.) It is important that you know the plans in your lines and why you play the moves you play and NOT that you know 100 heavy theory lines. Just pick simple short lines with clear plans and reasonable play. You should start to work on your opening repertoire first because you need to get practise with it to get a better understanding of it. A good opening repertoire is the fundament of every masters strength. I always hated the french(with both colours), thats why I dont play e4. When I would now play with the french as black against some opponent of my calibre then I would lose most of the games just because I dont have the understanding of the opening, I dont know which pieces are good or important, I dont know the main plans and I dont know the accuries of the opening lines.
What I did then is very simple and definetely the most important step. I played tournament games!!! I played many many OTB tournaments to get practise and experience. Alone from this my playing strength improved well.
The next step is what most players do not do! They dont analyse their games, they dont look at their mistakes, they dont learn anything from their losses! They wont understand why they lost and they wont understand the opening plans better. They will just play the same stuff every time and make the same mistakes every time. Why? Simply because they never learned where they could improve their moves. I analysed most of my games deeply (mainly without engines. Engine help just to check if I could have won tactically.) and tried to find improvements for my play. I checked whether my opening line was good, if my plan was the right one and so on. I also tried to think about my thinking process during the game. Why did I make this move? What were my intentions?
The last step of my road to master was the trainings program of course. I am very sure you can get very very far just by playing and analysing properly but of course a trainings program is also extremly helpfull. Always remember, you cant improve in chess when you dont do anything for it. No matter how shortly you study, you will improve from it. I studied only on weekends and not even every weekend. See how far you can come with that... My trainings program always included some tactics at the beginning(very very important!) and then analysis of games or positions. I had a coach but thats not nessecary when you have the right books with good annotations. Why to analyse games? Because this is the most important thing to improve your chess! Your thinking process at the moment is flawed, so you need to find out what is flawed. When you analyse games in depth you will find out variations and motifs(positional and tactical) you didnt know before. When this happens to you you can be very happy! Because this means you gained knowledge, you gained important chess knowledge and improved your general chess strength. One day you will see how much knowledge you gained, you will see the time you invested was worth it, you will see you are a master. Cheers
Great post. Thank you.
May I ask you one thing? I usually prefer to go through master games on video, while I play some variations (you know, moves I would have made) and check them with komodo. I also use Forward Chess for reading, but I am usually too tired and fall asleep in 20 minutes. Do you think it's ok, or reading annotated books is compulsory? I also use Chess Mentor and very rarely practise some basic tactics (for pattern recognition).
Debistro, I didnt know you did beat a 2113 Otb, but it is logical. The difference between 1700 blitz -chess.com and 2113 Fide is less than it looks.
My cousin, TheAlmightyHelix, was at ca 1850 fide before he retired three years ago, and able to beat much stronger players. He is at 1710 chess.com blitz now. 1700+ in blitz is a very good strenght.
On your profile you say you're FIDE 1400 and your chess.com online has been 1735. I guess to get those extra 15 points you'd need to improve your FIDE 200 points.
Hehe, but anyway. Maybe you're talking Norway chess again. This site has an international user base. In Elo (FIDE) B class is 1600-1799.
Chess.com online ratings can be inflated 100-200 points and even more. A 1600-1799 Elo player could be over 1900 or 2000 chess.com online. Of course it depends how seriously they take it.
Norwegian Elo has the b-class between 1250 and 1750 N-Elo
I have 1000 and something in N-elo, but tries to play b-class if possible. I am adapting to that level, but scored only 2 of 5 point last tournament in the b-class.
Visualizing and planning all the success is the wrong path to take. Gradual but focused learning will make the process seem effortless once you follow the basic principle: Amateurs practice until they get it right; professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.
Practice in short sprints with full effort and take regular breaks. The most common mistake is to overtrain and fail to retain the material you just practiced. Begin by assessing your strengths and weaknesses. Once you have identified those, gradually improve in those areas. Spend more time on your weak areas and make sure you repeat often until they become second nature.
This is brilliant advice in a consise form. It is what most masters (including the ones posting in this thread) have said over many years. What chesscoaching says here applies to everything, not just chess learning. Many masters and coaches can tell you about "what" to study, but the mindset and structure of study is just as important (if not moreso) than the content.
Debistro, I didnt know you did beat a 2113 Otb, but it is logical. The difference between 1700 blitz -chess.com and 2113 Fide is less than it looks.
My cousin, TheAlmightyHelix, was at ca 1850 fide before he retired three years ago, and able to beat much stronger players. He is at 1710 chess.com blitz now. 1700+ in blitz is a very good strenght.
1700 blitz is around the top 3% of blitz players on chess.com. The 97th percentile of USCF ratings is 2000-2100.
@Chess_troller nice post but you could have been more gracious in your wording re OP. Also I think learning has an element of "to each his own", no?
sorry but your plan is trash. Studying one year tactics then one year positional chess... what the hell. Thats NOT how you should do it. You should at least mix things up. I will tell you how I got to master level without even having such a strict plan as you. First of all I worked on my opening repertoire, I chose a pretty easy one that I can play at all levels and which gives me solid play and fits my style(d4 with white and e5 and Nf6 with black. Mostly main lines and solid variations.) It is important that you know the plans in your lines and why you play the moves you play and NOT that you know 100 heavy theory lines. Just pick simple short lines with clear plans and reasonable play. You should start to work on your opening repertoire first because you need to get practise with it to get a better understanding of it. A good opening repertoire is the fundament of every masters strength. I always hated the french(with both colours), thats why I dont play e4. When I would now play with the french as black against some opponent of my calibre then I would lose most of the games just because I dont have the understanding of the opening, I dont know which pieces are good or important, I dont know the main plans and I dont know the accuries of the opening lines.
What I did then is very simple and definetely the most important step. I played tournament games!!! I played many many OTB tournaments to get practise and experience. Alone from this my playing strength improved well.
The next step is what most players do not do! They dont analyse their games, they dont look at their mistakes, they dont learn anything from their losses! They wont understand why they lost and they wont understand the opening plans better. They will just play the same stuff every time and make the same mistakes every time. Why? Simply because they never learned where they could improve their moves. I analysed most of my games deeply (mainly without engines. Engine help just to check if I could have won tactically.) and tried to find improvements for my play. I checked whether my opening line was good, if my plan was the right one and so on. I also tried to think about my thinking process during the game. Why did I make this move? What were my intentions?
The last step of my road to master was the trainings program of course. I am very sure you can get very very far just by playing and analysing properly but of course a trainings program is also extremly helpfull. Always remember, you cant improve in chess when you dont do anything for it. No matter how shortly you study, you will improve from it. I studied only on weekends and not even every weekend. See how far you can come with that... My trainings program always included some tactics at the beginning(very very important!) and then analysis of games or positions. I had a coach but thats not nessecary when you have the right books with good annotations. Why to analyse games? Because this is the most important thing to improve your chess! Your thinking process at the moment is flawed, so you need to find out what is flawed. When you analyse games in depth you will find out variations and motifs(positional and tactical) you didnt know before. When this happens to you you can be very happy! Because this means you gained knowledge, you gained important chess knowledge and improved your general chess strength. One day you will see how much knowledge you gained, you will see the time you invested was worth it, you will see you are a master. Cheers
Great post. Thank you.
May I ask you one thing? I usually prefer to go through master games on video, while I play some variations (you know, moves I would have made) and check them with komodo. I also use Forward Chess for reading, but I am usually too tired and fall asleep in 20 minutes. Do you think it's ok, or reading annotated books is compulsory? I also use Chess Mentor and very rarely practise some basic tactics (for pattern recognition).
Watching chess videos is also fine! But make sure that you understand everything the commentator says. And dont believe everything, check it yourself and only use engines if you arent sure or want to check a tactical sequence. But I would suggest you to do more tactic exercises, they are very important. Analysing games is a must-do to improve but of course you can analyse games better when you have some deeper knowledge or tactic skills.
@Chess_troller nice post but you could have been more gracious in your wording re OP. Also I think learning has an element of "to each his own", no?
Yeah I know, to each his own. But what I learned from my own experience is that time is also important in chess. You dont have 100 years to improve your chess, so you shouldnt waste any time. And I personally know some players who thought about strange training programs like the OP but at the end it ALWAYS turned out that they were to lazy to finish their program but more importantly that they werent using the right program to improve. Chess isnt only tactics, chess also isnt only strategy! So why should you do a splitted trainings program where you study tactics for one year whilst completly ignoring the other aspects of the game? When you play or analyse a game you will see that the game included tatical moves and positional moves, pawn endgames or rook endgames, attack and defend. Chess is one thing, you have to be good at everything to be good at the whole thing. You have to get a good understanding of the whole game chess and not only of pawn endgames or what ever. So you should definetely not do the program the OP imagined to improve your chess. I know it might sound hard, but I really just want to help the OP. I was also frustrated when someone told me that I didnt study the right things because I invested a lot of time to find good training programs. But nowadays I am really thankfull because they helped me to go the right way. The best way to improve and in my opinion the only way to reach master level is to a) study chess at home (all aspects of the game by analysing master games, read the annotations, try to understand them, try to find the answers to your questions about moves you were thinking of, build up a solid, simple and understandable opening repertoire with clear plans and which suits your style) b) play OTB games and c) analyse them (deeply!!!!). I´m open to any question. Cheers!
As a 61yo who made it from 1820 to 1998 national and 2020 FIDE I think Chess_Troller describes it correctly. You have to focus. Aagaard is a great author. There are some others too. Loads of good stuff - the classics, Jussupow, Nunn, ... Daily tactics, play otb against stronger opponents, analyze and make a list of your common mistakes, endings, ha ve fun. Focus on the next step. Correct your plan according to your experience.
Made it in four years. (missing)
Any advice how to study your own games? Finding hidden tactical ressources might be not that difficult. But is there a way to realize that your plan wasn't good if you don't have a teacher to ask? Cheers!
Just one thing I'd like to make clear: I'm not planning to do exclusively tactics in year 1. My main focus will be on tactics but I will also play games, analyze them and improve my openings. I've also started studying Alexander Alekhine's games as I think he's a good role model. Have a look at this one which I have commented:
i hope anyone found my posts instructive...