I'm in the same boat so the advice would be useful to me as well ;D
900 Elo Chess
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Dear Skeeboza,
I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. 
Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.
You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.
In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career. Oh, and regarding playing too many Blitz games... this is very harmful for your chess improvement! If you always want to make fast decisions, it becomes a bad habit and it totally ruins your chess. Play Rapid games instead.
I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!
A rating of 1000 is a sign of frequent blunders. Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it. Ask yourself: after I have played this move, what can my opponent do? This little mental discipline alone is enough to get you to 1500. As long as you hang pieces and pawns all study is in vain.
Bgabor91 wrote:
Dear Skeeboza,
I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.
You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.
In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career. Oh, and regarding playing too many Blitz games... this is very harmful for your chess improvement! If you always want to make fast decisions, it becomes a bad habit and it totally ruins your chess. Play Rapid games instead.
I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!
Thank you for the advice!
tygxc wrote:
A rating of 1000 is a sign of frequent blunders. Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it. Ask yourself: after I have played this move, what can my opponent do? This little mental discipline alone is enough to get you to 1500. As long as you hang pieces and pawns all study is in vain.
I feel like this is the best answer, but also the hardest to hear...
At my level (800ish), I just have to accept that I'm still not very good, even though I know a couple openings and a few little tricks and traps, they're not going to save me when I blunder my queen 5 moves later...
Hello! Today I finally hit 900 for the first time ever after playing and studying chess for about 6 months. I'm shooting for 1000 and want to know if you guys have any tips that could help me achieve it. Thanks!