Advice from average players

Follow the Opening Principles:

Control the center

Develop toward the center

Castle

Connect your rooks

Watch out for simple tactice - forks, pins. skewers, etc. 

When you decide on a move - check it again - Does it hang anything?

i started at that level and was able to bump myself up - but it took a lot of work and study - you can do it, its not about genius

dont worry about your level or where you stand vs. others, just continue to practice, study tactics, openings, strategy, etc. and continue to believe in yourself - dont let others make you get down on yourself - if you stay at it in an intelligent way, you will improve

last one is something ive been working on - i get too deep into thought and then miss easy sht - recently, my wins have gone through the roof simply by making sure im not the first to blunder - this is very prevalant even at the 14-1500 level, and im pretty sure even at slightly higher levels here

@PaulEchess well plAYED SIR QUITE WELL PLAYED. i GUESS I COULD MAKE A NE TIME EXCEPTION :)

Yea im pretty good at all of those except the last one as well. Sometimes ill see a awesomel 3 move chekcmate on my part and fail to reconize that my oppistion has a mate in 1 oppurtunity against me.

Read this short, inexpensive book, and learn it cold  --

http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Tactics-Batsford-Paul-Littlewood-ebook/dp/B00SVEJH88/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435169621&sr=1-1&keywords=paul+littlewood

It will easily make you stronger than 1000.

End of Story.

Idoits guide to Chess +1. Then get the gold membership here, really cheap and gets you two important things: computer analysis of two games a week and 25 tactics/day. That's brought me to a reasonably solid 1200 after starting to play chess last november...

I don't know if it's already been mentioned but I would avoid blitz and go with longer time controls (24-hour, 48-hour, 3-day, etc.) and analyze afterward. A book I like for beginners is "The Amateur's Mind" by Jeremy Silman--that helped me a lot a few years back. Tactics are great but knowledge of how best to use the minor pieces, the ideas behind space and initiative... that's all stuff that can be understood conceptually and will help your rating. Before long, you'll be getting ticked about why you're not 1600! :) Good luck, man.

Haha thanks man although i dont think ill ever get to that level. Thanks for the recomendation. Cheers!

Hi Thomas, I'm not under 1500 as you requested but I've been coaching at schools for many years, so I do understand typical difficulties you may have. And without trying to sound self-promoting, I really think you can benefit a lot from my 10-Day chess challenge ( http://chessfox.com ), its a free 10-day course I created. If you do the course, I'll be surprised if you don't break through 1000 soon after.

Thanks louis i sighned up. just trying to figure out how to log on right now. when i click on free course it just says sign up agin.by the way your program looks like just what i need.

No need to log in, you should receive an email with the link to day one lesson. Inbox me if you have any difficulty.

Wow i just finished dya one of your program and i feel like my tatical capibilities are alreayd inproved. beforehands i only looked at my threats not the oppisitions, i feel like this will be the perfect program for me. Thanks!

I used to be around 800 and then I watched YouTube videos from the chess network and kingscrusher to improve my chess. They helped me learn about everything from opening ideas to tactics and even a little strategy. They're good videos if you don't mind spending a little time to watch.

I'd say tactics are important but I think it's really important to get into the habit of playing with a (well thought-out) plan. So play slow chess so you can think of the long-term consequences of your moves. Purely relying on tactics will work up to a point but you'll reach a level where it gets very hard to improve.

But feel free to ignore me since I'm technically above 1500 and i know you said you didn't want our advice :P

Haha im getting a lot of heat for that 1500 thing

I got 1000 rating a couple of minutes ago, haha. Well, I whould suggest to dont be shy on spending your time thinking. I often se me and my oponnents loosing against each other because of not thinking all the options. If you play a 15|10, where is the need to move fast? You have to use all the time granted . This and all what people said before are nice tips

When playing slow chess, go through every possible opponent move that could respond to the move you have in mind (even the seemingly illogical moves) before you make your move. When playing fast chess, just make sure to take a brief look at possible responses before you move (this greatly decreases the chance of a blunder, which is the most common reason for below 1000 rating bottlenecks).

Well i would like to thank everyone for the advice. I just recently broke 1000 on my standard which I am really happy about. Over the past 2 months i have inproved about 150-200 points so thats really exciting. Hopefully i can continue to progress. Cheers!

Congratulations!  You still have serious defects in your play, but figure out the most critical ones then work on eliminating them.  I found lots by looking at this game: