Can anyone relate?

Tonight, I had the realization that my game is NOT improving and basically all I am doing is having a great deal of fun playing online chess which I love.  Don't get me wrong, this site is awesome.  I just started playing chess again after a very long hiatus from the game.  I remember many years ago when I started to take the game serioulsy, I had the quickest, most noticable improvment in my game when I took out my Viynl roll up chessboard, grabbed one of my many chessbooks, and played out the  games of the grand masters, trying to figure out and understand the logic behind every move they made.  When stumped, I would read the explanation from the grand master who wrote the book.    I am now thinking 90% of my time should be spent studying the game in great depth and forget about playing online. I ALWAYS play the same opening E4, don't understand how to play black, and basically get lucky when I win a game. I feel the hours I spend playing online would be much better utilized studying tactics, strategies, middle games, end games, openings etc.  To improve my game, I need to do some serious studying, just like if I was studying to pass the bar exam for Law School.   PS...I just upgraded to Diamond, but I find watching the videos, for me anyway, doesn't work for my brain. Reading  books and playing out games on a physical chessboard, is a better fit for me.  When I do come back online, and win more games, I will have both the enjoyment of playing the game and the inner satisfaction that I truly accomplished something.  Love to hear feedback from anyone who has been in my shoes.  Thanks in advance for anyone who takes the time to respond.  Cheers

BobbyD  NYC

I wanted to get better so I started studying tactics books. It helped a lot. Based on your rating, you need to work exclusively on tactics. Polgar's 5334 book will give you plenty to chew on!

Dan Heisman recommends roughly 50:50 split between studying and playing, where playing should involve slow games

@acha, he said "together with a master" - so most of the errors will be spotted by the master.

Sorry to keep banging on about Heisman, but I'm currently reading one of his books which is exacly that - games between class-level players, annotated by Heisman with a little help from Houdini. It is the immodestly titled "World's most Instructive Amateur Game book".

I still say, based on your rating, you need to study tactics exclusively and play for fun. Going through GM games is too advanced at this point.

Really ? Who ?

this is not life and death

Is it Arkadij Naiditsch? Why does he want to remain anonymous ? Not evetyone will agree with what was said above, but I don't think anyone is going to get violent about it!

Wrong. I am a 1500 player and in my opinion you should study endings before moving on to middlegame ideas. Go to Daniel Rensh's video library and go through his series on pawn endings. Then study rook endings. Understanding endgame play is important for your calculating ability for example, Calculating whether a king and pawn ending is good in advance before going into it.

Why is it wrong? You think you should master rook endings before learning about forks and pins and stuff?

If you're rated around 1000 then you're probably dropping pieces and stuff to very basic tactical oversights. Learning the King and Pawn endgames is not helpful for this situation. A book on basic tactics will help this guy out way more than endgames. At 1500, yes, endgames become important.

Empathy, I empathize-somewhat.

Getting "good" at this game can take many months, even years. When I got back into the game I had some rapid improvement. But, to get to the next level takes an amount of study that I'm not willing to do.

I only know this because of the many knowledgeable members here. It has been spelled out clearly.

I can relate in that I am at my peak. I will not get better because I would rather play than study. If you choose the latter, don't expect instant results. What I've read from many fine players here is that it can be an arduous process. Good luck.

Not quite, maybe you should learn only very very basic tactics but after that you should start improving your endgames. And I never said master endgames, but at least learn some basics. "Empathy" is rated about 1100. By this point you should at least know basic opposition.

That's partly true. You can study a few GM games, but I reccomend studying some basic endgames first.

Balanced approach in terms of study will probably yield the best return in improvement. Even if you focus on tactics or endgame, you shouldn't ignore the other stages and elements of the game. If you're a beginner and become a master and the king and pawn endgame, great, but if you still are hanging pieces, getting bad positions in the opening and sometimes even checkmated in the middle game, then your knowledge of the king and pawn endgame isn't going to help you.

True, you should learn both basic tactics and endgames but I wouldn't suggest learning only tactics. Engames have the simplest types of positions so it should be easy for a beginner to learn.

One of the best books for beginners is Alburt's Comprehensive Chess Course Vol 2. I am not of fan of most Alburt's books, but this one is wonderful for players under 1300. It drills all the basic tactics and opening principles and basic endgame knowledge. It deals with common counting problems that weaker players tend to have trouble with. It has plenty of annotated open games demonstrating how to punish lack of development, etc., as well as Legals mate, Scholar's mate etc. I would say that every player under 1300 should go through this book once to get a solid foundation in the basics of tactics, openings, endgames, and developmental principles. I agree that only tactics is a bit narrow, but if you have limited study time, tactics should be first.

I would suggesting solving chess puzzles every day and studying sharp 1.e4 lines

http://enjoychesslearning.wordpress.com/

I agree with this, this is an excellent book. In fact this book claims that it contains all the knowledge to take a player up to 1800, if that player has truely mastered the material in the book.

What I don't understand is why you are not satisfied with having a great deal of fun.

Sounds good to me.

If not improving was so frustrating that the game stopped being fun I could readily understand making changes. But while you still get a great deal of fun out of what you are doing I'd just go on with that and not bother with trying to improve.

You probably will improve just a bit anyway. I've played at about the same level for forty years or more but have inched up in that time - more recently as I've been playing more.  But whether you improve or you don't it seems to me you are fortunate to have a pastime that you enjoy so much. :)