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Avatar of Arkose

I have been playing chess for about 2 months now and have been playing purely off of my own skills.

 

I seem to have hit a plateau around the 1400 rating and wish to improve my skills.

 

Sorry if this seems over-generalized, thanks in advance.

Avatar of JGambit

I hit a 1400 plateau as well, number of ways to break it.

1. I am almost positive you are not calculating 6 ply every check capture and major threats. Good news is the better you get this actually doesnt seem to be something you always have to do. The best players eventually  know automaticly what is worth spending there energy on.

2. There are some tactics that you are especially bad at. Go through your games to see what they are. Just seeing what you miss often should hugely improve results. When I was a 1300 I missed tons of pawn forks, 1400 I had a propensity to have my rooks skewered, I still miss queen forks a couple ply deep. Everyone is different but there are tactics that you are missing that other 1400s can spot quite quickly,

On the flip side there may even be tatics you find you are really good at for your level. I was pretty good at seeing and using long diagonal bishop threats for a 1300, at 1400 I think noticing where the knights wanted to go helped my results.

3. 1400 do not seem to understand pawn breaks, some do, many do not. Read up on pawn breaks if you do not understand them well. 

4. This is weird but those times you cannot play chess and have nothing better to do work on visualizing the large center from both sides of the board. e4 e5 d4 d5 c3 f3 c6 f6 e3 e6 d3 d6 c4 c5 f4 f5. I still cannot perfectly see them in my minds eye but I am getting close. Yes it is boring but I truly think it helps.

Avatar of Arkose

Thank you for that response. My middle game I find is quite good in general, but I generally lose in the end game or the opening.

 

Where can I find a list of good openings?

Avatar of JGambit

The best openings are simple to find, play the moves that make the most sense.

There is a site I can think of about stats on openings. Google chess opening statistics.

Off the top of my head

Queens Gambit is the best way to go statistically. there is a reason at a tournament in the early 20th century it was pretty much all that was played.

The spainish game is very good for white and one of those openings that is good for all levels

Bishops opening scores pretty good

For Black I think nimzo is best against queens gambit, and personally against most Kings pawn I just play my knights to f6 and c3, exception being the Ruy I play classical variation and against italian I also reply Bc5

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