Finally 1400+

Yessssssssssss!

After months of languishing in the 1200s and 1100s, I have finally breached the 1400 barrier. Targeting 1500 after this. However first I am sure it will be hard to keep up 1400 for now. No doubt will go down under 1400 soon. However the target is to be in the range, hopefully after more work on the game, to push 1500.

Congrats.  Good luck on your quest to 1500 and beyond.

Good job!

Congrats, well done!

@DeirdreSkye - Wow thx for the kind words. If its not too much of a bother could you please point out the games that you went through and any specific moves therein.

Actually just to provide some context here is the 3rd ever rapid game that I had played.

Can you tell me what helped you , any books or tutorials 

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 @xmoutaz - I didn't read any books on chess. I just saw the tutorial videos on youtube and learned from defeats. I think the biggest improvement has been playing openings solidly. I saw what the opponents were doing and what I was not doing when I played those same openings.

Chess.com has this great feature called explorer. You need to be a premium + member to have access to it. If tells you what move you made in a particular position and how many of them you won and how many you lost.

So you will see that one set of moves that you are making in a position lead to you winning a lot of games, while another set of moves you make lead to you losing. You just cut out the moves that get you to lose.

I took 2 or 3 months of premium membership and made good use of explorer. I feel that contributed a great deal for sure.

Of course one additional thing I did was that I had 3 1 hr sessions with a coach on chess.com called Lasker_Fiverr. He charges 8 USD per session. He showed me some interesting end game positions. However by and large I feel the better play was down to me learning from defeats and explorer.

Also I don't muck about with openings. I play standard games. With white I always play e4. If e5 then I play the scotch and if c5 then d4. From there I sort of more or less how to play.

With Black I respond e5 to e4 and I have a settled pattern on the variations that the game transposes from that point on. I know how to handle the FL Attack or Nf3 lines. In queens gambit, I almost always decline and play e6.

An example of better opening play is -

Any other variation I admit I make it up as I play, but those are rare, at least at this level. When I start regularly facing different openings I will have to adjust.

how much did you take, I mean how month you spend to reach this level?

Congrats

Nice player