From 1200 to 1500 in under a month

Hello chess lovers! :) Through hard practice and determination, I've improved my rating from 1200 to 1500 in less than a month.

On my other account (deleted) I played chess almost everyday, and still I barely ever improved past 1200. After I took a break for a few weeks I realized I was going about it wrong. I did some research and set up a four step plan for study and improvement. I followed this general plan and played games occasionally, and I am very happy with the results!

I now will share my plan in the hopes that it can help some of you guys! (It is designed for players around 1050-1400 blitz or standard rating) I also included some general tips at the end that will help out a lot:) 

1. Tactics, Tactics, Tactics, and more tactics

Tactics are the most important thing to practice if you want to become a skilled chess player, you will want to spend most of the time set aside for chess study practicing tactics. I reccomend chesstempo.com, they have unlimited free tactics and also great other chess exercises for you to explore

2. Endgames

It is said if one truly wants to learn how to play chess, then they should study the endgame. The endgame is a very important part to understand as it will decide many games and leaves minimal room for screw-ups. It also gives you in depth understanding of how your pieces can be used.  There are multiple sites online with endgame stimulators, here's one of them as an example http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-training/endgame-simulations.php

3. Never Resign Prematurely

I cannot express how many games I was about to resign, but played it out and ended up with a draw and occasionally, a win! Sometimes we are shocked when we miss a move or blunder a piece and feel too upset to play anymore. You should avoid this the best you can. Not only is playing a losing game great practice, you may just come back! (At this level of chess, it is not uncommon for people to make silly mistakes).

4. Play Chess often

Playing chess is the only way to put everything together and improve. However, don't play with a headache and don't treat it like work. Chess should be taken seriously, but it should also be fun. Don't worry about your rating, just play every game thrown at you and if you are prepared with this plan and the following tips is will slowly imptove

Helpful Tips:
- Don't worry about specific openings and variations yet, just follow basic opening principals (Control the center, develop your pieces, and castle).

- Youtube has really cool chess games between some of the world's greatest players. My favorite is a game covered by matojelic "Bobby Fischer vs. Tal Mikhail." Watching these types of games will give you ideas for your chess.

- If you have time, review your own games and take note of your mistakes and triumphs, it helps you improve a lot

- Don't let trash talk bother you, usually when people talk trash or are rude it is because they are worried about the power of their opponent, and they should be! If this happens, disable chat online or in real life completely ignore them and continure playing.

- Make sure you are basic chess motifs, "Doubled pawns are bad", "Double bishops are good", "A king in the center is weak" These will help you with middlegame plans.

In recap:

- Tactics, Tactics, as many tactics as possible

- Endgame Study (also super important)

- Play chess but don't get stressed about it

- Never resign or give up unless it's absolutelty hopeless

- Three Basic Opening principals

- Review master's and your own games

- Be the better person against trash talkers

- Look up and create your own chess motifs and middlegame plans

-Enjoy Chess

Follow this simple plan and I garuntee your chess will improve drastically.

That's all, thanks for your time :) Remember this plan works best for begginers trying to reach the above average (1500) rank. To surpass 1700, you will need to know openings with a few common variations, possess positional skills, and great knowlegde of the middle game (But don't worry about that now). Maybe I'll make another post when I figure out all that stuff for myself. Have fun! :)

Hello...

Play blitz and try to reach 1500, better try to reach 1600 in 3 minutes games, and I say that you found a challenge!!!

Thanks :) I don't play blitz as often because I think chess should be slowed down and not too fast paced espiecally for novice-intermediate level

d00d y u no GM ??

haha thank you:) I actually compiled most of this advice from GM's and twisted it with my own average brain and expierience. We should play sometime btw

Hello :) I have heard these helpful tips in the past and just dont have a lot of time to do these things as I'm a student. I am a Diamond member and practice unlimited tactics on this website and im 1300 rating. I seem to have trouble incorporating the tactics I've learned and putting them to use in my games. I study engame a lot but at the 1100 level i rarely go to the endgame because either side blunders a lot. My question to you is if there is a way to be able to do all these factors in about 1 hour a day when I have time. What do you reccomend? I have a semi-strong opening repetoire and struggle mainly on middle game plans. Hope you can help! Thanks in advance, Jim

Hey Jim :) I know how you feel about the tactics, I had a hard time incorporating them as well. The reason I started to prefer chess tempo tactics to chess.com tactics is because chesstempo.com tactics aren't timed. I suggest to get the most out of tactics when you do them don't worry about the time, take all the time you need. It's a calculating exercise, espiecally at an average rating you should be calculating all the possibilities in tactics.

As for the middlegame, this was the biggest obstacle I had in breaking the barrier into understanding. When I would play, I wouldn't have a plan. I sat down for one of my games with a clear mind and noticed I wasn't trying to accomplish anything, I was just reacting to my opponents moves and hoping to pounce on any mistake, but this led to a lot of losses, so I had to study and adapt my chess style. Chess mentor helps a lot with this but is time consuming. I reccomend you look over the info on this link http://www.mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/aa02k16.htm it's about forming a middle game plan and at the bottom there's more info on what you want to do in the middlegame. Very useful! 

Great advice!

Finally, I do think you should take advantage of that diamond membership and play the computer workouts under the "learn" tab. I know they can be super frustrating but help you a lot to understand! So a recap of what I reccomend: Chess tempo tactics fpr 30 minutes, computer workouts 20 minutes, at least one standard time game, and then if you ever have downtime to study up on the middlegame using chess mentor and computer workout. However, the times are all up to you, honestly I spend anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours of time on chess a day, I don't have a strict schedule. I just practice when I can and want to. Good luck man. I hope this helps please let me know! :)

Thanks Pringlend! Sorry I have been holding up our game was watching some college football

Lol no worries

Agree with you practice and patience is key to success.

If you play more games with lower rated player you can achieve 1500 quickly, perhaps in a week or so.

Probably if you plan to 1600-1800 people task would be much difficult need 6 months to get there.

You're right definitely takes much more time to break 1700. I don't like playing for rating tho I just take whatever opponent I get

Very true, I probobaly should've included that's because I used to do it all the time.

Anyone can blunder no matter what the rating is. You should have strong tactical vision to identify opponents mistakes or bad move.

After losing pieces no point in continuing the game.

Exactly why I spend most of the time practicing tactics, it's funny after you've practiced for a while and you notice all the blunders that low rated players make. There is certainly a point in continuing a game though. Yesterday I played a game with a 1400 player, about 100 lower than I was. I was too confident of myself and ended up blundering a knight on my 21st move. My immeadiatte thought was to resign thought "This guy is 1400, if I play solidly I can probobaly pull off at least a draw." I played 90% concentrated and solid when he didn't plus I took my time. Finally after 156 more moves, I was able to pull off a draw. You can see that game in my archive if you wanna take a look. My point is there's no object in masters playing after thay've lost a piece, but if you are against a low level player you have the time to calm yourself down and play solidly.

Great post; thank you.

During this period of growth, how many hours per day did you devote to chess tactics?

how often did you play live games?  (per week)

How many hours towards endgame study?

thank you, again!

OP,

If you follow this route i am sure you can even get above the 2000 rating. If you look at what Josh Waitskin did he did not do much different than you in his early carrier. (chessmaster program) There is no real need to study the openings that deaply. There is plenty of room to play an ofbeat system and spend very little time. I would even go as far as saying that in a blitz game studying a curious opening could even be more helpfull than playing the main lines. (studying openings does not make you a better player. studying tactics/endgames does)

Since below 1500 games are often won or lost by one move blunders. Getting 300 points in rating is not that unexpected.