Help Improving..

I guess the topic of this post is pretty straight forward.I've dedicated a decent amount of time to chess over the last two months.When I started I barely knew how the pieces moved and didn't know any tactics etc.

I've been able to memorize a few openings,which seems to be of little importantance at my lever since book moves are abandoned after the first few moves.However, I now have an understanding of why these mainline openings are commonly used,why development of your pieces are important etc.

What I'm really looking for is a structured way of improving, then testing my improvement.I think I've gotten better over the last month,since now I occasionally beat 1100-1200 rated players that would just crush me before.However, I still lose sometimes to people rated 650,I'm just so inconsistent.My tactics trainer rating has climbed a little to almost 1200 after about 18 hours of training.

I'm just really looking for some advice in terms of what to concentrate on.Still keep grinding the tactics trainer.Is there a series of videos on chess.com that I should be watching.I have watched many hours of games on your tube,from people like matojelic an chesswebsite.com,which has been helpful.

It feels like I'm progressing slowly, so I'm really just looking for ways to accelerate my learning and understanding.I'm in my mid thirties, so I know I'm not going to be a master,I'm really just looking to get as good as I can.

Thanks,

Dave

You seem to be playing mostly bullet and blitz.  Not the best for a relative newcomer to the game.  Yes all the really good players play and enjoy fast time controls, but that's not how they got good.  Not only is it not a good way to improve, it's actively counterproductive in that you're honing your mistakes.  If you're just playing to kill time and have a few laughs, then it doesn't matter, but you've said you want to get as good as you can.  So play mostly long slow games or correspondence ("online"), review them thoroughly, stop bullet altogether and reserve blitz for when you want to try out a new opening or the odd fun game.  Here's Coach Heisman's web site if you haven't discovered it:

http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Novice_Nook_Links.htm

This is something I have known for a few weeks now, since I achieved a basic understanding of opening play and improved my knowledge of theory a little.It's true that patience is a virtue and one that I don't often have.I will do my best to play longer games and devote time to review along with compounding my basic knowledge.

I appreciate the advice.

Let me recommend all those tactics courses on the Chess Mentor as well.  Of course you'll get better just from the Tactics Trainer, but it does tend to promote a "guess and click" mentality.  Hammering the CM tactics courses will really help with pattern recognition skills; don't be afraid to go over the courses again and again until you can consistently 100% most of the lessons.  Then you can do the TT as a test of your knowledge base.  Of course none of this has worked for me but then I'm old and a bit daft, but I think it's a good plan...

I agree with everything baddogno has said. At your level your main focus needs to be on reducing the number of bad tactical mistakes you make in your games. I suggest you keep working on tactical puzzles to develop your pattern recognition and play slower time control games so you have time to make sure every move you make is at least tactically safe. If you can stop making bad tactical mistakes you will play much more consistently and can move on to the next stage of your chess development. Good luck, keep playing and analysing, and enjoy your chess.

A good first step is to get a grasp of a structured tactics book and a good game collection.

Joining a chess club and play long OTB games would help tremendously too.

After these first steps, if you find you really love the game and want to give it a good shot, I've listed a bunch of good resources for systematic training in my blog.

Thanks everyone so much for your comments.While there are a few bad apples the community as a whole has been very helpful.I just finally made it over 1200 on TT, after about 19 hours. I know I shouldn't focus too much on ratings,but it's a measure of development to an extent.For example I'm now seeing the smothered mates,whereas I was missing them every time before because the idea od sacing the Q was too ghastly to consider. My calculation is improving slowly and tactics such as discovered checks adn double attacks are becoming easier to see now.

Overall, I think I'm a bit impatient,which I'm guessing is not a good trait in chess, or in life for that matter.I will make a conscious effort to slow things down and really hammer out the fundementals.I have not studued end game at all, while I have developed quite a bit of time to learning a few openings for both white and black,so this is something for me to consider for sure.

Please keep the advice coming and thanks for all the help so far!