How did you conquer your ratings plateau?

Hi guys,

The best way to improve your game is to play against players that are better than you are.  That's it. 

Tactics exercises. One or a few per day will help. More tactics puzzles will help even more. You may "know" forks, pins, discovered attacks, distracting/capturing a defender, etc., but that's not enough. You have to see them in games in order to play them against your opponents and prevent them from being played against you. Practice will help you see them.

hm..

My first plateau was around 1400 in norwegian rating (class B) I got there after 2 years with much tournaments, I stayed there for many years, I got to 1600 (class A) with the "power chess program" Nigel Davies, but my games was still unstable, I could beat 1800 players and lose to an 1000 at the same day.

I stayed at this level for many years too (I started in 1994) I have been solving tactical, endgame and opening puzzels, but my games was still unstable...

What was wrong? Was it my motivation for the current game/opponent?

I could beat an 2200 fide and lose over an 1300 national, why?

Because I still did make mistakes!

What to do with the mistakes? Why do I make them? I'm not shure, but I think I have found a solution (not sure cause I havent been plaing for a while - familiy situation)

The name of the book is: "how to calculate chess tactics" Valeri Beim.

"Reassess your chess" Silman did help with the planing stage.

The trick is called "kandidate moves" yes I know, it's boring, you have all heard about it "play like a grandmaster" Kotov

But do you use it? The system in "how to..." is really good, I feel (in my training games) that my play is stable.

 I do play bad, but mostly when I'm tired (dont play chess when your brain wants to sleep) As long as I'm using the system I'm at my best.

I think the simple answer is simply to try to limit mistakes as much as possible and be able to pounce on them yourself, because at most levels blunders/mistakes are everywhere. And you do that by studying tactics as much as possible. You should know something about making a plan in case there aren't tactics, but not losing material is the most important thing and the easiest way to win/lose material is one person makes a tactical mistake and other takes advantage of it. Even in quiet games the play can always become tactical, like if for example your opponent decides to sac a pawn, giving him lots of activity and giving you the material you wanted, but you have to fight off the tactical threats. But you still need to know endgames because your advantage in anything like attack can translate into an extra pawn in an endgame (if the guy has to sac a pawn to diffuse the attack) which translates after that to an extra queen/rook and so on. It would suck if you played a brilliant game but didn't know how to mate with king and rook and draw the game! So the building blocks in endgames and especially tactics are a little more important.

It depends on how strong you are.      At the very least you need to identify your weaknesses and work on them.    Also find a situation where there are several players somewhat stronger than you are and play them a lot so they can lift your level of play to theirs.     Teachers help - but you still will need to work on your weaknesses on your own even with a teacher.    And be very objective and self honest when you do this.

I think that the first thing you need to do is to make a opening repertoire. Learn the ideas behind that opening then play some games with it especially with good players.

Meanwhile you need to study your games and try to avoid the mistakes you made. After a while you will be able to play the opening without making mistakes and also your middle game and endgame playing strenght willl increase.

Solving some puzzles is also good and you should not play blitz games lower than 10 min.

Then it's time to play in a real tournament anywhere in your country. There will not be any engines , opening books or anything else. Just you and your opponent. There is the real test. You will see how different is the real chess and you can see if you made progress or not.

For my own personal rating plateau (800 USCF).I could burn 1400 players turn around and get burned by 780s.after a while of thinking about it and asking myself some good and,sadly obvous questions I came back with a vengence.

1.I had no thinking system to work with.I literally just played and tried to run off of positions I already knew.

2.no daily tactics

3.no proper tournament prep

My first tournament was a complete nightmare.I wound up making 3rd among everyone but found myself exerting way too much energy doing so.a little dissapointing for someone's first tournament.

then I joined this site about a year ago and,finally quit being cheap.Diamond membership!!!.The tactics trainer was quite fun and well worth it.Chess mentor gave me some excellent thinking ideas and some endgame practice.The second tournament was a G/45 In which I won after adapting a thought process and regular tactics.

I imagine I will need to start refining the thinking technique for me later to improve my rating but for now im kool with my rating.USCF 1528 currently.

1. tactics 2.rethink the thinking process

this alone did it for me

Just curious: where can you play on the internet such long games? Usually nobody plays something beyond 5+0 since then ... you meet another type of player. 

The ICC (www.chessclub.com) has a lot of options. I notice that 10/0 games are as productive as 5/5 games (with time-delay, simulating actual tournament crunch situations) when it comes.

I know ICC and it is really hard to get a long game (say above 10-15 minutes). I don't have time to play in the weekly tournaments they organize (play 5-6 long games in order to get at the end tough opposition). To summarize:

ICC: excellent with cheaters, but hard to get long games and expensive

playchess: cheaper than ICC, more cheaters, still hard to play serious games

chess.com: free for playing live chess, can find opponents for long games, but the large majority of them are cheaters.

Are there any other options?

play the computer

ICC has leagues like 45-45 of the STC (Slow time control) that you have to sign up for and you are guaranteed to pair with somebody at a pre-scheduled time for a slow game.  From what I know, they are quick to weed out cheaters (because the league itself has an admin who may invest more time in looking at suspicious games) and besides, somebody who commits to something like this is less likely to be a cheater than somebody who merely clicks on 20-0 on a seek graph and gets his engines fired up.

Think of a chess player as a boxer, a boxer might have a good jab but he lacks defense and get KO, or he has good denfense but lacks footwork to land punches...In chess you have tactics, Openings,Middlegames, then there are Imbalances like bishop and knights, then there are the more subtle ideas, like planning, the intiative...when you review your games you will see where you are lacking improvent. maybe your opeining is solid, but your tactics are not. maybe your tactis are good, but you play without a plan. maybe your tactics are good but you go into the batle with the wrong minor piece...  My point is the reason for plateu is ussually an imbalanced skill in your game. All masters are good at everything and great at somethings, grandmasters are great at everything, they have a balanced set of skills. when you fix those gaps there will be a sudden rating jump, and then you will get stuck again.Just keep studying and is like Bobby Fisher said "One day I just got good"

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