How good can you get in a year?

Starting from 1200, what level of ability can the typical player reach in a year.

I started chess a year ago.. I now have a rating of 1720 but I'm thinking its a bit inflated right now.

I started playing in January and I'm ~1700 now.

You say a typical player. Most folk just play and don't really study. I had played chess before, but play almost daily now and have pretty much stayed the same - maybe a little better. I think this would be typical of most folk here.

If you are starting from the very begining though your learning curve will be greater as you start out.

What is your aspirations - how serious do you want to take chess - how much time do you want to spend on chess?

 Do you eventually want to join a club - play over the board?

I started in August and the highest level i've reached is 1485. Now i'm back down to 1323 in blitz. I feel like i'm regressing quite a bit. I'd recommend staying focused on learning the game, coupled with practice.

I'm studying an hour a day on an eight day cycle.  Any thoughts on what progress I should be aiming to make in a year?

I use GCTS method like this

Day1 - Study openings 1 hour

Day2 - Solve Tactics 30 minutes, Study Stratagey 30 minutes

Day 3 - Solve endings 30 minutes, Play one game 30 minutes

Day 4 - Solve Tactics 30 minutes, Study Stratagey 30 minutes

Day 5 - Solve Stratagey 30 minutes, Play one game 30 minutes

Day 6 - Study Tactics 30 minutes

Day 7 - Study Openings 1 hour

Day 8 - Solve Endings 30 minutes, Solve Tactics 30 minutes

Sunday: Play at chess club

DaveKS,

If you study every day for 30 minutes to an hour or more you can make lots of progress. I would say up to 1800 to 2000 definitely.

What about endgame? Try to study more endgame and less openings initially and slowly you can bring to 50/50.

Why is studying the endgame initially more important?

DaveKS
What about a day off. Avoids burning out, gives a chance for your brain to catch up :)

Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Just because they start you at 1200 does not mean you deserve 1200.  Odds are, your ability is almost anything other than 1200.  1200 is sort of an average value.  The way your ratings are built is to start out with wild fluctuations in the beginning and later it stabilizes.

If your rating tanks, don't take it personally.  If it heads for the stratosphere, don't let it go to your head.

As for improvement, play as much as you can against players who are as strong as you can.  If you get wiped out in a really lop-sided contest, ask your opponent for pointers.  They will usually be glad to help.

good luck!

 DaveKS,

It's a good question. In the chess teaching fraternity, it is beleived that the endgames are the platform on which a student becomes a good chess player. Because, you acheive mate and win the game only in endgame. When the various endgame patterns are played by the students, he/she becomes aware of favourable and unfavourable endgame positions. Hence, one can plan & play the middlegame accordingly to achieve a favourable endgame.

It is also amazing to know that in a student phase, most of the coaches insist that openings should be learnt (at the last phase) only after learning the others like endgame, tactics, strategey, etc.,

 Hi pawnfork,

I like your comment when you said to ask for pointers from your opponents. Definitely, the opponent's ego is boosted as the beaten player asks for help. Definitely, the winner will help. I simply like the idea!

PawnFork said:

'The way your ratings are built is to start out with wild fluctuations in the beginning and later it stabilizes.'

Aye, when you first start on the site you are flattered if you win your first couple. I got my highest rating when I first started and have never reached it again in the last 10 months. I think that this is true for most.

As for improvement, play as much as you can against players who are as strong as you can.  If you get wiped out in a really lop-sided contest, ask your opponent for pointers.  They will usually be glad to help.

Very true. Also, posting games that you got beat in will get you lots of advise.

luv64,

You are spot on with what you said. I remember reading recently (can't remember who) about how chess had been divided into 3 parts. It was suggested that this is not always helpful, because you forget that what you do now, affects the endgame position that you will eventually get. Therefore all moves should come with some consideration towards the endgame.

Also, it is said, that learning openings is mostly memorisation, whereas, learning endgames is learning chess.

OK, I started here July 2008, at 1200 (of course) and now I am 1862 - hard work = play a lot of games, watch master games, read opening books. Do not worry about becoming great too fast, just first try to limit your blunders and formulate some plans - you will improve!

I started playing here after a 15 year absence from playing chess. I signed up over a year ago but due to some health issues, I didn't start playing games here until October. My rating dropped to 825 or so. I started putting four hours a day into studying. In the last month I have raised my rating up a bit over 300 points. I play the same way I would over the board or face to face. No database or opening book. Just a whole lot of study and practice. I have the luxury of being able to revolve my entire work schedule around paying chess. I have nothing against database/books rules, I just have to be able to perform the same way OTB.

I started in August and immediately dipped under 1100, where i stayed for a couple months or so while playing two or three hundred games. Then I started moving steadily upwards with a few leaps and bounds, and I think I can break 1500 by the end of the year. I knew how the pieces moved before coming to the site, but I didn't know any tactics or strategy (I still remember when the knight fork was a new concept to me......). For more background info, I studied openings casually in my free time at work, and only do the free part of the tactics training - 3 problems per day about 5 or 6 days per week, but I think it's more about how much you concentrate on each move and don't let yourself move too quickly.

i would say on average you can gain about 600 points in the first year with avg study and play.  That's about what mine has done and it sounds like a lot of others as well.

 shuttlechess92

You started here July 2008 - but when did you start chess? I think this person is just starting chess so their rating would not go up as high so quickly.

I have to agree with tonydal on this, the ratings on here are grossly different than what someone would hold OTB in a USCF tourney.  Not that I'm accusing players here of cheating (because I'm not) but they do have inflated ratings, meaning that if someone has an average opponent rating of 1300 but they win all the time they'll have a rating of 1900 themselves.  It has nothing to do with how well they're actually able to play, it only says they are better than 1300.