How I improved my rating from 1000 to 1500+ in 12 months

When I started playing chess, 12 months ago, I was rated 1025. I didn't know anything about chess except of how the pieces move on the board. During the past year I have played hundreds of games on Chess.com, got familiar with many openings, tactics and positional ideas. Last month my rating broke 1500 and my current peak rating is 1584.

In this post I'll tell you how I did it. I will provide you with some tips that help you reach 1500 as well.

Tip 1: Get started with learning traps!

My experience has taught me that learning traps is the easiest (and most fun) way to improve your chess when you're a total beginner. Traps taught me basic tactics, deepen my knowledge in openings, improved my positional understanding, and improved my rating in hundreds of points. The traps that I'd recommend for 1000-1300 rated players are:

1.1. Halosar trap - it was the first trap I have learnt. It actually made me fall in love with chess because of its beauty and simplicity.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vhu9qDkkws

1.2. Legal trap - I have won many games using the Legal Trap, when my opponents were rated under 1300.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZzULdU0_Yo

1.3. Fishing Pole trap - also good for beginners

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qac6OFDHdTs

Tip 2: Learn from Paul Morphy

When my rating was around 1350, I've learnt the "Paul Morphy Attack" (named after the great chess player Paul Morphy). Morphy was a tactical genius. His games are full of clever tactics. The beauty of "Paul Morphy Attack" is that the tactical ideas in this attack are very complex yet very easy to understand and every beginner can learn them. I'd recommend every beginner to get familiar with the Paul Morphy Attack. It helped me win more than 100 games in recent months.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrbChWI89ek

Tip 3: Take time off from chess

Every month I train for 3 weeks, and I take a week off from chess. Taking a week off from chess has been the key to my progress in the past year. It is important to do other things as well! When you focus on chess 30 days a month, you exaust your brain and your learning becomes less effective. In order to learn faster, you need to give your brain time to rest.

 Thats it!

These 3 tips helped me improve my rating from 1000 to 1500+. I hope these tips will help you too 

You joined this site in 2009 and had a live standard rating of 1014 in 2010, so you were clearly not starting from scratch earlier this year.

Your live standard rating jumped over 1500 within two weeks of your rejoining the site, so it seems more likely that the knowledge you picked up in the last five years had more to do with your improvement than watching a few videos on obscure traps like the Halosar. (arising from 1d4 d5 2 e4...) 

You want people to judge you by your standard rating. Yet, you have played only 69 standard games, of which 24 were unrated.  Your blitz rating of 989 is based on 242 games, of which only 7 were unrated.  It seems like you play a lot more blitz than standard chess. I don't see you crowing about your blitz rating. Why is that?

I would love to see some examples of your claim to have "won many games" with the Legal Trap. I figured they should be pretty easy to spot, a 7 or 8 move game.  While I saw some short games, none appeared to be using Legal's Trap. 

At any rate, I am glad you are having fun but perhaps it is a little early to start writing advice columns.

Your comment contains too many wrong conclusions. Let me clarify a few things:

1) I have two accounts on chess.com. I opened this account in 2009, that's true, but it was inactive for 5 years.

2) I didn't play chess at all until August 2014. My second account was created on August 2014 (About 12 month ago), August 2014 is the date when I started playing chess.

3) My live standard rating did not "jump" to 1500 in two weeks LOL. It took me many months of hard work to gain this rating.

4) I played 823 games in my two accounts, not 69 like you said.

I hope everything is clear now. I've been playing chess for 12 month and I am very proud of my achievement. gaining 500+ rating in 12 month is impressive and I am glad to share some tips with other players who want to achieve my rating. There are many players rated under 1500, so it isn't little early to start writing advice columns.......

Congratulations man. Any kind of progress you can feel good about to keep you motivated is a good thing.

I frequently experience wild rating fluctuations and then sometimes hit a plateau for a period of months.

On the losing end, I lost 500 bullet points from an already abysmal bullet rating in the last 2 months and only regained some of them, but it may have something to do with my computer network. Plus, my excuse with bullet is I don't really take that time control all that seriously and just use it for fun and something to do without thinking too much to relax.

On the winning end, I've increased my Standard rating 90 points in the last 4 days only playing a few standard games for the first time in awhile.

Apparently, the opponent seeks in live aren't the same as they used to be, because I find myself getting paired against lower rated players more frequently.

It only takes a couple of losses to underated lower rated players to really ding any time control rating.

So that accounts for the huge loss of points in bullet.

On the other hand, earlier this year I think it was, everyone's standard rating got a boost and since I didn't play much since that time, I'm getting paired with overrated players in that time control.

Keep at it man. It seems like you are having fun learning and making progress. Good for you and nothing wrong with that. Keep progressing and use this thread to update us every so often over the next 12 months!

I hope it will work for me too

What's the name of your other account?

Matan1992

yeah keep talking big tough guy, watch what happens when u face a real chess player like me

Thanks mate! 

I am definitely enjoying chess. It seems to me that the more I play chess, the more I like it. My next goal is to reach rating 1600 this summer. When I reach 1600 I will post updates in this thread (Or maybe I'll create another one).

Alright, a few quick things.

First, congratulations on hitting 1500.  That ain't nothin' and I hope you continue to play, study, and improve.

Second, I'm pretty sure having multiple accounts is against the site's rules.  You should probably just pick one.

Lastly, while the first two suggestions in your original post surely could not hurt anything there's a lot more material that most people will need to study to get to and stay at 1500. Also, I think that taking a week off from your studies every month is probably way too much for most people.  I think taking off a day or two every week or so is probably a more realistic expectaion for someone trying to improve as much as possible.

Thank you chester

I intend to continue studying and playing chess in the coming months. My final Goal is to hit 2000.

I didn't know that multiple accounts are against the site's rules. Thanks for telling me this. I will get rid of my second account.

I agree that a player needs to study more than a few traps to reach and maintain a 1500 rating. Most of the things that a player needs to do (study openings and plans, use the tactics trainer etc) are obvious so I didn't mention them in my post. However, Studying traps and tactics from Paul Morphy's games helped me more than anything else to hit 1500 rating. that's why I wrote about it :)

Hi matancs92, congratulations for such fast improvement. As a chess coach i would say that is not easy to accomplish. I would add that another great and fast way to improve is when you learn all your weak tendencies from your own games when an expert analyze them fully for you. Also knowing all the important chess principles which you can then apply anytime and in any stages of the game. If you learned more of these, i would guarantee your improvement would even soar faster and higher :)

My 12 month improvement:

Tactics 1673 -> 2503 (+830)

Blitz 1376 -> 2002 (+626)

I improved from 800 to 1350 in 7 months

First of all: Stop it. It is way too early to start writing guides for people. Most players don't advise chessplayers before they hit 1800+
You are considered a WEAK player, and before you think it's an insult, let me clarify that I am considered a weak player as well. That is why I don't flex my chess muscles for all to see and fear.

Second of all: Starting out by learning traps is not a good way to go. It gives you a false impression of chess and makes you into the kind of player who loses himself if the trap doesn't work. Tactics is a more realistic and a better proven way to start. Tactics actually improve your skill. Learning traps improves only your memory. When you know your Tactics, you will invent and discover your own traps as you go. better than to learn "trap openings" is to learn actual, principled, solid openings.

Third of all: You forgot the MOST important thing: To learn positional concepts. Identify weak squares, open files and diagonals, center control, space, manuavering your pieces, accurate endgame play. Those are just, you know, the most important things in the game...

I know what you'll say: "I got from 1000 to 1500 without learning positional play". My answer is: In that case, you went the wrong way. You might've reached far, but it doesn't mean your methods are correct and you should spread them online.  

First off, the term "Weak player" is relative. When you are a 1500 player, you are considered a very strong player in comparsion to 1000 players.

If you reached 1500, and you can guide other people towards reaching the same rating, what's wrong about it? You don't have to be a 2000 player to tell people how you got to 1500 LoL

Second off, I disagree with your claim that traps improve your memory and not improve your tactics. Every trap that you learn consists of tactics. When you learn a new trap, you learn new tactics as well.

As for positional concept - No doubt its important. I forgot to mention it in my post, sorry about that.

And that's exactly where you got it wrong.
You DO have to be 2000 to counsil people below 1500.
Otherwise you'll give them false advice and pass over your mistakes and weaknesses to them. Even if all the students are below 1200, it is still required from the chess teacher at a club to be at least 1800+. You "forgetting" to mention positional play, which is the most important thing in all of chess, is not coincidental, it is the reason you and me shouldn't claim to be teachers.
Just like high school students shouldn't teach elementary school students. Try to imagine how bad your English would've been then. lol. Same about chess, let's try not to pass our errors to the begginers. 

Also, learning tactics from puzzles and master games are the correct way. Learning them from opening traps encourages you to rely on known positions when you play, and thus improve your tactics much less than puzzles do, and are the incorrect way for begginers to start.

I just work on my positional skills and let them drag my terrible tactical skills. So I went on and squish ones that can be like 300 ratings higher but usually ended up losing to tactics.

We'll disagree on that. I think every player can teach weaker players how to improve their chess, even a 1500 player like me can do it. My learning method is not false. It is good enough to get to 1500. If it wasn't good enough then I would've never reached a 1500+ rating. 

By the way, My best teacher was a high-school student. Good teachers are measured by their teaching skills that aren't a function of knowledge whatsoever.