Like I said on my first post, achieving good results does not prove your methods are correct. You can go from spain to usa by swimming. It is possible. But the correct method to do it is by airplane.
ofircohen, learning chess takes time, and there are of course ways to do it that is faster than others.The fastest way isnt cheap, beacause it involves paying good coaches. There are inexpensive ways too. If you cant afford the best, do what you can do for free.
But you must not forget that it is a lot to learn,
which means that it is important to do it the way you like it yourself. It is impotrant to have fun. So much fun that you want to continue learning for years and decades.
I think this debate can become interesting, and show us ways to improve. Matan has delivered more good advices than the higher rated players here. To critisize Matan is good , if you do it the correct way. The correct way is to well describe better plans.
Matans "study Morphy" plan is of course very good for players at our level, and this advice is an advice of masterquality.
Good job!
But I think I have done better...
I started chess.com a little less than 12 months ago and my rating has gone from the 900s in live chess (this is where I started playing for a few months) to my highest in online chess 1603. Is this good? :)
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.
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.
There must be a big gap to learn but a 1500 player can teach an 800 player
tactics tactics tactics
Going from 1000 to 1500 is about being more thorough in calculation to greatly reduce blunders, mastering basic tactical motifs, mastering basic endgames such as short side defense and Lucena position and drawing or winning with king and pawn vs. lone king or simple triangulation, and learning opening principles and when one should or shouldn't move a pawn.
TACTICS
I agree with previous poster. Only tactics can make the difference but not chipo opening traps.
Opening traps are tactics.
And I agree that tactictraining does help a lot.
Analyzing games helps a lot, maybe with computerhelp, but better with masterhelp.
TACTICS!!
Out of curiousity do you have an over the board rating as well?
You don't need any study to reach 1500 on this site besides maybe simple tactics . It is mainly just playing alot .
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.
You want people to judge you by your standard rating. Yet, you have played only 69 standard games, of which 24 were unrated.
This conflicts with your claim to have won more than 100 games with the Paul Morphy Attack in recent months. Were they perhaps blitz games?
How did you achieve that 989 rating in blitz in only 5 years?
It seems 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.......
Having 2 accounts should be illegal.
That said, clearly he has 2 accounts as a backup plan. If his rating isn't 1500 or higher in a year, he'll use the 2 accounts to face each other and have whichever account is doing better win each game and boost himself over 1500!
Study, Practice, and Compete OTB. Then repeat the process. Very Simple.
Watching 2300s+ play Game in 3/0, gives you a glimpse of the standards you should be shooting for.
Good Luck With It.
You don't need any study to reach 1500 on this site besides maybe simple tactics . It is mainly just playing alot .
You've been here over a year and a half, belong to several study focused groups and teams, have completed many Chess Mentor courses and Tactics Trainer problems, and have just recently reached a 1500 rating in "Live Standard" and "Online" chess.
There's no reason to minimalize the efforts of those that study their hearts out to get to such a rating.
Fryedk, if it was me you asked, my rating is Fide 1400 http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=1524283
That said, clearly he has 2 accounts as a backup plan. If his rating isn't 1500 or higher in a year, he'll use the 2 accounts to face each other and have whichever account is doing better win each game and boost himself over 1500!
Having 2 accounts is considered cheating. From Help and Support:
No, not only do we not allow the use of multiple accounts; we also consider it a form of cheating.
Please restrict yourself to a single Chess.com account, and avoid all suspicion!
Also, if it's just a new username you are after, please see here.
keywords: cheat cheating multiple accounts more one account
Matan, I think your advice is good, and also can give stronger players ideas. I use a profesional chessteacher for a few hours, and my homework now, guess what it is?It is study Morphygames, and analyze them.
Andreas Skotheim have made very good progress this year too, and one of his best tricks is playing otb-tournamnets, and playing in a chessclub, and of course his activity here at chess.com. In my club we also have many young people with fantastic progress the last year, and some of them are taking lessons with a master, besides playing a lot of tournamentgames.
I disagree that players like me (weak players) is not qualified to advice. We are in the middle of a learningprocess, and we see what works for us, and what works for our clubmates. A kid in my club, has jumped to 2257 Fide now, and I partially know how he got there. It interests me.
How to reach 2257 Fide can of course be better explained by GM Vladimir Georgiev. He knows. And he gives coaching on skype at a reasonable price.