How many games per week should you play to feel a significant improvement?

Whenever I see my own profile and how my ELO fluctuates around 700 I wonder if I don't play enough. Yet when I play more often I also rage more often if I make mistakes and play worse. Yet it also feels like if I don't play for a few days or weeks I become worse for a few games after return.

So I looked it up, and saw a bunch of answers which are confusing me. Some GMs and IMs say you should only play if you are mentally fit, and stop after 2-3 losses. Others say you should play at least 5 games per day (10 min games), others say you should only play one classic game per day. And others that you don't even need to play at all to get better, that tactics and studying is enough.

Which makes me wonder, what the hell is going on!? How many games per week did you play while you made the most progress? And not ELO alone, I also mean by getting better with an opening, or not making a mistake that blundered the whole game anymore. That kind of progress.

The main resolution to this is that there's no magic bullet. Beginners often ask: "how many pages should I read," or "how many puzzles should I solve?" or "how many games should I play?" But these are the wrong questions and they have no correct answer.

The learning process is about:

1) Identifying the main elements that make people good
2) Identifying your weaknesses
3) Working to improve your weak areas
4) Analyzing #3 to see check whether it's working and make adjustments as needed.

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For chess this is:

1) openings, tactics, strategy, endgame (and for anyone under 1600, a thing I call "calculation habits")

2) Usually NOT the opening. Look at your losses, and for each one write down the biggest mistake. After you've done this for 20, 30, 40 games, you'll be able to see your weakest areas... and don't just write down openings or endgames, write down anything... like "I moved too slow/fast" or "I can't defend against knights"

3) For strategy and endgames read books. For openings use databases. For tactics solve puzzles.

For calculation habits play games with a time control that's long enough to allow you to find all of the checks, captures, and threats in the position. Even beginners do this in some positions, but your goal is to do it for 100% of the moves in 100% of your games. It takes a lot of time to build up this habit.

4) A good example of this is re-doing EVERY puzzle you failed yesterday or a few days ago. If you fail one of them again? That's fine. You'll try it a 3rd time tomorrow, and a 4th time the day after that, and on and on until you get it right at least once.

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To answer your question about games, as long as you have something in mind you'll work on (and it can be something simple like "I don't want to miss any knight forks this game") that's fine. Play time controls that are long enough for you to do this.

This is how games help you improve... if you don't play with a purpose it's possible to play and not improve. Some people play 100,000 games without improving. The number of games is completely unimportant.

As much as you can, as long they are high quality.

Very clear and very interesting.

Regarding re-doing every failed puzzle, for example, here's something I never do... Maybe that's why I don't see improvements despite all the puzzles I solve.

There is only one thing on which, as a non-expert, I would not agree : perhaps reading books, that explain the concepts underlying the various variations, can be also useful in studying openings, not only for endgames and strategy.

Thank you.

@llama_l

Maybe a stupid question, but how do I see my biggest mistake? In this game, I made one huge mistake and overlooked a checkmate. And it's easy to find even with 5 blunders. (I played black in both games)

But what about a game like this? Where I made only one blunder and it still took several turns until I lost? Is the blunder itself my biggest mistake? Was my strategy all along wrong? Should I have just resigned?

I'm sorry, but how do I know what's my biggest mistake or blunder if I as a beginner can't even tell if I have a better position or not? I know you mean well, and try to be helpful. But I'm a beginner, I don't even know what mistake I made unless I use the engine afterward. And what should I even write down, something like "Don't move your rook to g3 anymore when playing black"? I'm stupid and I don't see any change even with playing puzzles and getting a higher score there. So expecting me to get better by knowing what mistake I made seems outlandish and unrealistic.

I guess stop letting your opponent take pieces for free (I saw this multiple times in both games), just visualise what they would probably do after your move. It helps with blunder prevention

To answer your question, it works differently for everyone. Honestly after I stopped using the platform for 4 years I had the biggest increase in elo during my time as a user on the platform (although I appear to be stuck). In terms of wanting to improve, you need a mix of:
- Playing games (1-3 rapid games per day, you don't elo grind unless you are completely destroying your opponents consistently. Blitz is only for if you're looking to improve calculation speed, and bullet is just hand-eye coordination)

- Tactics training (especially blunder prevention), probably around 20-30 minutes per day, depends on your schedule

If all else fails, you can always get a coach or learn on YouTube, eventually you will improve.

Not more than 2 slow games a day. The rest is studies and analyzes.

Yeah, as a beginner it would be good to ask other players for help on what the most important mistake is. I'll tell you what I think about the games, but first I want to say there's no single correct answer. The point isn't to find "the one big mistake" otherwise you can't improve. The point is to focus your efforts on something before moving on to the next thing... there's no way you'd pick one of these mistakes I'm about to tell you, but don't worry about it. As long as you're trying to fix something you'll improve, and you can ask others for analysis to get their feedback too (there's a beginner forum and an analysis forum).

Anyway, game one you're doing the common beginner pattern of developing 1 or 2 pieces off the back rank, then only moving them over and over until they're gone. Then you develop 1 or 2 more off the back rank, and repeat it all game long. This is really bad. One of the main goals in the opening is that NONE of your pieces on the back rank will be on their original square. You want to do this as fast as possible... if 1 or 2 linger on their original square during the first 15 moves that can be ok, but more than that is usually a mistake (and attacking with just 1 or 2 pieces is almost always silly).

For game 2, I'd say it's losing your queen on move 6.

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After you choose a mistake to work on, you have to come up with a way to fix it (or ask people, that's fine).

You might feel like "I'm a beginner I can't possibly know how to not lose my queen" Ok, I'll give some tips. For example after your opponent moves, try to find all the squares that move attacks.

One way a move can attack squares is by uncovering the attack of the piece behind it. That's what you missed in game 2 when you lost your queen.

Sure, books for openings can be good.

It's just... the ones I've seen tend to prep you to at least master level, and that's not useful for most people.

At the start of chess career you need a teacher coach or an iron will to play and learn everything by yourself!!

@DarkMagician2015

What do you mean by practicing to prevent blunders? I know Aimchess has an option for that, and I tested Aimchess for a few months. But it didn't feel like it made any difference, and I don't want to pay for a website that feels like it's not meant for beginners.

@llama_l

How am I supposed to work on a mistake? Do I just replay the same games over and over again? Is there a secret feature that gives me puzzles with exactly that problem?

Whenever I play black I get trampled down if I move my pieces too soon. Most just rush to the 5th or even 6th rank and then attack my pieces and make it impossible for me to regain. I hate playing black at this point and only have a chance if I wait with my pieces. Or at least it feels that way. And it doesn't get better if chess.com forces me to play black time after time after time and nukes my rating down by 100 points.

One game a day with review and annotation.