How to get back into chess

So after over a year of chess hiatus, I’ve recently been motivated to get back into the game. While I obviously still remember how the game works (my memory isn’t that terrible 🙃), most of my opening prep seems to have went to the deleted files. How should I work towards getting back to my “peak” and what areas should I brush up in/relearn. Just wanted some input before I went and lost all the rating I gained over four years.

Does getting back in the game mean we'll see more blogs?

Possibly 👀

Hi again, it’s great to see you back! Honestly what I’d recommend is just to play solve puzzles a lot of games, after you’ve played a fair amount of games and knock the rust off, you should be able to see what you’re struggling with, and then you can target fixing those weaknesses.

If my two cents matter, brush up on tactics (positional concepts and endgames are more stable in rust than tactics and openings) and maybe play more “system” openings to start. I was playing mainline d4 stuff, but switched to reti when I was rusty.

learn the nimzo

I recently came back and actually gained a bunch of rating lol, switched up my openings a tad, reviewed a little theory, did lots of tactics.

I think my rook endgames are sketchy nwo

Just play, you'll recover your lost knowledge relatively quickly. Hell, I haven't played blitz much since I tilted 300 points a year ago, and im almost back up to 2500 again.

I also didn't play rapid for about 3 or 4 years, and in december I played a few games over the break and I gained rating. I'm sure you forgot less knowledge than you thought. Mostly, you're going to see that you play clearly slower than you used to, and your tactical vision is poorer.

Genius idea actually

That’s encouraging to know I’m not alone 😂

Its been so long since I’ve put time into chess

W advice

Long time no see

Ehhhhh idk. I forgot which side of the board g6 was on today :/

Yeah

From ~2024-January I spent little time on playing chess, and almost none on actually studying, just an occasional blitz game or smth, and playing little siblings. I don't know how I ended up gaining 250 rating after that haha

I quit for almost a year after peaking around 1660. When I came back I was 1300 for a while, but now I've hit my all-time peak after about 4 months or so of returning. It only took me a few weeks to get back up to the 1600s from where I quit.

Just play games and practice puzzles, as mentioned in comment #9 you may find that you will be able to reach back to where you were before more quickly than you might think.

I like your username btw