How to improve my chess?

Hi! I only started chess about 3-4 weeks ago. I played with my friends and my dad everyday and then someone recommended I go to this site to play against better players and to have some fun. Within these 3 weeks I have done some tactics puzzles learned a few openings but since I came here I can’t seem to break threw to walls of the 1300’s – 1400’s. I would like to receive some advice on how can get better and I would like to end up 1800’s to 2000’s. Please give me some feedback on what do to improve, like should I learn new openings, do more tactic puzzles etc.

if i had enough time and didnt have some important stuff to do i would have played long games and then analyzed it.play online chess and long games like 15/10 games and 30/0 mins games.then analyze it first with your mind.try to take a deep look at the position and evaluate the position and calculate moves and after once analyzing the game by your self, use your engine and see which moves it suggests.just stick to this advice and if you are patient you will improve a lot.good luck

Welcome to the chess world, young man. I'm not giving any advice but recommending some books. Essential Endings by Averbach, Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan and Chess Fundamentals by Capablanca,

thanks for the help although if its not otb i hate playing long games they are boring, just my opinion. maybe ill try analyzing the games like play againist my friends but they are also new to chess so the lack of compitition is low and my dad has no time.

Welcome, it's a great site.

You can never drill enough tactics.  You can get tired of it / focus on other areas / and just take a break from tactics for any reason... but you're never completely finished.  Especially for newer players tactical oversights decide most games, and a side benefit is practicing visualization.

Playing long games gives essential experience when new.  OTB tournaments even better.  So don't stop playing, but in hitting a plateau you'll also want some book knowledge.  I'll just throw out a few good titles.

Complete Chess Player by Reinfeld
Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev
Amateru's mind by Silman
A book from Seriwan's winning chess series (e.g. tactics, strategy, openings, endgame).

(Those mentioned by Mandy are also good choices).

It's useful, after a game, to check to see who left book first.  This is available in chess.com's opening exploer, a book like MCO, or if you get a chess engine.  (Anyone know a good free database + engine combo?)  I hear a lot about SCID, if no one has further advice you can google that at least heh.

But opening study (memorizing many variations) is fairly useless.  It feels good because it prolongs the clueless feeling but when the feeling comes 2 moves later you'll notice it doesn't help your results.  When studying spend more time with tactics, endgame, and middlegame.  Build your opening repertoire though experience not route memorization (common advice, pick a sound opening and stick with it for at least a year).

It's also useful to get feedback from stronger players about your moves and thoughts.  A coach is good of course, but for free you can lightly annotate a game and post it in the analysis section of the chess.com forums some time.

So in summary, keep playing games (consider tournaments), keep doing tactics, supplement these with a book, don't fall into opening memorization trap, and review your games and seek comments from stronger players.  In this vein if you can join a local club it can really help you improve.

why do you play chess? be honest. :)

thanks for the advice waffllemaster and how long did it take you to get to the ratings you have? did u use to the same advice and books to get there? also is my current rating good for a person who has played for a month or is it low? btw i use the kings indian attack and the ruy lopez as white usually and aganist e4 i tend to use caro kann, i dont memorize these openings i usually just get the basic idea. i still need to think of replies to d4 i suck aganist queens pawn.

@ tesla1 i play chess because its really fun and it gets my mind moving i love thinking 4-5 moves ahead to see what strategies i can use. its also a good way to burn time. i also love the challenge of facing people who are better than me and tryingto win aganist them.

try and read silman's reassess your chess. it will help with the most basic things. also try kotov's play like a grandmaster which is a bit better.

From when I first became interested in chess it took about 8 years.  I don't know how useful that number is though :p  When improvement is the goal, and you have the resources (time, money, dedication) it can be done much much faster.

Books and playing at a club where I was the lowest rated player by at least 200 points were the most help to me.  Tournaments were very useful too.  Maybe they would be higher on this 3 item list if I'd been a more frequent tournament player.

Frankly, I don't think your rating is possible for someone who learned the rules 1 month ago.  So yes, I think it's good... so good I don't believe it.  So when did you really start playing?

Your openings are great.  By good openings I only meant something professionals are willing to play i.e. not some weird trap opening that scores points in speed games.

Against 1.d4 you can consider the slav which will have similar pawn structure and so general ideas as the caro.

so if all this is true,you should enjoy long games(and i mean 15/10 or 30/0 mins) since it gives you a chance to calculate and take a deep look at the position and choose correct plans.i talk about 15/10 games and you say it is boring for you.

In fact... I (still) really wish there was a local club full of masters where I could play every week and just get the crap beat out of me lol.

It's amazing how a few seemingly simple comments after a game from a stronger player can help you so much.

I would recommend you the set of video lessons of GM Valery Kaidanov, they named exactly as your topic: How to improve your chess.

Thanks for the help and i knew the most of the rules of chess before i really got interested in playing. I knew how to move the pieces but i never actually knew how to play, I would make stupid moves like move my rook pawn in the opening etc. so prior to becoming really interested in chess (which was a month ago) I already knew the movements of the pieces, I didn’t know moves like en passant so when someone used that on me in an online game I got really surprised I actually that he hacked the server or something lol 

@ tesla1 i dont hate long games but sometimes it gets boring when playing online because it takes so long for the other person to move. i like otb because then you can see the persons reaction etc and its more enjoyable.

that s what i thought at the beginning but when I began to play online games,it got interesting since it let me think with no rush but if you dont find it exciting,you can play live long games.