I am 1430 at Rapid, how do I improve and reach 1500

I am 18 years old and have been playing chess for one year.  I feel I have a vast knowledge of chess understanding in comparison to my opponent's(watched plenty of instructional ichess.net videos and played through World Champion and Super GM's games from all time periods dating back to the 1800's with Paul Morphy)  In addition I played through top engines games of Alpha Zero, Leela, Komodo, Stockfish, Stockfish NNUE, Winter, etc.  Since it's summer I have plenty of time on my hands to study and play chess.  Honestly I feel it is too early to claim to be "stuck" because it has only been about 1 month that I've been 1400+.  As you could see from my profile, I am better at slower time formats and I feel the best games I have played have been against engines where I could sit and think for hours before making a move.  I feel that I am not the typical 1400, I beat chess.com's 2000 rated engine, beat Play Magnus age 10, and beat Lichess.org's Stockfish lvl 5.  Before I was playing to slow and blundering because I was in serious time trouble despite being in a better position on the board, now I find myself blitzing out moves too fast...or at least lacking the discipline to check the meaning behind ALL of my opponent's moves.  I am not interested in cheap tricks or opening traps to boost my rating 1500.  I feel I will likely reach it before summer ends but it would help if I had some external wisdom and guidance to help me get there faster and not go through the grueling trial and error process of coming up with new conclusions and philosophies on what I need to do to improve and patch up the gaping holes in my games.  It would help if you looked at one or 2 of my games to see exactly what I did wrong and bad habits I have, because like i said before i don't feel as though i am the typical 1400 rated player.  Thank you for taking the time to read this and providing me with your wisdom and feedback.❤ btw for right now i am only playing 15|10 in Rapid

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I’ve played through various games of top players, watched hundreds of instructional videos, read half of an Endgame book, beat 2000+ rated engines on multiple occasions.

I also have the habit of blitzing out moves out sheer impatience and a lack of discipline.

I too am in the 1400’s.

I arrogantly started my account at 1600, won some games, and then got pushed down into my current rating.

So from my perspective you aren’t all that special for your rating, it’s just that people in this rating range are pretty serious about chess in general.

I too have a “vast knowledge” the problem is that if you can’t consistently call upon all of that accumulated knowledge when you need it the most, it isn’t all that helpful in-game.

That’s why we must make an effort to apply this knowledge whenever the opportunity arises, until it eventually becomes habitual and intuitive.

Good luck in your further chess improvement. :)

Nice to see someone just as serious as me going through practically the same struggle.  My question is do you usually get better positions than your opponents in the opening and early middlegame? I remember listening to a Garry Kasparov speech/lecture where he said after looking at ten games of any engine or top player I can accurately determine who they are whether it's Fritz Jr., Rybka, Houdini, etc.  That's somewhat what I'm getting at, I feel after playing a game or 2 with someone I can determine how much time they spent into studying and learning about the game.  You can sense the culture and foundation through their moves.  Regardless of the result there have been games where I was disgust by my opponent's play and choice of moves, but other where I felt like their moves were solid and showed relative concrete understanding of principles and ideas in the game.  I feel a lot of my opponent's still for the most part have poor positional play to some degree yet they make fewer blunders which is why I am not crushing all of them.

 

Oh when I started out on the site I put my strength as advanced, and it wasn't that I was arrogant for doing so but more my mind had yet to be opened by the fact that the average person is terrible at chess and so long as you know the rules and some basic concepts that you will look like a giant in comparison to them but as soon as you run into someone that actually know how to move the pieces and has read even a basic chess book like Bobby Fischer teaches chess, how to beat your dad at chess, or the Soviet Chess Primer you realize that amongst serious chess player that you are still a peasant in comparison to them.  Also the sad thing is that this strong level of knowledge isn't needed to win games.  It's valuable and helpful but not needed.  There is this 80/20 or possibly even 70/30 or 60/40 principles that of all the knowledge and training you accumulated, on average you can only apply around 20-40 percent of it each game.  A perfect example is this game I played a few days ago against someone from Norway in The Albin Counter Gambit.  He was stronger than me by about 100 point yet I crushed him almost effortlessly because he played a dubious opening and had nothing to show for it.  But the game was boring and I grinded him down in an endgame where he had almost no counter play at all.  There wasn't anything so special about that game, there was no beautiful tactical sequence nor was there anything close to a genius or impressive move played in the game, but I still not only won but beat some 100 eli higher.  There are all of these quotes about winning endgames and blundering or 1 bad move could nullify 40 good moves and that's all very true at this level.  I personally feel it really doesn't come down to who has the most knowledge or is superior in certain types of position but about not throwing away the game with one blunder.  So many games I won and lost at this level were off of the side that was usually better missing one minor detail or calculating one thing wrong or something and just like that in one move they could just resign because there's no hope left in the position to even get a draw or swindle.

Literally every game below 1800 is decided by a tactical mistake. Just look for those. Do you like the openings you currently play?

Yes AunTheKnight I do, as you could see I am creating a life time repertoire with 1. d4 with white for right now(I will eventually start playing some e4 opening but I don't see the rush to learn all of the different responses: French, Caro-Kann, Sicilian, e6 b6, KID, e5, Alekhine, etc.).  1. d4 is simple and I almost never get a worse position out of the opening.  I will eventually start playing the English or Incorporate The Stonewall into my repertoire.  Right now I am focusing on improving Black and just recently decided to stop playing the QGD and am trying out different openings like the Nimzo-Indian, KID, QID.  Against e4 about 2 and half months ago I stopped playing e5 and learned both the Petrov and the Alekhine Defense(really to get practice learning openings before tackling the monster).  For the past month I've been playing the Sicilian and learning about the different lines for Black and white.  I am content with my openings although i am always trying to improve them but my main issue is mistakes and blunders in the middlegame.

Thanks for telling me how most games are decided, I came up with a similar conclusion not too long ago but it always helps to get confirmation.  My main issue is I feel like there's so much to focus on during the game for me and my routine of finding a move is flawed, and since I am so unused to the routine that I a few days ago forced myself to adopt of finding the meaning and threat behind my opponent's move and what their likely response will be to the move I choose before I make it, it takes sometime and results in me running into time trouble earlier.  I know I will get better and faster atttt this method as I go along but right now it is hard and my rating is dropping a few points(not that it matters too much long term but I had multiple losses in a row and it caused me to become somewhat long term tilted or at least frustrated).  But I know that most players will tell you that improvement is not a straight linear line but could be more describe as you go 3 steps foward and then to steps back and repeat this process.  I am patient but if there's anymore advice you could give me that isn't so well known or helped you when you were in a similar position of struggling to reach the next rating mark it would be much appreciated.  Thank You for your time and advice.

By your long responses I know your serious. Although I don’t have a ton of time I’ll give what helped me. 
1. Solidifying my opening

   What this means is finding openings that I like to play and perfecting them. 0 mistakes blunders or inaccuracies by move 15 is prefered. 
2. test out different time formats in rapid.

    If you’ve been doing 15|10 do 10 min and visa versa

3. Play higher rated players around 400-600 is prefered then make sure you either analyze it with them or analyze it yourself. This is probably the thing that helped me the most. 

4. ask for tips/help on the forums or in clubs. Some really do help I can suggest a few good clubs if you want.

 

5. stop caring about rating.

    Listen I get it. I love to look at my rating stats after each game, when I play I want to get better but more importantly I want my rating to improve haha. But just take a break and play for fun, go for a week or even a day without worrying about rating. 
6. ignore step 5.

   Go into Tryhard mode, this I’d mainly if step 5 doesn’t work. Play at the times you play best for me it was late nights. Also find which times others play worse trust me it helps lol. After each game analyze your games especially looking at the tactical mistakes.

7. Forget the hundreds of puzzles.

     Imma get a lot of hate for this one… but puzzles never helped me, what helped me more was playing games and analyzing them afterwards adn finding my own puzzles in those games.

 

8. Watch videos on YT or twitch. 
   Émersion in chess helps a ton. (Watch me on twitch ) jk but watching people like Gotham chess, Daniel Narodisky and others helped me.

 

9. Practice end games, I never did it and it definitely was the reason I lost a ton of games.

 

10. Play Play Play.

    Just play a ton of games and analyze get that muscle Brian memory going.

 

 

Good luck

i have played chess on chess .com only since April but had played many times over the years with frinds .... i moved Ok from initial staring point in 900 to now mid 1300 after almost getting to goal #1 1400  i try to play only one human per day and analyze each result. Grand master games are pretty useless to me because i (and you) wont follow all the moves neccesary.  For the record... i have played 100 games and the higher ranked player is ahead 58 to 31 with 6 too close to call and 4 draws.  In those games i have made 113 blunders v opponents 94.   so it is obvious, since i am overall winning that it is blunders that are holding me  back. So its MIND CONTROL.... I get so focused on a combination,,, try to hold all the variations  in my head  that i dont look over the  whole board.  (also i avoid bullet and blitz like the plague for obviouoos reasons)

I don’t really have concrete advice for you. Just wanted to comment that I know what you are going thru and can relate because I am very studious as well and working towards 1400 on this site. Also had a couple questions.

My strengths are openings, positioning and end games, however, weak in tactics and poor in the middle game planning. Something I am working on with a coach.

My two questions because I am an analytical person:

1. You don’t do puzzles? It’s amazing that you are 1400 rated with 1100 puzzles rating. Rated puzzles will help you with pattern recognition and speed up your thought process that you are struggling with.

2. You score 50% as white and 55% winning as black which is another remarkable KPI. It’s commons to see a higher winning percentage with white. There is a root cause for that should be investigated.

 

Puzzles, more puzzles and then lots of games reviewing the analysis for best moves

Maybe switching up openings could help. I don't usually play rapid tho. MY field is blitz and my rating at times collapses to 1650 and I gotta gain another hefty 50 points. At this time I usually change to offbeat openings or some solid defenses such as the london system. 

 

Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it. This little mental discipline is enough to get you to 1500. As long as you hang pieces and pawns all the rest is in vain.

who's,mine?

Hi @Pipking I checked your games. From what you wrote, you are working a lot on chess, but I think you are doing it in the wrong order. You focus on the openings. I'm also guessing you analyse with engines a lot. Some basics are missing. You voluntarily exchange pieces with material losses. You create simple traps that cause problems later. Wrong sacrifices. And tactic problems. I think I would find more of this. On the other hand, it is worth saying that for a year of the game you play pretty well and there is definitely potential  

Same. I always try to look at my opponents’ moves and do what you said, but I also run into time trouble lol. Do you use your intuition?

 

Great idea, that's what I'm working on right now(i made sound like i am playing all these different openings with black).  I actually stopped playing the Petrov and Alekhine almost entirely so i can learn the Sicilian, but I will come back to them when I become a stronger player and permanently equip them to my arsenal.

I don't understand why you suggest me to play 10 minute, I already played it a ton but I got sick of it because it doesn't feel like meaningful chess at this level and half of the game are anti Vladimir Kramnik Philosophy, meaning it turns into a premoving frenzy trying to avoid flagging and having no increment to think.  I really dislike it because there is virtually no meaning to any of the moves and not enough time to effectively do a blunder check.

About the playing against stronger opponents this sounds like a great idea.  The only reason I didn't consider this is because I always play rated and quick match up so I didn't want to terrorize my higher rated opponents in rated games where they have all to risk and nothing to really gain.  But I'll start posting challenges so I actually get someone in that range.

About your advice to ignore step 5 and go into Tryhard mode, I have been doing this.  I would reflect and work on a specific aspect of my game for a week or 2 and then spend a week trying to see how high of a rating i can reach the next week.  So i just reached the end of that week and am going back to the drawing board and analyzing my games.

About the 50-100 puzzles I didn't clarify exactly; my high score is 80, in one session I had gotten 69 correct in a row this week in one run. A score of 40 at this point is a bad run for me. It literally takes me less than 5 minutes to get 50 correct.  I just do it as a warm up to get the pattern Recognition down and get into the feel of spotting tactics and having them in the fore front of my mind. Maybe when I was starting out drilling basic tactics would be a good way to train and even at the highest level games are won and lost off elementary level tactics but I'm not foolish enough to think I will magically improve by spending half my time effortlessly doing 1 to 3 move tactics.  It's just a warm up for the serious work of calculation that follows.

Oh this was my main method of improvement, I didn't pick up any chess literature until I was around 1300 in Rapid.  I didn't watch much twitch except for Grand Chess Tour final between Naka and Carlsen, but YouTube like Gotham and Hikaru and Agadmator was how I made my biggest improvement and reached the strength I am at now.  But I feel like had I been older that I would actually have missed out on these methods of Improvements because not too many adults are watching their videos.

Oh and about dreaded endgames you really can never Master them and you will continue to throw away more game in winning positions than necessary if you don't study them.  I would say the Phillidor and Lucena positions are fairly rare and it's better to just know the concepts rather than to spend time drilling them at this level.  But study engame videos on youtube or looking at great endgame players like Magnus Carlsen and Jose Raul Capablanca and how they grind down their opponents in practically equal endgames is immeasurably valuable.  You don't have to study the theoretical endgame until you are trying to reach IM or GM, I mean even Magnus Carlsen Botched the Philidor Position at the Tal Memorial and lost(this was covered on Chesssble by IM John Bartholomew).  But forcing yourself once or twice each week to sit down and look at endgames for even 30 minutes will really make a huge difference.

Oh and since we're talking about endgames did you see the PogChamps 4 trailer/promo video where Ludwig actually had a physical copy of Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, that made me start dying laughing.

bruh why is everyone writing essays bruh. all i did was play a bunch and then it came 

lul

Because they can.

I think that you need to play with different players from different levels, so you can learn more things or watch some chessvideos:)

Playing over master games has little to do with understanding each and every single move or not being able to match their accuracy.  It is about seeing key and fundamental idea that you do understand executed perfectly to the highest of levels in an instructional manner that someone like you significantly weaker than them can understand it.  I will say that I also hate blitz but it helped me improve in avoiding time trouble and having more confidence in time scramble and converting endgames.  After doing 2 week of 5|0 blitz and bringing my rating from 900 to 1200 when I came back to 15|10 Rapid my rating peaked and 1450 which is 50 elo from the starting point where I came back.  Force yourself to do blitz and to try to improve, start out with 5|5 and go down to 5|0.  Trust me so long as you try to win on the board and not just flag your opponents your chess will improve in some way.  It is the hard things that we don't want to do, we hate doing, and are bad at that we need to do the most.