If FIDE rated 800 and you have a year off from work, how much improvement is realistic?

You don't need to pay for a coach if you have a good, local chess club. That comes with half a dozen coaches built in.

This to get to 1500: https://chessmood.com/chess-study-plans/for-intermediate-players

This is only a guideline, but its very good advice.

@voxoso - I hear you, guv. "Getting stuck" at a grade level can very frustrating indeed. Your having said that brings one extra thing to my mind: try not to get dispirited if your grade goes down when you start trying new things and techniques in your gameplay. When we do something new we're not perfect. What one is learning to do is often better than what one has been doing, but until one gets the practice in one isn't always very good at actually executing the new skill. In self-improvement at chess, what matters isn't that your grade or results show immediate improvement but that your understanding of the game is improving. That can take a while to translate into results.

I agree with this. Some people have forgotten what it is like to be a beginner. I see tactics up to 2300 puzzles more often than not. I understand basic opening ideas like the importance of the center, developing pieces, castling etc. Just need to know where to go from here, openings wise. My middle games tend to suck pretty bad because I made some kind of positional mistake in the opening.

I wouldn't say 800 is begginer level 400-600 is more beginner level

800 is more like a high beginner but the thing 800s need to work on is understanding when the basics don't apply to the position

When to attack,how to attack ,board vision not hanging their queen to a bishops 3 moves in a row ,board vision tends to be sloppy for beginners ,etc

Tbh watching high level play and learning from.thwt helped a lot for me and seems to for a good chunk of people

Btw if a trick works for you it also probably works for your opponent try not to make the same blunder lol and force them to make it instead (or a blunder )

Also you need to learn how to not "shuffle pieces" what squares make them the most active (like alpha zero version active or stockfish esc) if you need an example

Playing against tougher opponents can help increase rating but only if you slowly figure out how to beat them and learn things positional play can be a weak point tbh even if you understand it you won't get good at positional play till 2200+

Hope this is insightful but probably not lol the thing to work on is just trying to figure out what works and doesn't work (trying new things ebut short term that may lead to a decrease in rating) being able to turn around losing positions into a win being able to win more games ,etc like if hikaru can beat a 800 down a queen you can learn how to also lol(there are other things that im forgetting )

You're trying to overthink it. A beginner is a beginner. You can't understand the principles of openings without memorising them. It's a simple truth.

Or better than that, an otb chess club.

If you had a year off -- would you actually spend it on chess improvement?

Even better a personalized coach and a chess club

No point in a coach really if the club's a good one.

I dunno sometimes one on one lessons are more beneficial I mean even Magnus Carlson has a coach 💀

If a coach helps him he should do that is a club is better do that instead

I had a friend in our local club 20 years ago. My friend was a hospital consultant and proud of it. I used to drive up to his house most weeks for some games but he also paid a mutual friend who was an IM for personal lessons. For me visiting him was mainly a social thing, while it lasted. He never really benefited much either from my visits of from the IM's lessons. I continued to improve and I didn't need a coach. He wasn't capable of benefitting from a coach. He stayed about 1500 to 1550 FIDE and never improved. Then he died.

Yes it depends on the person unfortunately I think you most likely will want both a coach and a club for the best results cause for a club you can practice getting stronger and learning from your mistakes while having help from others with more social interaction

While a coach can analyze your weaknesses and give advice on how to improve though if people are nice you could get that for free sometimes

Bro when you said he didn't improve and then died, that just felt dark. And sad. I wish there was a way to know if I'm one of those guys who just won't improve much. I'm ok with that. Perhaps my talents are elsewhere. Besides my full time job, I'm good at dance. I've even taught dance before. If I knew my chess wouldn't go any further, I'd rather spend the time on something else. I like being good at what I do. I really enjoy it when I'm good and I feel good about myself having gone through the process of getting better. I just don't know how to get better at this. Someone reached out and suggested my mid game should be worked on a bit more. Positional and mid game ideas. I haven't really focused on that before. Maybe I need a book or 2 and should focus on that?

I really, really think I can improve significantly because so many of my mistakes are due to not paying attention, not even looking one or two moves ahead to how my opponent could respond. All I have to do is look ahead and I could probably improve 150 points. But year after year, I don't do it. What does that say about me?

Not anything tbh even 2200s don't look two moves ahead consistently like half of the time I just play moves lol and get random insane tactics some from luck others not though

Blitz would be better for calculating two more tactics btw since blitz is more intuition based but rapid is better for longer thinking and more accurate play

Joining some sort of club could also help with that maybe a bit more competition could help

Learn and apply the most important principles of chess.
Always blunder-check your moves.
Solve tactics in the right way.
Analyze your games.
Study games of strong players.
Learn how to be more psychologically resilient.
Work on your time management skills.
Get a coach if you can.

aaaa