I'm Stuck

I'm in my 30s, I've been playing chess on/off since I was a kid, putting notable effort in over the last 10 years.

If the chess.com ratings are to be believed, I am essentially stuck as a 1000-1100 level player.

• I play 15/10 rapid (don't think I have the mental patience for longer than that)
• I've read a few good chess books, that did make me better but not significantly (think 900-1000ish)
• I do tactics trainer on here daily
• I go through the game reviews and analysis for every game I play before doing the next one. It's very hard to find major takeaways, more a whole lot of things to memorize (something that is not so easy to do).
• I keep a consistent opening / not rotating them/trying to get fancy.

I'm enjoying chess less and less because I don't see a way to significantly improve from where I am at - is there anything that stands out in my games that is obvious?

Watch some YouTube videos about openings you play

Sounds like you need someone to sit down with you and explain your games properly, should considerer putting the money into a chess coach. Maybe also play blitz to develop good insticts, you will lose alot but the losses help if you go over each move, for example, looked at one of your recent losses against the fried liver, first 7 moves were all top engine moves, 8th move you should have kicked the knight away with h6 then again with e4, that makes white lose tempo and puts you into a better position, there are traps against it but that's only suitable for speed chess.

Thats crazy

Consider checking your local chess club. And there are coaches on this site. They advertise themselves a lot in the beginner section. On a side note, the lessons on this site are really good and the defunct Chessmaster series had good lessons. Book wise Silman and Yasser Seirwan books are approachable.

To most of my students, I give this advice (and it's almost all they need):

The biggest reason people struggle in lower-level chess is because of blunders. They make them in almost every game.

A mistake can instantly put you in a bad position, no matter how well you played earlier: if you had great opening knowledge, great positional skills, great endgame skills, whatever; a single mistake can change everything (you lose a piece or get checkmated).

So, how do you avoid blunders? Follow these two simple steps:

1. After your opponent moves, think if it's dangerous. Ask yourself, “What’s his idea?”
2. Before you make your move, think if it's safe. Ask yourself, “What attacking replies can he play?”

If you feel like getting to levels like 1600, 1800, or 2000 in chess is super hard, let's look at it in a different way. Those players you're facing make blunders in nearly every game they play. Beating them isn't so tough if you stop making big mistakes and start using their slip-ups to your advantage.

Again, it does not require you to become a chess nerd or spend all your time on chess. Just doing this one thing can boost your rating by a few hundred points right away.

Lastly, while avoiding blunders is crucial, I also share a few basic principles with my students. These principles help them figure out what to do in each part of the game - the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame. Understanding these simple principles is like having a map for your moves. When you use this knowledge along with being careful about blunders, you're not just getting better at defending. You're also learning a well-rounded approach to chess. Keep in mind, chess is not just about not making mistakes; it's about making smart and planned moves to outsmart your opponent.

@1

• "I play 15/10" ++ Good.
• "I've read a few good chess books" ++ A chess book is no noàvel. Do not read them, study them.
• "I do tactics trainer on here daily" ++ It is good, but overrated.
• "I go through the game reviews and analysis for every game I play before doing the next one." ++ Good.
• "more a whole lot of things to memorize" ++ You need not memorize.
• I keep a consistent opening / not rotating them/trying to get fancy. ++ Good.

"is there anything that stands out in my games that is obvious?"
++ Always blunder check before moving.

Have you tried positional chess?

I have a yt video about how to train Chess and How I went from 268 rating to 2150 rapid, https://youtu.be/PXJUq_R2lIw It helped a decent amount of people I hope its gonna help!!!

I looked at some of your games.

these are the things that stood out to me.

1) piece exchanges

2) piece placement

3) loose pawns or a unknowing of how to play with pawns.

you have probably heard this a thousand times, but Tactics and how they interact with positional chess. endgames and read Pawn Power by Hans Smoch.

Yes, great advice and Pawn Power In Chess by Hans Kmoch was a good book (I read it cover to cover), but sadly this book has never been translated into algebraic notation, so you'll have to learn a different chess notation if you want to read this).

The chess.com global average rating is roughly 700 rating, so your 1000-1100 rating is probably evidence of how hard you worked and your good progress.

Feel free to message me if you ever want to discuss chess, or ask me some questions etc. We can also play some unrated live chess (it can be 15/10 if you like) for learning purposes if you want advice more tailored to what you play.

Chess takes time to learn really well and improve at, so sometimes it is useful to have an outside perspective from someone who has gone through the same chess struggles and is able to offer some guidance of direction.

Must be a different thread. I don't see any of your posts missing here.

Hi gman, so like a few others i have looked through some of your games and have noticed a few things that may help. I agree with another person above who recommended you switch to e4 or at least switch up your openings. At 1100 rating most games are decided by blunders that your opponent spots... Sadly i would also suggest a quicker time limit so you force yourself to think quicker (also helps avoid people who check engines during their game sad - but it happens). This quicker thinking forces you to develop your intuition. However strategically game play wise I noticed that you seem to play to swap off queens as quickly as you can, even when strategically unsound. I am guessing here - but looking at your games it feels as though you are sometimes afraid of ghosts - you make moves to pre-empt attacking moves of your opponent, note not defensive moves, for example - you see a pawn may be pushed to attack your knight so you move your knight first before they can attack it - even if them making that move is ultimately bad for them. You have played a lot of games, and solved lots of puzzles, so your tactics are not bad and that is not a bad puzzlerush score either! All this seems to suggest to me that your chess education is lacking in strategy - these are a few general strategic principles I have witnessed in games that you have fallen foul of

1. When you are down in pawns, avoid piece exchanges (especially the Queen and Rooks), by exchanging pieces the pawn advantage becomes more significant. The reverse holds true - when you are a pawn or pawns up then seek to exchange pieces as your extra pawns become more powerful.

2. Watch the videos on pawn structures and plans. Often you choose a poor plan for the pawn structure - there are quite a lot of videos on this topic. Understanding the right type of plans for a variety of pawn structures helps you to avoid going down dead ends.

On a more general note

1. play though the lessons on end games. Seems strange but they really teach you how to use pawns and other pieces to their best effect.

2. Mix up your openings, especially in blitz, experiment! You will be surprised how learning different openings helps you understand different position types and as a d4 player, transpositions to different openings are very common.

3. Learn to count attackers and defenders to check if a piece is ok. There was a game where doubled rooks attacked a pawn, you defended this with a rook and your king (two attackers - two defenders so all is well) but then they moved a knight to also attack the pawn and you didn't try to defend it a third time. (to be fair you may not have been able to - but thats where calculation comes in - they can in three moves attack this three times I need to be able to defend it three times in three moves - now I have a plan, make it so).

3. You analyse every game, but do you know how to use that analysis to help you improve? I suggest for starters play through the analysis until your first mistake and then stop - work out from looking at the position, your move, the engine analysis and your opponents response answers to the following;

a) Why did you think your move was ok?

b) why wasn't it ok?

c) What should you have played?

d) Why should you have played that?

And then move on to the next game.

This advice is not as technical move wise as others (I haven't quoted games) but i feel at your level fundamentally you need to stop blundering. Your moves don't have to be the best, but they categorically must not be the worst or just bad.

Really appreciative of all of the constructive advice and offers I have received - positional play (really having a strategy/target and building on it) along with better pawn structures are two obvious things to work on. I still blunder too much, usually when I'm frustrated although it has been less frequent.

In the Fried Liver Attack the Knight is sacrificed on move 6 with Nxf7.

Without this sac there is no Fried Liver Attack.

How exactly do you kick a Knight that has been sacrificed?

Question: How does one see a missing post?

Patience is the chess mother in chess. There is no practical course written for this kind of player. I am a writer and that´s a fact.: all systems to beginners are not fit. Blitz games are bad for chess thinking. You need to play classic chess playing games over an hour of thinking. Daily chess is a good option to learn how to concentrate deeper.

It's nice yes but every other topic here is always "I'm not improving, what can I do". For beginners and intermediates the answer is always the same.