Improvement 800-1000?

Heya,

So, after about six months of getting into chess, I'm feeling that I've plateaued. In the first couple months, I absorbed stuff like a sponge, quickly picking up on the kind of standard beginner chess knowledge, but more recently upon getting to 850-890 rating, I feel like I'm no longer improving: all things aimed at beginners like development, opening principles, tactical ideas like forks, skewers, pins, basic endgame patterns and all that jazz I understand, I've been reading some books on chess tactics, watching as many materials on youtube as I can, taking my time over puzzles/tactics, avoiding blitz and bullet games (I don't really play anything other than 30 minute rapid), going through analyses on my games etc.

It seems like all learning materials aimed for the 800-1000 range address things that I do already understand (many advanced players that make chess learning content just say stuff like 'double check every move, don't blunder and know basic opening principles and you'll get to 1000', which with full honesty is a load of bull), but I can't seem to break out of the 820-890 range I've been in for absolute yonks!

Any advice or anything I should be doing differently? Help a gal out x

Hi. I took a look at a few of your games and you're missing one move tactics. For example, in your recent loss against 'Chatlotte' you missed that your bishop and knight were both pressuring f7, and that square was only defended by your opponent's king. You could have captured the f pawn and exposed their king. A few moves later you missed that after you moved your queen, your opponent could fork you with her knight.

So my advice is to do the tactics trainer (puzzles), and take your time. Even if each puzzle takes you 5 minutes or more, take your time and really study the board until you find the solution.

Another thing I noticed is that you're playing very quickly in the opening. Rapid is only better for improvement than Blitz because it gives you more time to scan the board and consider your moves, but this doesn't apply if you still blitz out your moves. Slow down. Don't be afraid to take a full minute or more to consider each move, even very early in the game. You may get into time trouble later, but at your level 9 times out of 10 if you slow down you will see things that your opponent has missed, and you'll quickly find yourself with an advantage.

Dear Amelias,

I wrote to your other forum as well, but just in case, I copy my message here, too. I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you.   Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.

You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals. 

In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career. 

I hope this is helpful for you.  Good luck for your games!