improvement

so, what's the most effective way to improve one's skills? does anyone have a good "formular" to share? Thanks in advance. :)

read some other post this has been covered in great detail

To actually give you an answer, you have to gain an understanding of chess fundamentally. Tactical training helps to a degree, but you also want positional understanding, and simply know what to do in the opening, middlegame, and endgame, how to convert a win with extra material, how to create pressure with initiative, etc...

We have a tactics trainer and chess mentor here on the site.

The free way is to go around the internet and read up, and analyze your games, preferably with a computer, to see where you went wrong. You learn more from losses than wins.

There are also grandmaster courses out there that cost you money.

I recommend Igor Smirnov on Youtube, he brings up some very instructive points in some videos.

Hello my friend! Here are some things I've been doing for the last few weeks to effectively get better at chess, improving overall rating and precision (: 

1: Tactics every day. I've been doing my gold membership limit every day. My puzzle rating went up 300 points in the last 30 days, I am sure this result affects my gameplay.

2: Sistematically apply opening principles. They are the result of hundreds of years of chess games, leading to the most efficient way to win (or not lose). Just saying it because lots of people see those principles as boring rules ( I know this one doesn't apply to you since you already do apply them... right?). 

3: Analyse more games than you play. If you are going to play 10 games today, why don't you analyse 8 games from grandmasters and play only one or two?

4: Every time an opponent plays an opening that is not very clear to you, or an opening that you don't know at all, stop playing (after the game ends) and read one or two articles on that opening. 

5: Play longer games. Like 30 minutes, or more. I used to get bored, but now I don't, you get used to it. Of course be prepared, hydrated, stretched, go to the bathroom first, that kind of stuff.

6: Consider thinking about your routine and alimentation. Are you healthy, body and mind? I'm serious here. I'll also put environment here, for example my neighbourhood is too loud, and I noticed I play better with headphones and some calm music or frequency. 

7: Consider watching at least one lecture a day. About anything related to chess. There's always some endgames to learn.

Yes I'm very low rated but my improvement is getting faster!! I hope at least one tip comes in handy for you. 

Challenge me more often. 

Bye. 

Dear Darkwingdawg,

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 chess games! 

Those are some good points!