Improvement

This question is for all those out there that are rated very high on here.

i really love chess, and really devote myself to the game. I play about 2 hours a day, i study my old games, i have a couple books i have read, i try to analyze old games, do puzzles all the time, and i have Chessmaster on Xbox that has a great tutorial by josh Waitzkin that i review a lot.  I think i understand the game pretty well, like tactics and arsenal and stuff, but for some reason im not rated very high/don't seem to be progressing like i think i should.

Any advice to give me to help me improve?  or am i just expecting to much and not being patient enough?

I would suggest either hiring the services of a chess coach, or going through these articles, and see if the answer is not hidden somewhere in there

yeah, a chess coach would be nice

and thanks for that article! i read the ones associated with it too.

What books do you have? It might be worth focusing on specific areas

um. dont remember the names exactly. i know they are by Josh Waitzkin. three books to be exact. i read through each of them once, don't really look at them anymore

I would advise improving your middlegame play. If you have the money neccessary, go out and buy The Amateurs Mind by Jeremy Silman. This book is very readable and greatly improved my play when I was 1300 uscf and it will teach you all you need to know about positional play for the moment. I would also suggest buying a tactical puzzle book (a very good one I know of is 303 Tricky Tactics) and work through it multiple times, this will help your tactics out immensely.

If you are feeling extra ambitious you could also buy Silman's complete endgame course and learn how to play the endgame. The material is not very hard, but you will receive a wealth of new information about endgames that you did not previously know. It is also very readable and understandable.

Thanks a lot.

i will look into those books for sure. thanks.

I notice that the majority of your games are 10 0. Though this is slower than most of the games played here at chess.com, it is TOO FAST to be the ONLY TYPE of game you play. Fast games - and 10 0 is fast - will TEST your current strength, yes. It will allow you to see what kind of responses that typical opponents will make to your opening ideas, yes. It will allow you to learn how to make moves more quickly when you need to, yes. It will NOT give you the time to learn how to think at the board, consider candidate moves, follow them out with analysis, and evaluate the resulting quiescent positions (see Dan Heisman at ChessCafe for this notion). You MUST play slower chess to develop these critical skills.

SO, ... what is SLOWER chess? At least G/30 or G/60. At least. The slower the better. Admittedly, playing slow games on Live Chess here is done at peril (Beta version, remember). But there is no other way to truly improve the skills I mention above OTHER than giving your brain the time it needs to do this work.

I am confident that any strong player will concur with this notion.

yeah, i agree.  I always find that i wish i had more time in analyzing the position and considering other moves and following lines more, but i cant. 

ill switch it up. thanks