Improving at chess

Player longer time control games to start. Dedicate some time each day to study the game, dividing the time between opening, middle and endgame studies. Go through your opening. Are each of your opening moves adhering to good opening principles. Play for development rather than fast attacks. In the middle game try to move your pieces to more active squares before launching an attack. Most players at your level are not good at closed positions so use that to your advantage. Play through as many endgames as possible. Balance study with actual play. Repeat, do not play fast games. While Blitz is fun, it can actually reinforce bad habits. Study master level games. Watch videos, especially those of IM Andrew Martin, who provides great explanations to every move made in the game!

i see many good ideas here especially the poster who recommended studying tarrasch's ideas.

i agree with andrei_vine that silman is just a lot of bullcrap. yet a lot of people swear by him. my coach insists that silman is even better then kotov and my coach is a brilliant player, being capable of playing 8 games simultaneously blindfolded!

i am personally still undecided about silman. personally i like gufeld's chess strategy. but i still have a nagging feeling that i need to perfect the basics first!

i think at one point of time karpov was asked how one should train at chess and he said not to forget the classics-nimzowitsch, tarrasch, capablanca, alekhine.

my personal favorite player is alekhine.

Thank you, Tac, for the above-stated comment.  That's great advice...but I have one question. 

Why do you distinguish between "not correspondence" and longer live games?  Aren't they about the same?

What do you mean?  I do not understand these nasty personal attacks?

And I can only assume "donkeypunch_anna" knows all about nasty personal attacks.

Good advice here about how to improve at chess. Stop picking on DonkeyPUnch just because she is a girl. It isn't nice and pretty soon guys we wont have any lovely ladies gracing us with their presence if you keep acting childish!

I'm not qualified enough to argue with what many great playeres here have said but I myself love Silman's books,I nver get bored while reading them and Ive found it helpful too,but maybe that's just me.

I love to play blitz too. I have found that it makes you lazy. 30 min games are still pretty fast and they turn into blitz games in no time at all. Blitz is observation, slower games gets the strategy going. I will never stop playing blitz although.

IMO Silman's idea at its core is obviously correct.  Assessments and plans exist because there are differences between the two positions.  Whether you want to break it into 7 imbalances, more, or less, the ideas (expressed though the moves) are all true.  And things like pawn structure, initiative, and superior minor pieces inarguably exist in chess.

In practice things like concrete variations, referencing long term memory, and even intuition may have more to do with finding good moves.  And it's true players often obfuscate what went on during a game, to themselves as much as anyone, by wrapping a narrative around the sequence of moves.  I think Silman's imbalances are aptly described this way.  But the "truth" that's lost through his translation is only to make certain ideas accessible to newer players.  I would never try to stick to his system rigidly when playing a game, but the ideas that exist in the moves and positions he shows are real and make for good instructional material.

Common sense would suggest that learning from multiple sources might be better than sticking to one regimen.  I am always torn between wanting to complete a series of books (Yusupov comes to mind along with others) or to alternate among many recommended authors and books.  In the end, it's a matter of hard work more than a specific source.  There is no other way IMO.

LOL jesterville