Just more chess stuff.

I think I'm somewhere around 700 or so, so I was just wondering how much you have to know to get to 14 or 1500.

From what I've heard, you need a coach

Bull, and that's not what I'm asking.

I can NOT believe nobody is rated high enough to be able to answer this question!

You have to know how the pieces move to get to 1500.  That is about the extent of my chess knowledge, anyway. 

Don't give your opponent free pieces. That should get you to around 1700 as far as I can tell from the players on this site... But if you only want to reach the 1400/1500 level, you can hang a knight every now and then if you feel like it.

How do you go about securing your pieces, then? Double-check your moves, and think of what you would do if you were your opponent. If you're thinking, "I will set up an attack on his king over the next five moves no matter what my opponent does", and he's thinking, "Hey! Free rook!", then he's got the best of you.

I wasn't talking about a rating on here. I meant FIDE or USCF.

Don't hang pieces and you're set.

 That doesn't explain a thing, and you know it, so why bother answering?

WOW! woodshover already has played 4 games on Chess.com. Much more profound advice is required.

Just tell what's required. If you're not rated that high, why answer?

14-1500 is pretty low for an OTB player's rating, indeed until very recently FIDE didn't even publish ratings that low. If you were to join a chess club and listen carefully to the good players, you're talking about 18 months play, with little study.

p.s. Assuming average aptitude, obviously one cannot fashion a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Read a good book like MY SYSTEM by Nimzovitch.

 I know it's considered pretty low, and I wasn't even asking for my benefit. I just know somebody who says they're "Pretty good" but they have never played in a tournament or even on line. Just with a few of his friends, yet he thinks he would be good enough to be competitive if he wanted to.

A very common misconception. I was my school chess champion at 11 and thought I was good (I could beat everyone I knew), joined an adult chess club and scored 0.5/16 in my first year of rated competition. It's all about the size of pool you swim in.

 I got the impression, his pool is pretty small. What was your rating when you were school champian?

All the games were played within the school, we had never even heard of ratings.

I never even heard of chess when I was in school. If they had it, they didn't let me in on it. LOL.

Alright, I'm going to be honest, for me to get to a rating of 1400 on chess.com I watched the first board player at my high school who is a 1900 over the board, every single day for 3 whole years. Then I constantly played, like 200 games to get up to a 1600 rating. For my average rating I worked for years playing chess. So the true answer to how you become a good chess player is dedication. There is no other answer.

going from 700-14/5 ish?

really its all about tactics to get there. just basic stuff.. first not blundering the pieces and notice how everything "connects" with one another. next bust out the basic tactics book and have them learn all the themes and have them set up their own tactics with those themes (just the important pieces) continue doing basic tactics from the polgar book, and get another non- mate book to show other ideas as well

as for the phases of the game, to get to 1500-

openings- they dont need to know much about openings in terms of names/variations.. its really all about the basic principles. time,space,center,king safe, pawn structure. everytime they want to waste away with learning theory they are yet ready for just ask what priciples are good and bad for any move. they will learn that nothing can be perfect and that its give and take .. really just need to get to the opening in one piece. this might even be a bit much.

middlegame- not worth to do anything more than the tactics here for awhile. maybe show them knight outposts or whatnot, but nows where they just have to hit the combos and avoid the blunders that have been keeping the player down.

endgame- no K+B+N vs lone K timewasters here. just the basic K+p vs K, and the Philidor + Lucena position.. so many players higher mess that up.then they need to learn the few basics (king goes to center etc.)

but if thats to much for them to do then just tactics and they will get there. thats just the most effective way IMO. hope that helps