Looking to improve ranking before OTB play

Long Post but I need help fast and tank you very much to anyone who takes the time to read it!

I have been playing on chess.com for a while but am no looking to get into it a serious hobby. I don't have an OTB ranking righ now but based on experience and what people who are serious chess players have told me I am probably going to fall in the low 1000s (maybe some where between 1000 and 1150. 

I am looking to improve (perhaps to 1500 or at least 1300) before getting involved OTB so I 1 don't embarrass myself and 2 wast money that could have been spent on improving my game instead of spending it on matches I really don't have much of a chance winning. 

Before when I have asked I get the generic answer of " Tactics Tactics Tactics!" and when it comes to openings the genaric answer is always "don't think about openings just learn to understand opening principles." However this just doesn't do it for me I know tactics and opening principles well but my problem is recall speed. When I do tactics puzzles and take my time I have got my tactics rating up close to 2100 and I know what I am doing and why I am doing it but then I decide to time myself and work on my speed then my tactics ranting tanks. So I need some help with board recognition speed and pattern recognition speed.

As far as openings go I like studying them as I understand the principles but also have a lines and a systematic approach I can remember and play so I don't get in trouble. I don't have a repertoire or anything but have been experimenting with openings most recently with white London system, Reti, English, and Italian, and Kings Gambit if I want my tactics exposed with black KID mainly, but also Scandinavian, and Sicilian dragon line.

What advice can you give me to improve my recall speed and maybe settle on an opening repertoire for black and white so I can improve to an 1300-1500 before going to a OTB club game. 

Thanks again!

It looks like you have been here for 10 years and have played 13000+ blitz games and a couple of hundred rapid 10 minute games. Your rating in blitz reached a peak near 900 about five years ago but has declined since then and has been in the 500-600 range for a long time.

Why have you decided to set getting a 1000 rating in over the board chess as a goal? Getting to 1000 won't get you anything. Everyone who is rated 1000 is miserable about not being rated 1200. Every 1200 is miserable about not being rated 1400 and so on.

Do you have friends who play tournaments? Is there a chess club that you enjoy? Hanging out with your friends or at a nice chess club can be a very good thing. But other than that, tournament chess usually involved extra expense for travel, lodging and so on.

But if you just like playing blitz, you can probably do it more easily online.

When people talk about playing over the board chess, I think they are usually talking about playing slower time control tournament games.

You can do that here to some extent. You can play 15 10 games or 30 0 games and see if you can train yourself to use the extra time to double check your moves and cut down on your very high blunder rate. It is hard to find games here with slower time controls than that. You would have to be deliberate about using your extra time. It's no good to play a 30 0 time control and end up with 25 minutes left.

One thing I like to improve tactics recognition is the timed Puzzle Rush. I believe that a few tries at the five minute Puzzle Rush daily improves my tactics a lot more than the slow individually timed puzzles.

the only way to really improve recall speed would be practice, practice, and more practice. the more of the same patterns you see the quicker you will recognize it in a game. Which is why it is important to continue your tactics training.

as for openings, i reccomend the queen's gambit. its easy to learn, provides a stable positional advantage, and plays actively (as compared to the more passive london system).

for black, i reccomend the scandinavian as it avoids a majority of openings that white may prefer, while giving you plenty practical chances. and against 1.d4 i reccomend playing the tarrasch defense as ti will give unexperienced players quite some difficulty.

just remember that at this stage of your chess career your goal in openings is to not be deadlost, so dont spend hours upon hours learning the best top engine moves as it will be a waste of time. However, make sure you know your opening well enough, especially the ideas in the positions (basically jsut use your time wisely).

as for some advice towards improving you should really look at playing slower time controls, playing slow games gives you time to make higher quality moves, and over time you will build good habits which will allow you to identify good moves at a much faster speed. (better to learn right than to learn fast).

good luck with your chessing!

yeah I had friends who played in tournaments when I was in grad school a few years back (those are the guys that said I am probably some where between 1000 and 1150) but none now. However I found a local club I want to get involved in.

Yeah I have played a lot of blitz games but the vast majority of them were games when I was distracted and I was just doing to kill time or when I was board. when I got to 900 I was actually trying a little but got busy with life grad school jobs family and the like. For years I played blitz because I never wanted to devote the time and just wanted a quick game not that I liked it. Now that I am thinking about joining this club I want to get serious though and see what I can actually. However even now blitz is just for blind fun and experimenting. Only my 10min in up games will be one where I am serious about winning as much as I can.

because of this I am thinking seeing if I can erase my history and starting fresh.

Sure I want to get a lot better than a 1200 in the future 1200 is just a short term goal as the guy who runs this club said that is where most peoples should be when they first start out there so I am looking to get to that level as fast as I can to get started at the OTB chess club.

Thank You!

do you think this would be a good set up?

White: London and Queen's Gambit

Black: Scandinavian vs D4 and KID vs E4

the london and queen's gambit are fundamentally different as the london system plays c3, for a solid center and tries to make the majority of play through the center or on the kingside. while the queens gambit plays c4, striking in the center and creating a more active queenside (where your play will likely follow).

I think the queens gambit is the better choice of the two as it teaches you to play more actively and for the center, while the london system allows you to play more passively and you can blitz out the first few moves without care for the opponent's moves, meaning you wont develop as good opening principles which will hurt you in the long run.

as for KID against d4, i dont think would be best for you as it contains many advanced ideas and technique to properly play it. I think it would be best for you to train with the queen's gambit declined (or if you want something more aggressive you could try the dutch or nimzo-indian).

but to be clear. there is nothing wrong with the repitoure you chose, if you play those openings and you enjoy the positions out of them, then they are good choices. there is nothing inherently wrong with them, just that i find them to be not the "best" choice. Really most of your improvement will come from playing slower games, analyzing games, solving chess tactics, and studying middle game.

You must play OTB chess no matter the money. Dont forget that OTB is real chess real people real emotions of long games and this is virtual chess!!

You have it backwards. You will learn more from classical otb games than you do from online blitz. You can take time, calculate more thoroughly, and learn to see more deeply into positions. Ask your opponents to join you in postgame analysis--you'll learn a lot from their explanations of what they were thinking about during play.

Remember that all top GMs honed their skills in hundreds of otb classical play. And they all started by getting their butts kicked by more experienced players, so don't worry about not starting out as a strong player.

Go to the otb tournaments, they are challenging and enjoyable, which is what most of us are looking for in chess.

Play against stronger opponents, and learn from your mistakes.

Openings are not important at all for low level players- there are much more important things to learn.

This would be more typical of me as black (but also one of my better games) when I talk the time to evaluate and really play like I would OTB. "Not that horrible but still pretty bad."

Sure I do dont you?

now look at a game that you lost and without engine try to find where you messed up.

🤣Bro has an 800 rating in puzzles

this was by far one of the most frustrating and embarrassing losses for me when I played today.

what is most frustrating is my losses seem to come from the stupidest overlooks.

1. I missed an obvious checkmate in 1

2. instead of overthinking and trying to do too much in the end game I should have used one of the rooks. to cut off the king from walking down the ranks to assist with the checkmate.

seem to do a lot of this stupidly overlooking opportunities and threats in my losses because i am not paying attention or evaluating enough and i feel i am wasting time as my tactic recall is not fast enough.

Speaking as a chess player who plays quite a lot of OTB games, don't play OTB with a set ELO expectation in mind as you'll just be disappointed, there are so many other factors in OTB that you normally don't have online (just being physically there adds so much pressure, stress, anxiety, etc.), as well as prioritize playing long time controls in OTB (90 minutes or more) which really rounds out your chess skills as you don't find those games online.
Also in official OTB tournaments, they use FIDE ratings which the minimum is 1000, if you're below 1000, you'll remain an "estimated" player so you can play with less pressure. I actually really enjoyed OTB when I was still an estimated player, give it a try!

If 2100 puzzles is a joke rating, then what is yours?

Also it undermines the credibility of your statement.

I can't speak on OTB tournaments, but I can vouch for opening study. There has been a meme in the chess community which advises people against focusing on openings, but you should not neglect opening study. What helped me was creating studies on Lichess which I use to organise my repertoire, I now have openings that I go for against white and black's responses and I have chosen my "main" openings which I focus on the most. Of course I do not focus on trying to memorise 15 or 20 lines like a GM would, but I do focus on the first ten moves or at least first 5 moves of earlier lines, and when I have played an incorrect move that early on in a game I will go back and study my repertoire again after the game, whether or not I won or lost.

All three stages of the game should be studied, and even at a humble rating of 1200 my opening study and opening knowledge (beyond principles but knowledge of actual lines) has helped me in many games

Go for KIA as white and KID as black. They are very similar. Learn them well. Then buy a good beginners book and study it thoroughly with a physical board. Play only long rapid with increment 15 or 30 sec and analyze them. Study the book again. There are no short cuts in chess. Only hard work matters.