Most effective chess improvement strategy

Hello, I am a kid with a USCF rating of 1341 (WA scholastic of 1419), and I was wondering what would be the most  effective training method. If anyone knows of any books/software/study methods that you think would help, please tell me!

You could try setting up a home computer to run analysis on your practice games. A modern desktop PC has more than adequate processing power for the task. A decent laptop can probably handle it as well, if you have one of those instead. I always play a much stronger game after seeing where I'm going wrong with that.

Chessbase products have a really good user interface and are great for running full game analysis. (If you go to buy chessbase software, make sure you get the USA site. If you buy in euros, the exchange rate will kill you!) A few choices on engines to pick from. When it comes to just analyzing a specific position, I tend to prefer Arena 3.0 for the task.

Also, give the Tactics Trainer on this site a try if you haven't already. That's about the extent of my own wisdom on the matter. I'm still learning the ropes, myself.

Yep you'll definately have a higher title than the author of those books.

Playing a lot OTB and analyzing with stronger players is the winning strategy for you.

If you're ready to put in more effort, you can use one of the packages referenced here.

If you're a kid then improvement will be easy. Just do tactics puzzles and play.

Get a diamond membership if your really serious. Than spend about 30-45 minutes doing tactics trainer each day, play about 300-500 games of cc, play some 30|15 all day on the weekends and use chess mentor. Enter as many OTB and Online tournaments as possible, and ANALYIS ANALYIS ANALYIS!!!

This is what I would do if I could be bothered

You need my 60 memorable games by Bobby Fischer

tactic practices and analyze your games

... JED!

I have read some of Silman's books. I haven't looked at The Amateur's Mind yet, but I have heard that it is good. It is also helpful that I have a chess club a few blocks away where I can play slow games against experienced opponents, also.