Hey Elijah!
1. I saw you've been enjoying bullet. It's currently my highest rating (in standard chess, even then it's not that high...), but does it actually help you improve? If so, how?
2. Do you think variants of chess help you improve? I know puzzles allow you to recognize certain patterns like back rank mates, that weird one where you check with the rook on the back rank, then check with queen on diagonal and take that one pawn 2 squares away from the king to win the game (you know it), etc. and I've been able to implement many of those tactics in game, but I'm not sure about variants.
3. Why do my game reviews always say I play like a 1200-1500 when I'm only 800? Am I too low rated or is the game review 'estimated rating' wrong?
Bullet helps me apply tactics and get faster at pattern recognition. I apply ideas I'm learning by speedrunning many "simple puzzles" apps on 'Chess King' and ChessIMO, and also learning openings this way, by playing my real openings in most or all games, at least I have been so far, and sometimes checking after. In good form, it can feel like a real game for me, actually.
I don't really play chess variants, I'm not sure if they would help progress or not. As an improving teenager, I avoided bughouse to focus more on classical, and I am happy with my decision then.
I'm not sure how game review rating estimates work. Maybe someone else can answer that.
how was the daily puzzle? was it hard for you?
beautiful concept. Quickly found the idea, and when blitzing moves, mixed up the implementation.