Realistic improvement expectations

As always, hicetnunc answers are excellent.

I was thinking some days ago what would happen if I'll stop thinking about "getting to 1500 after one year on chess.com" and focus all my attention on the next move I'll make. It doesn't matter if it's a tactical quiz on chesstempo or it's a 30 min game. Making the best move will take me to a higher rating so I guess it makes sense. 

I have to test this and see what's happening.

Yes, forgetting your rating goals and trying to find good moves is one of the most difficult things in chess 

But performance psychology shows that to get good results, it's better to be focused on the process (what should I play now ?), than the outcome (I want to score 7,5/9 in this tournament so I need a win in this game)

I also like your responses hicetnunc.

This was so obvious in the last days. I was getting close to break the 1.000 chess.com barrier but when I was ~10 points distance my game was a mess.

I've worked my way up twice to 996 and 994 but in the decissive games I've lost against some weaker players. The irony is that I had some nice wins over opponents ~90 points stronger than me before this decissive games. All I wanted to do is to have a 4 digit rating, I was moving like I was playing blitz (30 min game) and the blunders appeared.

I will shift my mentality, as said above, if you focus on finding the best move the rating will take care of himself

you are right the question is just how much. I win 5$ all the time. not exactly millions but it is a win in the lotto.

Thanks hicetnunc for those helpful comments! I will look into getting a coach this season.

I want to join a club (I will move in a few months so I won't look for one before), I will consider getting a coach too once I do, I guess. I am 100% self-taught right now, and I can tell myself that I have more trouble in some areas of the game than I should by now.

You have a good study program and good two quality books which are Nunn's Endgame book and Silman's Reasses Your Chess. I will just suggest one more book it's, How To Become a Deadly Chess Tactician, this book will stimulate your creativity on tactical positions..

This was going to be, essentially, my response.  LOVE the journey and you will find yourself past that last rating plateau you couldn't get over.  I have been telling myself I want to get back to the strength that I used to have.  But, realistically I don't know if I really want that(so much effort)

Apart from that streetfighter... any advices ?

Thanks for the book tip jamby :) I'm definitely desiring to be a deadly tactician! Okay, I'll wait with getting a coach. I just thought it would be a good idea to have bad habits/ideas rooted out early, but I forget how big of a factor play experience is.

I don't know why people say that a coach can't help a new chess player ?! (and once again, Netherlands has a fine chess teaching culture : see for example the Step method used in schools).

Of course, you can argue that the coach isn't worth it because you're on a budget and you don't want to spend money on chess, but honestly, as soon as you play long OTB games, I think analyzing them with a strong chess player that can provide insights, training guidance, reference material, etc. is invaluable.

^Hey! This site advertises you and your glowing quotes, but has your home country wrong!

This is a mistake : my pic has been used for another player - it should be corrected soon.

Your official rating does seem a bit off, but then again, you haven't played a lot of rated otb games.

I personally don't have a rating, but I really liked Chessmaster's advice. I don't study master's games either, I do however like to go over games from Paul Morphy, because they are much more valuable at my level.

Endgame study is probably a good idea, but then again like chessmaster said, maybe 5% out of all my games are decided in the endgame.

I just train a whole lot of tactics, do a bit of opening study, nothing too deep, and just play a hell of a lot on chess.com. Computer analyse my games and try to see why the computer suggest certain moves or why other moves were bad. Usually I go over games myself first if in the game it wasn't really clear to me where I went wrong

It's a mistake, alright. The pic being wrong should be enough to not only make one angry, but, question the site's integrity.

You seem to be OK with it-"it should be corrected soon".

Soon? What is this? Another bug? No.

Love that painting.  All the greats together.  Who did it? 

I don't think age is a barrier to improvement, other than at the highest levels (where these GMs have already hit their peak, and the peak - or near to it - of chess, in their prime years).

For amateurs, like the majority of us, there is such a massive gulf from where we are now to where the great GMs were, before their decline, that there is no reason to expect we can't improve - since we still have so much to learn.

We simply have to work at it harder than youths, and do so within the confines of the time available outside of work and family. This is the real constraint to improvement; if you don't put in the necessary time, because you don't have it or aren't willing to, to do the needed things to improve, then you will plateau or increase in strength very slowly.

Where the individual is motivated, and has some good guidelines to work within as to a proper study plan, then there is no reason not to expect continual improvement. It may be delayed awhile before it happens, or be very gradual, or come in bursts, but I think it will come.

I never played any real chess (in terms of having decent competition to play against) until 1995 - when I started to play on FICS at age 22. At that time, I was about 1000 rated in blitz and about 1400 standard.

Over the next few years (a lot of on and off chess during that period), I got up to about 1200 blitz and 1500 standard. This improvement was mostly experience based: I learned to stop hanging material and developed a simple opening repetoire.

Then many more years of off and on play, and by 2003 I got to about 1300 blitz but stayed close to 1500 standard.

In 2003 I started to study the game: tactics (heavy emphasis there), basic positional and endgame play. By 2004 my rating was up to about 1600 blitz and over 1800 standard. And my style changed: I went from a passive player who won mainly by not hanging my pieces, while defending successfully unsound attacks and picking off hung material, to a very aggressive, tactical player.

Then I stopped playing until June of this year. After a crash course in about 25% of the Chess Mentor modules and the resumption of book study, I recovered much of my playing strength, but there is still room for improvement - I know how to do this (having done it before) and am motivated to do so.

Anyway, this isn't really meant to be inspirational so much as to point out that the study needs, for improvement, of players of different strengths are of course going to be different. And that it may not be easy. And that the biggest impairment to improvement are lengthy absences for play (which I am guilty of).

You will hit plateaus, and you will hit slumps. These are all very frustrating, but also an opportunity to pause briefly to examine the main cause of your losses, and re-evaluate your study plan if necessary.

Also, on a final note: in my experience, its the study of positional play that takes the longest time to become internalized to the point where it makes it into your game and has an impact. Tactical study, again in my experience, provide the most rapid improvement and - according to some authors - are also the building blocks of positional play. So for most, tactics will be the vital area to focus on for improvement; though this doesn't mean strategy should be neglected, it just means that it may take a longer period of time for these ideas to become part of your game.

Just my own 2 cents.

thats what chess.com community is for I agree a coach isn't needed right now if hes below say 1400 cause IF he has internet with all its resources that'll be all he needs beside below 1400 he's gonna hear the same stuff from his coach which is you didnt follow this or that principle which is the same thing a FREE book can tell him.

Lol @streetfighter