Serious request for suggestions to reach 2000

I recently decided to take the game more seriously, so I'm hoping you chess lords out there can offer some advice.

***A little about me***

I've been a casual player for several years; skimmed a chess book here and there; and recently hit a growth spurt (about 1550ish). I only play 10 minute rapid because I prefer to finish a game before next century.

***What I'm currently doing***

I'm studying a couple openings that appeal to me (King's Gambit and Scandinavian Defense), and I started analyzing my games up to the first move that is innacurate or worse, using an engine to help generate insights. My biggest weakness right now is hanging pieces, so I'm trying to develop the habit of doing a quick, final sanity check before I execute each move.

Are there any general themes/ideas someone in my range should be working on?

Thank you for your thoughts!

Drop the Scandinavian.  You are losing more than you are winning.

The main activities are playing, study, and drills.
The main areas of study are openings, strategy, tactics, and endgames.

"Play" is ideally longer time control games (not blitz or bullet)
By "drills" I mostly mean tactics, but you can also drill endgames or openings if you want.

If you're below 2000 and you're "stuck" then pick your weakest area (it's probably strategy or endgames and is probably not openings) and get a well respected book, and study it. Also play a lot of games and try not to repeat the same mistakes more than a few times.

And in general, the "trick" is to worry about what you learn, and your rating will take care of itself.

So for example, someone who doesn't improve much might think in terms of "I do 10 tactic puzzles every day."

But someone who improves a lot will think in terms of "Before I solve any new puzzles today, I'll review all the ones I missed a few days ago." The point is to learn.

play a lot (preferably 15 + 10 or slower, do post mortems of all your games with the engine (but be active, not just check evals each move, analyze the eval of candidate moves and ideas/concerns you had). Learn your openings fairly well. read silman's endgame guide and do chesstempo tactics, thats all you will nneed to reach 2000

I began training with a National Master when I was around the 1400 range. The first thing we did was sit down and figure out a repertoire that I wanted to stick to.

This meant:

1 main white opening

1 main e4 defense

1 main d4 defense

He then put my name on three different 3-ring binders = one binder for each opening/defense in my repertoire.

All my games played were then printed, hole-punched, and placed into the appropriate binder.

Every game of note was then reviewed and analyzed, at our next meeting, using the key ideas we went over for each opening's positional goals.

A lot of players say "Don't study openings!", but for me, this opening-specific approach to chess gave me my biggest leap in understanding and improvement.

If you don't have a coach, the next best thing would be books or video resources - about your specific openings of choice. Learn whatever you can manage about each opening you plan to play ... and use these ideas as a guidepost when analyzing and reviewing your games.

In addition (always useful): tactics and basic endgames.

Ok but, I don't think anyone disputes that learning the middlegame ideas associated with an opening is bad. It's very good, and is called middlegame / strategy / positional study.

Most opening books / videos are low effort garbage that don't have that.

It's also valuable at your level to vary your opening systems a lot, so you learn to play chess rather than the book stuff. Also try the less conventional ones so you learn how to get out of certain situations on your own. The Mokele-Mbembe in the Alekhine's, the Jalalabad Sicilian, Mafia Defense, Black Knight's Tango, Owen's Defense, or the Norwegian Rat, for example.

Thank you all for the excellent feedback! Sounds like perhaps I should consider some longer timed games, at least until better gameplay becomes more natural... Here is how I will proceed:

Goal I

1. Description
   1. Establish better habits during gameplay.
2. Action Steps
   1. For every turn, evaluate every possible move of each of your pieces, from left to right, top to bottom.
   2. Implement a quick, final sanity check before executing each move to assure you are not hanging a piece.

Goal II

1. Description
   1. Develop a repertoire consisting of at least one opening as White and at least one defense as Black.
2. Actions Steps
   1. Study a particular opening/defense and various lines via a book written by a GM.
   2. Analyze games and various lines with an engine (analyze gameplay at least up to first move that is inaccurate or worse).

Goal III

1. Description
   1. Improve in one of the following via drills/puzzles: tactics, endgame.
2. Actions Steps
   1. Review Silman's endgame guide.
   2. Practice a few tactic puzzles each day.

That's extremely thorough, but would be too mentally tiring (in my opinion).

More manageable is to:

- Identify the immediate needs of the position (either positional or tactical ideas that would improve or weaken the position)

- Consider the most forceful moves first (sacrifices, captures, tactically-forcing moves, and checks) that respond to the position's needs

- Consider less forceful moves next, but moves that still respond to the needs that you identified

- Other moves (that don't respond to the immediate needs of the position) are rarely considered, or not considered at all.

(If there's tactical tension on d6, for example, there's very little reason to be pondering the a2 pawn ...)

How to identify the needs of the position? Well ... the answer to that is something that you'll figure out as you gain more experience. It's a continuous process of learning that never really ends ...

Agreed.

Though, I like to recommend Fundamental Chess Openings (by Sterren) as a good starting point, as it walks a nice middle-ground line - giving a decent grasp of various openings and their common ideas, into the start of the middle-game, without being too overwhelming.

Strong players would scoff at it for being too basic, but strong players generally don't need opening books by that point ...

This sounds like much more efficient and useful search of the state space. I'm taking note! thank you

You need to decrease the space between your eyes, they're way too far apart.

Strategy/ pawn structures. If you can understand it decently well, you will never need to spend much time on opening study before being able to play the opening competently.

I used to be an openings buff (I still am). I like to look at lines and new ideas and try them out- it’s great fun. I played the alekhines defense for much of my chess career (1300-2300 online). Recently (this July) I dropped the opening in favor of the sicilian kalashnikov, which would usually be a tough transition, but surprisingly enough i needed to know much less theory when playing the sicilian compared to the alekhine, because I spent a lot of time studying the najdorf structures. In OTB Play, i do not think the alekhine has won me any games,(but I did draw a 2100) yet the kalashnikov has already netted me a few wins. Switching to the KID around the same time has given me similar results due to similar reasons, and I don’t even have a book for either opening.

If you can be proficient enough in understanding different pawn structures, even if it doesn’t single-handedly boost you to 2000, there can only be benefits.

The book I use is “Chess structures” By Mauricio Flores Rios.

I mean some of those people had advice to offer (others didn't). What did you bring to the party?

Because if you discretely hit on the profile and see how not to play against the Sicilian is suffice. There is a saying on the streets “talk is cheap”.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/60288716349?username=never_underrated

Maybe I was a little higher rated than you at the time, but at some point this helped me... I would play games asking myself two questions before I made a move "does this move make sense tactically?" and "does this move make sense strategically?"

The first question was the basic blunder check. The 2nd question makes more sense after you're studied some kind of strategy book. A lot of people praise Kmoch's Pawn Power book (I read Soltis' Pawn Structure book which is also good)... I mention them because I assume a lot of less experienced players probably don't consider how useful it is to read a book about pawns.

Scandinavian players always seem to be the ones that don't know how to play chess after the opening.

Its rather simple for slower time controls. Just don't blunder and wait for your opponent to blunder. Studying openings below 2000 is just like watching paint dry, its a completely useless activity and gives absolutely 0 benefits long or short term

@1

"I only play 10 minute rapid because I prefer to finish a game before next century."
++ If you can switch to 15|10. That is better for progress.

"I'm studying a couple openings" ++ That is useless.

"I started analyzing my games" ++ Yes, analyse your lost games to learn from your mistakes.

"My biggest weakness right now is hanging pieces"
++ As long as you hang pieces and pawns all the rest is in vain.

"I'm trying to develop the habit of doing a quick, final sanity check before I execute each move." ++ That is very good.

"Are there any general themes/ideas someone in my range should be working on?"
++ Tactics and endgames.