Stuck Under 1300 for 16 Years!

Anyways I'm going to sum up my time on chess.com and how I got 2000+ ratings across the board then

PART l: Normal school

First year Mar 2018: Joined chess.com and played 10/0 games since I thought it was long enough. After a few weeks I started playing 30/0 and 15/10 since it helped my thinking. I grinded there for a few months but didn't really improve from 1200-1500 range. During these first 6 months, I played 2 hours a day (hardly enough) doing 5 puzzles per day too.

Second year Jan 2019: Next year or so, I work on my bullet and blitz playing much more games and still 2 hours a day. My blitz and bullet went to 1500-1600 or something. I also did tactics daily. Blitz and bullet really helped me learn openings (its sounds crazy IK) but I made mistakes and experimented granting me knowledge of what to do and not to do. I also threw in a rapid game from time to time.

Third year Sept 2019: Year 3 comes along and I get my blitz and bullet to around 1800 and I think to work on my rapid. I play some games but its mainly blitz and bullet. At this time I'm also grinding puzzles with my membership and I get to around 2000 puzzles. 

During these first 3 years I also took group chess classes and played local chess tournaments around 3 times per month. 

OTB rating at this time: 1400

Main opening: Italian game & mix and match as black

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Part ll: Pandemic

Pandemic part 1 Sept 2021: With the pandemic on, I had a lot more time to be on the computer. This was also the time where I joined chess.com leaugues which really grew my interest in chess (like NSPCL and CSL). I was still popping rapid from time to time but pizzles and speed chess were my main at this time.

Pandemic part 2 Nov 2020: This is the time where I played all 3 times controls at a even amount. My 2 speed ratings were around 1900+ at this time but my rapid was still at 1400. So using my opening knowledge and tactics, I stormed through to 1700 in a matter of a few days. I then grinded this to this day.

During the pandemic times, I played online canadian and american chess tournaments both rapid and classical

Online (Canadian) rating at this time: 1700

Main opening: Italian game & e5 or kings indian

Ok so

1. NO games 10|0 or lower

2. One hour a day isn't enough. Try to aim for 1 hour a day of puzzles, and 1 hour a day of games, and 30 minutes a day of studying.

3. Before you make a move, make sure to check for your opponent's threats

4. Don't play useless moves. Try to have a plan in mind.

Anyways I'm going to sum up my time on chess.com and how I got 2000+ ratings across the board then

PART l: Normal school

First year Mar 2018: Joined chess.com and played 10/0 games since I thought it was long enough. After a few weeks I started playing 30/0 and 15/10 since it helped my thinking. I grinded there for a few months but didn't really improve from 1200-1500 range. During these first 6 months, I played 2 hours a day (hardly enough) doing 5 puzzles per day too.

Second year Jan 2019: Next year or so, I work on my bullet and blitz playing much more games and still 2 hours a day. My blitz and bullet went to 1500-1600 or something. I also did tactics daily. Blitz and bullet really helped me learn openings (its sounds crazy IK) but I made mistakes and experimented granting me knowledge of what to do and not to do. I also threw in a rapid game from time to time.

Third year Sept 2019: Year 3 comes along and I get my blitz and bullet to around 1800 and I think to work on my rapid. I play some games but its mainly blitz and bullet. At this time I'm also grinding puzzles with my membership and I get to around 2000 puzzles. 

During these first 3 years I also took group chess classes and played local chess tournaments around 3 times per month. 

OTB rating at this time: 1400

Main opening: Italian game & mix and match as black

============================================================

Part ll: Pandemic

Pandemic part 1 Sept 2021: With the pandemic on, I had a lot more time to be on the computer. This was also the time where I joined chess.com leaugues which really grew my interest in chess (like NSPCL and CSL). I was still popping rapid from time to time but pizzles and speed chess were my main at this time.

Pandemic part 2 Nov 2020: This is the time where I played all 3 times controls at a even amount. My 2 speed ratings were around 1900+ at this time but my rapid was still at 1400. So using my opening knowledge and tactics, I stormed through to 1700 in a matter of a few days. I then grinded this to this day.

During the pandemic times, I played online canadian and american chess tournaments both rapid and classical

Online (Canadian) rating at this time: 1700

Main opening: Italian game & e5 or kings indian

The rapid games you play are still only 10 minute games, which most would still consider to be speed chess.

Generally when people recommend playing long time controls, 10 minutes is the absolute bare minimum, with 15|10 or longer games being preferable.

Also, 48 hours across 7 months is pretty sparse.

I probably spend around 2-3 hours on Chess a day, working through tactics on here and in a book (The Woodpecker Method if you’re interested) and playing practice games in 15 minute time control against 2000+ engines, and then proceeding to analyze the games.

This means that I am putting more time into Chess in 1 month than you did in 7 months.

And I am not an outlier by any means.


For instance, I heard from B1ZMARK that he worked on Chess an average of 8 hours a day in the summer, meaning he worked on Chess more in a week than you did in 7 months.

I also saw a thread by Marqumax saying he was considering solving tactics for 6-8 hours a day if it would help him improve.


Both of these players are around the 2200 mark in online ratings, last year B1ZMARK was 1600 rapid and Maks was 1400 rapid.

Of course, these are rather extreme cases of improvement by very passionate and hard working hobby players, who are both aspiring for titles in the future, but that’s just to give you an example of how difficult chess is to improve at.

This isn’t to slight you by saying you are lazy, just putting into perspective the hours one has to put in to significantly improve in a reasonable time frame.

Reading a few chapters from a single book isn’t going to do you much good, I’ve heard higher rated players (2000 FIDE) recommend lower rated players (such as you and I) to read My System cover to cover multiple times to fully assimilate the crucial knowledge within.

Also, I hope you aren’t playing puzzles like a guessing game, wherein you play the first promising move you find without fully calculating the line to it’s conclusion.

Fully calculating lines is much more instructive and helpful, both for your pattern recognition (as it happens, thinking longer and harder on a given pattern has a way of cementing that patter in your mind) as well as your calculation skill, which is an important skill to possess.

Since I started solving puzzles that way I’ve become much sharper in a short time frame of about two months.

I went from being slightly worse than the Antonio bot in playing strength to casually destroying it (him?) almost every time I played in a span of just two months.

I understand that you, like many people may not have the time or interest to put in several hours of chess study a day, and that’s perfectly fine, you are still a fair bit better than average on chess.com, so even you stop improving altogether you are by no means a weak player compared to the average joe.

All in all, there is nothing wrong with you, you are most likely a perfectly competent person, and there is no secret that you are missing to improve at chess, it’s all just hard work, and the closest thing to a shortcut there is would be to hire a coach.

Best of luck to you, and I hope this was at least a bit helpful. :)

1300 is a sign of frequent blunders.
Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it.
This little mental discipline is enough to get to 1500.
As long as you hang pieces and pawns all the rest is in vain.

I know there are other threads out there about not improving and being stuck, but I'm convinced no story is as scary as this. Not even asking specifically for advise to fix my problem, but mainly what anyone might think be the plausible cause(s). Here's some background. I started playing  chess at age 5. In between then and seven months ago, I'd played a lot very sporadically and studied almost none. The minimal studying and thousands of games in the past seemed to have barely improved me, but eight months ago I'd decided to give studying an honest try.

I hear people say that one should easily climb past 1500 or 1600 with simple tactical skills gained through puzzles. So I started solving puzzles. Steadily improved and made it past a puzzle rating of 2000 over those seven months and 48 combined hours. I also read a couple chapters from Nimzovich's 'My System' about passed pawns, pawn chains, discover checks, etc, and went above and beyond by studying a bit of opening theory, watching masters' games, and analyzing most of my games. I play a lot of bullet, but have been doing rapid as well and trying to implement my new tactical skills, which I know I have. I encourage anyone to look at my stats. My rapid rating is barely higher than when I started my account six years ago. It is improving slightly, but at this rate it'll take a year to reach 1400.

I'm really interested to understand what's going on mentally with me. When I play against someone say 1500, they seem almost infallible. I can hardly catch mistakes and take advantage. I know they're making tactical mistakes though. I, on the other hand, exert so much energy on every move, but will slip up on one or two moves which the other player will instantly take advantage of. I think I might be a less visually oriented person than average. Is it possible for someone to just posses an immutable inability to play chess? Is this normal? I don't think I'm doing anything wrong.