The Hardest Question: How to Improve?!

opening study is an easy way for anyone to improve - but after a point it is fruitless

at your level just playing TONS of games is the best way to go 

Like maybe 1,000 or so... :)

If you send me $14.95 in Paypal I will send you a report on how to get people to send you $14.95 in Paypal.

Think

Some of the world champions only played 2000 to 3000 games over their entire chess career. By the time Korchnoi had played 700 games he was a master. The way to improve is to play slow games and analyze them deeply afterwards and never make the same mistakes again if you can help it.

i always heard from experienced people "play slow games or correspondence chess so you can think your moves applying the new knowledge you’re learning and analyze all your finished games" for example my rating went up like 100+ just because i realized i wasn’t aggressive enough when i had a good position. just watch your games and critique them without fear! use a chess engine to easily spot your tactical mistakes... and don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with blitz, they are fun but won’t help you to improve

study 4 hours of chess per day.

One way to improve is to play better.

Muchisimas gracias MDTR, i see the exact same thing, in fact i was analyzing it today: i am not aggressive enough, i play to passive.

Thanks everyone else for their tips

I highly recommend Jeremy Silman's 'How to Reassess Your Chess 4th Edition and any book by Neil McDonald. Also, there is guy on YouTube called the Backyard Proffesor who does analasis based on Silman's chess imbalances method.

The most efficient way to improve is to hire a good coach who can quickly spot the things you're doing wrong and who can suggest new things to learn. Unfortunately, that's also probably the most expensive way to improve.

If you're on a budget like most of us, you might have to make do with books, DVDs, etc. If you can find a stronger mentor who is willing to help a bit from time to time, that would be a plus.

And if you're really on a tight budget, you might have to make do with free information on the net and on forums like this (heaven help you, lol). Dan Heisman has a lot of Novice Nook articles on his web site that discuss improvement, and you can download them for free. (Dan is a very good chess coach, but his time isn't cheap.)

http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/subject.htm

You must be joking.

Here is my take on improving that may help in the long run:

1. Stay focused

2. Study in depth some basic openings like the Spanish, Sicilian, Slav, and Queens gambit.

3. During a game try to control space and plan for an endgame.

4. Experiment your type of play useing 10 minute Blitz . Winning a game in Blitz is of secondary importance.

5. Watch GM games on Utube to get some insight on how they think. Kingcrusher.com has a great library of GM games . The commentator of games is Daniel King. He is really good.

First of all, you should ask yourself that question. Suppose you have a car. There are many features of a car: Speed, safety, comfort, and space. Now what do you want to improve and why. Suppose you want to improve speed. Then you know what to do.

But speed and safety go hand in hand. You don't want to lose a life when you speed. So you have to allocate something for safety. Get an idea?

i don't think memorizing openings improve your chess(unless you're a strong player), 1. you're wasting your time, you should focus on more important things) 2. it just won't really help you anyways. people waste time in things like studying opening traps when in fact they have really little chance of applying them in their games

Well, I just noticed that the OP's account has been closed. I hope our input was helpful to him.

Can't say I can tell if if any benefits are paying off yet but right now at least in my case i'm dedicating hours a day to tactics. In addition some books in my library for which i'm tackling or considering tackling are.

1. Questions of Modern Chess Theory - By Isaac Lipnitsky

2. Secrets of Grandmaster Play - John Nunn & Peter Griffiths

3. The Art of Attack in Chess - Vladimir Vukovic

4. Critical Moments in Chess - Paata Gaprindashivili

5. Pawn Structure Chess- Andrew Soltis

6. "Move By Move" Series - Everyman Chess (Specifically Cyrus Lakdawala)