Tactics, Tactics Tactics! And the Tactics.
Play a lot and try to analyze your games. Especially your losses! Do not use any engine analyzing your game before working really hard on the games.
Do not spend too much time on openings. I think it is enough to try to find where you left "Book Theory" in your games and find the "Book Move". Maybe spend some extra time on analyzing why the book move is stronger than your move.
I hope that helps.
I have been working on the tactics trainner for about two weeks and was able to get it up to 1185 last night. I dont really understand what that means though... How do I go about analizing my games?
Try to make your analysis to be a road map of your thought process. "I did this move in order to....", "These were my alternatives as I saw it...."
I always try to make some conclusions from my games. "In this games I learned..."
Also, Do not be prestigous! Post your analysis and invite other to review your thought process. It takes some Hippo Skin on the selfestem (spelling?) since some people might be rude (darn trolls!) but there are tons of helpfull people willing to chip in!
I am recently getting back into chess and bought all Yasser Seirawan's winning chess book series and was wondering if anyone had thoughts on what order I should read them in? I am assuming Play winning chess first... Also any thoughts on developing a study, practice and play system to getting better. What has worked best for you are thoughts that would be good for someone like me. Should I just start paying a lot online? I seem to be trying to protect my little score online. I have then new chessmaster and fritz 11. Thanks for any input!