Trying to reach 1500.

Well, I'm 9 points away from hitting 1500 and I've been playing chess  a lot for 3 maybe 4 months now. I can tell you what I did which doesn't mean it's the best but I found it to be the most fun. I watched a lot of Saint Louis games from Ben Finegold and some other coaches, also I watched a lot of Agadmator videos where I got some idea for a lot of moves and stuff, I have weak opening knowledge so that's not where I excel (more so into endgames because I studied that the most), my favorite thing to watch was Capablanca games because I found myself to be something similar to him and his playstyle seemed to be one I understood the most (simply attacking isn't the thing I developed yet, I eventually watch some Tal games but those games don't teach me much, just they're fun and fascinating with a lot of risks that I usually don't take). Also study tactics from any website really, there are tons. Last thing is try to play 10 minute blitz or 15 minute rapid, anything lower than that won't teach you much and I'd guess that when you play vs your dad you won't have clock with 3 minutes and such stuff, rather more casual game where you both drink something and have a good laugh. Good luck and keep playing, you can go far if you keep interest, I learned that even if you think you suck now in anything you do when your mind gets that "boom" moment you will rapidly improve and that helped me be motivated in many things.

Here;s what I did to reach 1500:

1hour of tactics a day. 1 15|10 chess game a day, 30 minutes of annotating the game afterwards, without the computer I was able to get there pretty eisaly

Also, do not play blitz/bullet. Period.

I can give you some insight, if you accept an opinion of someone who is not yet 1 500, but who will try to do it eventually. I started (or should I say restarted) playing chess after around 20 years of hiatus since my elementary school. I knew the rules back then, knew some concepts of the opening and strategy, but at the very basic level. In a few days it will be 6 months since I took up chess yet again. I started with 1 000 rapid rating, and a few days ago I managed to go over 1 400. I am sure that rating will fluctuate a lot, but I feel the difference between now and then (I am still pretty bad, but surely better than in the beginning).

I will give you a few tips:

Don't study specific opening lines. Learn just opening fundamentals, and build up gradually (low level players will probably benefit from tactics training and strategy ideas).

What I did, and still do is this:

1. Solve tactical puzzles every day (not many... in the beginning I did it one hour per day, now I solve around 5 puzzles per day, not more than that). There are various options for tactical training. I use  Chess Tempo site for this. You need to really try hard to solve a puzzle, don't just guess. 

2. Play longer time control games here (I try to play one game per day, but that is one hour per side game, if you don't have the time, don't play every day, or play 30 minute games). Don't play blitz and bullet, that is probably fun but it is just "blunderfest" for our level. If you don't have the time, don't play every day. Analyze your games.  You can go through them without an engine first, just to see what you did and ask yourself why. Try to see where it went wrong if it did, after that use an engine (I use PGN chessbook). Engine is great to see if you missed some tactics in the game. Try out your own ideas for moves you or your opponent could do, and see what engine thinks about those ideas.   

3. Watch some instructional youtube content when you have the time. I could propose these channels and playlists:

Chessnetwork - Beginner to chess master playlist

John Bartholomew - Climbing the rating ladder playlist, Chess fundamentals playlist, standard games playlist (check this out after you go through the first 2, as here you can see the thought process of an extremely strong chess player. This list is making a lot of difference for me). These 3 playlists are gold, but his over the board analysis of his own games are really enjoyable in my opinion.  

Hanging pawns channel - Chess middlegame ideas playlist is amazing. Apart from that he has endgame playlist which I didn't check out, but I believe it is great as well, and opening playlists (but those are for later, as I said opening lines are not that important for us who wants to improve to 1 500).

There are more channels out there, but those will occupy months of your time.

Good luck.

1500 otb, or 1500 chesscom? There’s a big difference. 
irl I’m around 1800-1900, but I’m chesscom, I’m 2200+ blitz on a good day (in the bad days, such as today, I play like a 500 lul).

it took me two years to get from 600 chesscom and otb here, so that’s what? Around 267 points per 4 months? It’s definitely easier to improve at the lower levels though, so I think if you put a lot of time into it and play a lot, you definitely have a shot.

thanks. ill focus on puzzles. Think ill pass with the coach for now at that price lol

Thanks haha, Guess ill try beat him next december then

As long as you're within a few 100 points a win is possible.

But yes, if you want to beat him 3, 4, 5 times in a row then I think you'll need more time if he's 1500

of course i will accept your advice, thanks for sharing it

You're welcome. I wish you best of luck luck and a lot of fun in achieving your goal. That is the most important thing after all.

thanks. i dont think it will happen my dad is very competitive and if i beat him it will motivate him to improve so he can get revenge, anyways i will be carefukl not to chase him away

everyone tells me no bullet, so i know that you are correct. may i ask out of curiosity why bulet is bad?

Because you are getting used to speed chess and blitzing (in this case I would say bulleting ) out moves. To really improve, you should look at the board at any given move and think a bit about the position, about forcing moves and potential tactics, bad pieces, weak squares, pawn structures etc. Even in the long games you will still make blunders, but it will be more rare. On quicker time controls you will not play quality games (the most quality games you are able to of course). You will blunder a lot, miss mate in 1, hang your queen regularly etc.

It is a lot tougher to progress that way. It is much better to play longer time control games. Bullet and blitz are ok for very good players, and even them can hurt their chess in the long run if they play too much bullet and blitz compared to classical chess. 

I think it's possible to go from 1100 to 1500 online rating in 4.5 months, if you study hard for 8-10 hours per day. You'll have to take chess extremely seriously and you'll probably have to invest money in a coach too, but it's possible.

As you get higher rated though, it takes longer and longer to improve. I'm going to say that 1500 to 1900 rating in 4.5 months is practically impossible, but 1100 to 1500 rating in that time can be done, if you play chess all day every day, and analyse/study the game seriously.

ok makes sense thanks

1500 otb i suppose. my dad played at a club and was onne of the better players and they say an average club player is 1500. you progressed really quicklywell done

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It depends man, I mean how many of the fundamentals do you know? When I started playing on here I hadn't played for 20 years, I knew all the moves, I knew how to calculate, end games, and an opening but I learnt lots more playing and analysing.