What do you think is the fastest way to improve your chess game?

The routine I follow is the following:

1 Hour study/play per day consisting of:

- Passing at least 3 tactic trainer exercises

- Make my chess.com moves.  (I keep my games to 5 so that I can have bit more time to study the position.  It helps with my openings.)

- One 10 min game in chess.com

For the rest of the hour (+-15min) I study an endgame book.

Getting yelled at by stronger players about the mistakes you are making until you fix them to stop their incessant yelling.

This has been working for me  :)

it is a MULTI-ANSWER question..

1) Study and drill tactics (books to learn and software to drill)

2) Study and practice endgames (books to learn and software to test)

3) Play games against slightly better opponents, with at least 20 min per side

4) Analyze all your losses and learn from them

5) Study master-strength games using an appropriate move-by-move explanatory book:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/move-by-move-books

Tactics... And Endgame...

tactics

You have missed the single fastest way: studying tactics.

I go for your # 10 Others...

1st:  read Chess Fundamentals by Capablanca

2nd: read My System by Nimzovich

3rd:  read at the Wikipedia (at least) the mainlines of your favorite openings, for example the Sicilian, Caro-Kann

... then play a maximum of 5 rated games, for focus

Difficult question. Everyone is totally different.  I've gained 425 USCF rating points in the last 365 days after spending the entire 2008 rated in the 1200's, I'm now at a solid 1643.  I don't think I've done an obscene amount of study or work but I can tell you what I've done.

1200-1300 - Slow DOWN.  I was playing way way too fast at the board. Once I started using most of my clock my rating jumped almost 100 points instantly.

1300-1400 - Did the first 300 problems of Polgar's Chess 5334 problems about 5 times.  This really concreted mating patterns in my mind and helped me understand how pieces worked together. 

1400-1500 - Started doing mate in 2 problems from the Polgar book, this sharpened my calculation skill immensely.

1500-1575 - Read Art of the Middlegame and The Amateur's Mind. My middlegame was very very poor.  Once I read these books my rating dropped about 50 points because I was playing chess in a new way.  Then all at once I gained 100 points in about a 2.5 month span.

1575-1643 - Started playing more psychologically.  I started playing a lot more fiercely over the board.  I stopped losing hope when I was losing, I stopped "checking out" when I was winning.  I started playing moves that my opponent HAD to react to instead of sitting back and waiting for them to make moves.

Point is everyone is different. I addressed weaknesses in my game at the time that I needed them. Currently I'm involved in a year long endgame study which I intend to become an endgame expert over the next year to see where that takes me. If you're interested you can read more about that here...

http://weaksquare.blogspot.com/2009/09/end-game-study.html

If anyone has any questions for me about how I gained 425 points in the last calendar year feel free to message me I'll be glad to help.

all great comments about chess improvements. What works for me is to just use more of my imagination powers at seeing, then, (calculate the facts)/ Blunders checks about what i just imagining, finally, Watch the pieces move around in my imagination to square were they can be better.

My, favorite with calculation, i  let the pieces tell a story!

the knight is sitting at f8- d7 or e6 not so strong but g6 gets me to e5 where i can attack queen d3. if queen moves....blah blah. its fun. talk the story within your mind and it helps long calculations.

With just 4 month of learning chess i have won some great games against stronger club players. But i am just a newbie with wins against 2100,1900,1700,1600....0

The real truth is you can read all the books, and train all you want, (hard work) but it boils down to learning to use the powers of your imagination to improve fast in chess. So, why work backwards? I have heard about pattern recognitions, which still boils down to (images) for us in chess positions but for me a newbie its images (imagination).

GM and IM what ever all have creative minds? B.S. They know how to see a postion within the future! So, I whipped one because his imagination wasn't powerful than mine?!! Even though he had all the book knowledge, the training, more images (chess patterns) than i do? But my imagination skills help and so will it for you.

Just use it or learn how to all over again.

Chess is a very complex game! But the mind is a complex thing?
"While nothing is complex for the imagination."

Take your chess games through your imagination funnel
and make them less complex?

PROOF. Have you noticed all the new spring of young GMs in chess from 12 - 15 years old? Well they already know  to used the power of their imaginations, so when you are there trying to fool yourself with rituals about hardwork and reading tons of chess books. You are working backwards! Training your imagination - with a chess board, because you can't go back to being a kid. I wish if i had learnt chess when i was 8, because i would easily builded strong images(chess patterns) that would live within my chess section of my brain.

But i can't. So i use images.

I hope this helps.

try to play blindfold chess.

Don't get addicted to bullet chess.

The fastest way to improve your chess is to learn how to spot all of your mistakes and then try to not make the same kind of mistake in the future.

To spot your mistakes you probably need help of a player rated at least 2000.

Depends on your rating, but I'd say get a coach, and play only tournament chess.  Put a lot of effort into your games, and after they're over put a lot of effort into analysing them.

Once you have a clear idea in your head of what you believe about a position and possible variations, you can have your coach show you the cases you were wrong.  Learn from the mistakes, and be aggressive about filling in weaknesses.  Maybe you don't like attacking or you don't like endgames, well these are inescapable aspects of the game, you have to attack them (learn all you can and test ideas in your games) instead of avoid them.

You have to focus on learning, not winning.  Like ponz said try to never repeat the same mistakes.

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”Albert Einstein

Buy: 1001 tactical combinations (something like that) by Reinfeld. Go through it seven times in the space of about three months (what I did), and I gained about 500 points. Also play at LEAST 1 20+ minute game a day against someone stronger than you. In less than a year I gained 600 points.

You can too. :)

Well, I certainly hope it's improved by now...

I think when they get technology like the matrix and they can plug information directly into your brain, that will be the fastest.