I think that in our level whatever we study will improve our game.
What should I do to improve my game?
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Jun 25, 2018
0
#3
Yeah, honestly that's an awkward rating. You're not a beginner for sure, but maybe, since your tactics aren't solid yet, many positional ideas don't feel trustworthy.
For example a book (opening, strategy, or endgame) may tell you ____ pawn structure is so bad it's almost lost in ____ position, and you can see how that might be true... but at the same time you're never winning/losing your games like that, so it doesn't feel very helpful (games are still won and lost on tactics a lot).
But still, I'd say that's the next step. A book like Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy or something like Seriwan's Winning Chess Endgames. It's not going to make your rating shoot up overnight, but you need to get some of the basics in place to continue to improve. And even though tactics are key, "tactics flow from a superior position" so you'll need some idea for what to do for moves where you can't win anything.
And of course always tactics, tactics, tactics. I'm not saying that stops being important at 1200-1300 
Jun 25, 2018
0
#4
Umm
By the way, I assume you did tactics to get to where you are.
But there's more than 1 way to improve. So maybe you didn't.
So if you haven't focused seriously on tactics yet, I'd do that... should have said that earlier. A book like Heisman's Back to Basics: Tactics
Jun 25, 2018
0
#5
For openings, wiki articles and free databases (where you can look up the most common moves) are plenty. So I agree you don't need to worry about openings. (You shouldn't be clueless, but you also don't need to buy repertoire books).
So to answer your OP, that's basically how improvement works. Focus on a key area, then move on, and after you're done, go through the same cycle again, but with more advanced material.
Something like tactics, endgame, strategy, openings, annotated games, then repeat.
You did some mistake by taking pawn in opening.4...... Nxe4 (Komodo programmer GM Larry Kaufman said , a turn worth 0.33 pawn in opening, so dont consider taking pawns in opening by losing one turn, you get only 0.66 pawn)
Your opponent did amazing strong tactics with his level. (he still missed some tactics though) .
In this position, if he dont take 10. Qxe4 but played 10. Qd5+ instead , you will lose your Queen or Rook in opening.
11. ------Kg7 12. Ne6+ lose queen
11............ Kf6 12..Qxg8 lose Rook.
In this position 7........Rg8 ?(Dont play like that, instaed , take his knight with pawn, you get minor plus one turn vs your rook)
In general, value of one turn is bigger in opening when the position is open, it can worth more than one pawn. One turn's relative value decrease when position is closed.
Jun 25, 2018
0
#7
BobbyTalparov wrote:
Preggo_Basashi wrote:
But still, I'd say that's the next step. A book like Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy or something like Seriwan's Winning Chess Endgames. It's not going to make your rating shoot up overnight, but you need to get some of the basics in place to continue to improve. And even though tactics are key, "tactics flow from a superior position" so you'll need some idea for what to do for moves where you can't win anything.
And of course always tactics, tactics, tactics. I'm not saying that stops being important at 1200-1300
I would not recommend picking up a deep strategy book at his current level. Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies" or Siliman's "Complete Book of Chess Strategy" (which, contrary to the name, just gives you an overview of various strategies behind many common openings) would be more than enough.
The "tactics flow from a superior position" is great, but meaningless when players are dropping pieces left and right (which is what happens at the sub-1800 levels). Practicing tactics alone will help you recognize 1) when a move you want to make will hang a piece, and 2) when your opponent has hung a piece (or mate). Once you have a good understanding of that, then you want to move into strategic considerations to help you better place your pieces.
The other activities that will greatly help players at this level are as follows:
- Analyze your games properly
- Go over your games with a much stronger player
- Play over master-level annotated games (starting from Morphy and working forward)
- Learn how to win a won game (that is, when you are up in material, learn how to simplify down to take advantage of your extra material)
I would avoid worrying about nuances like "good knight vs bad bishop", "good bishop vs bad bishop", etc., for now, as they are likely to confuse you.
Maybe true, e.g. Pachman would just be confusing.
I looked at some of his games after I posted.
Sometimes I feel like it's hard for me to give advice when their games seem pretty competent tactically.
No offense to the OP, but after looking at the games, that's not what I saw. Definitely focus on tactics 
I'm old, so I learned through books, and chess.com's tactics trainer sometimes has puzzles that I wouldn't even call puzzles... so I recommend books (as in my post #5 here) but sometimes people tell me everything can be done online these days. I'm not sure.
I am not any better than the OP but I have some good method of studying to share.
1. I am using Lucas chess to replay GM games. This software is awesome because it has the option to filter the specific opening lines! Its collections of GM games are wonderful!
2. Lucas chess also contains rich collections of tactics. However, I suggest you to download master games with specific openings line pgn at https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html to specify you tactics training. From this collection, you can generate your own tactics collections!
3. Lucas chess have other training tools for you to explore.
Stop playing online games, instead, played master games! This advise is recommended to me and I think it is true!
The next tool is Chessvis app, which basically based on the concepts that you must visualize the moves. First, it tells you to visualize 1 (up to 5) full move(s), then you solve the tactics from that point. This is wonderful! You can support the author by purchasing his books Chess Visualization course, which are the advanced levels of the app.
For opening training, Lucas is fine but if you are willing to subscribe chess.com, its opening database is much better because you can prepare for the common responses. Pick a specific line such as the giuoco piano pianissimo from the opening book then go to explorer to practice common response. What I learned so far about opening is that you must know the target square of each pieces. Sometimes, the order matters a lot. Sometimes, it does not. I think in 1.e4 e5, the order is not that important, unless there is a trap hidden in that line.
Jun 25, 2018
0
#11
I have recently focused on playing daily games (in order to practice playing more strategic chess, where tactical variations and positions play much bigger role than blundering - it's hard to do 1-2 move blunders in a daily game), doing tactics trainers and going through lessons here on chess.com. I feel like this has improved me quite a bit within this last month.
I really recommend the tactics trainer and lessons (they're great!), especially the endgame ones. It has helped me tremendously knowing the key squares in different type of endgames, and knowing which ones of the most usual endgames are win, loss or a draw. This way especially in daily games I can think whether going for endgame would be good for me or not, and sometimes even prepare a back-up plan of trying to find a perpetual check, if I feel like I'm going to lose otherwise. Understanding the value of certain pieces and piece combinations, passed pawns and king positions in endgame can really help you to make better midgame plans to reach a good endgame. I personally think that daily chess is the best one to practice this, since you have practically unlimited amount of time to really think what you're doing. That way the plans you formulate really stick in to your head and it's much easier to remember games you played, the plans you made and which ones worked and which didn't.
If you don't like playing daily games, I think rapid time control of at least 15|10 is necessary to really learn. It's not the quantity of games you play, but trying to really learn from every game you play. Blitz (and even worse bullet) games are just easy to skip through, start another and play hours without really picking up anything.
So to sum it up: Tactics, lessons (especially endgame, tactics and checkmate patterns) and slow time control of either rapid or daily games. This is how I'm practicing and so far I've been pretty happy with the results.
For books, I am not a good player to recommend any book other that those suggested by people. However, John Nunn's Understanding Middle Games and 45 Practical Techniques of Positional Play are helpful to me because they are good references. Whenever I come up with a term, I would check the books and play over the games. You can buy Move by Move books and use with Lucas. Everytime you make a wrong move, you can look at the annotation. Very helpful!
Taskinen wrote:
I have recently focused on playing daily games (in order to practice playing more strategic chess, where tactical variations and positions play much bigger role than blundering - it's hard to do 1-2 move blunders in a daily game), doing tactics trainers and going through lessons here on chess.com. I feel like this has improved me quite a bit within this last month.
Awesome! Do you want to play daily game with me? We can arrange on a specific opening line and start from there.
Jun 25, 2018
0
#14
you should review your games or masters games for instruction with a real chess board so you go through the masters openings and see what is typically played and get a feel for moving the pieces through the openings, make sure you take time to understand crucial moments in a game, learning the best way to take an imbalance in your favor to an advantage, and the best way to defend when an imbalance is not in your favor. An imbalance is a distinct advantage for one side if it is properly capitalized on.
Also, as everyone has pointed out, you must practice tactics but put the time into analyzing what is going on, while doing them, again I would try to use a book and a board, the book being relative to your skill level you hope to achieve, I would say you would want to look at books that are 1600 theory range.
One other thing I found helpful was to look at my games that I lost, and I look at where I lost or why I lost, then I try my best to think of a stronger way to play that position, as well as trying to make some sort of mental note not to repeat that mistake in the future.
Game collected from yesterday's TCEC final.
To emphasize again on one turn in opening.
At this position, both SF and Komodo agreed as 0.00, draw,(black turn)
white has two pawns plus dev adv vs two minor pieces.
Jun 25, 2018
0
#16
Thanks so much for all your advice! Should I get a premium membership so I can practice more tactics? Is doing tactics more important than playing games?
NPAK15 wrote:
Premium help you save money on some categories of books such as strategy because you don't need that much of the advanced knowledge. The videos are good enough to reach 1700+, if you have tha potential. However, like I mentioned, you need books like understanding chess move by move to help explain why the Masters made this move instead of the others.
And if you trust me enough to give Lucas chess "play like a grandmaster" a try, you will see the result. You make a move which is not what played by the Masters, you read the annotations to understand why. But then, the engine supports your ideas, you take notes and post your discovery to chess.com to ask for opinions. Lucas chess is a powerful free software. If you want good tactics beside chess.com, a subscription to Chess King is very good. I am using both. The first year is expensive $99 for chess.com and $65 for Chess King. However, the second year you may not need chess.com diamond or you may not need any of them.
Thanks so much for all your advice! Should I get a premium membership so I can practice more tactics? Is doing tactics more important than playing games?
"... In order to maximize the benefits of [theory and practice], these two should be approached in a balanced manner. ... Play as many slow games (60 5 or preferably slower) as possible, ... The other side of improvement is theory. ... This can be reading books, taking lessons, watching videos, doing problems on software, etc. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627084053/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman19.pdf
"... If it’s instruction, you look for an author that addresses players at your level (buying something that’s too advanced won’t help you at all). This means that a classic book that is revered by many people might not be useful for you. ..." - IM Jeremy Silman (2015)
https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-best-chess-books-ever
Here are some reading possibilities that I often mention:
Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Simple-Attacking-Plans-77p3731.htm
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1948)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-back-to-basics-tactics
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Endgames_for_Kids.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf
Studying Chess Made Easy by Andrew Soltis (2009)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090448/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review750.pdf
Seirawan stuff:
http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_beginner/ev_winning_chess.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-Beginner
http://www.nystar.com/tamarkin/review1.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-winning-chess-endings
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092617/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review560.pdf
BobbyTalparov wrote:
Below ~1800, the single activity that will improve your strength the most is to practice tactics (properly). The least effective way to improve at that level is to worry about openings.
"... This book is the first volume in a series of manuals designed for players who are building the foundations of their chess knowledge. The reader will receive the necessary basic knowledge in six areas of the game - tactcs, positional play, strategy, the calculation of variations, the opening and the endgame. ... To make the book entertaining and varied, I have mixed up these different areas, ..." - GM Artur Yusupov
Preggo_Basashi wrote:
... Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy ...
Might want to look at a sample of the contents in order to get a feel for whether or not the book is something that you want to try to work on at this time.
http://store.doverpublications.com/0486202909.html
I am a player rated in the mid 1200 range but I am currently plateauing. I think I speak for most players my rating when I say that I do not know what to study next or how to study it. There are so many things to study: openings, tactics, endgames, etc... Should I just play chess as much as I can?