What to do when progress slows down

When I started Chess I gained like hundred of rating per months and then it slow down to like 100 rating per month and now it have taken me 3 months to gain 50 Rating points. It gets so much harder to progress. 

I am intrested in getting some inputs, how have your journey been so far? Is it possible that I might speed up my progress again or will it only get slower and slower like +50 rating over a year?

as you improve it gets harder to increase your rating, because eveyone else is also trying to improve. I've heard that making that last 50 point stretch from IM to GM can sometimes take years.

That I can understand but at the same time I am very far away from a GM level. 

It would be sad if I start to platue allready. 

What do one have to do, to go from 1750 to 2000? Should I start to deap study openings? Like I know some openings I struggle more with then others like when people play queen gambit and I play as black and they push there queen pawns and try to go to attacking my base chain at the queenside.

A lot of the skill gap between someone who is 2000 and someone who is 1700 is the positional understanding. For example, I probably know how to navigate an IQP position better than you can. Tactical ability, and openings are probably not what you need to work on. If you seen hikaru's bong cloud speedrun it is a clear example of how you dont need a good opening to out play an opponent. And tactics aren't really useful if you can't get to the position to use them.

Should I shift from e4 to d4 to get a deaper positional understanding? I played e4 as main since I started to play chess.

e4 is also very positional, just because a game is more open and dynamic doesnt mean it isn't positional

So what do you recommend that I do to get a better positional understanding?

Jimemy I have a list of positional concepts that I can share with you. Or you could check out ChessNetwork’s Beginner to chess master playlist.

I would like to try to play otb at a club it sounds a lot of fun. Sadly our club in my city is closed, but maybe I can go to some other city at some time to try to play versus them.

Do you know any good chess books? So far I have read zero books. I watch a lot of youtube, mainly Narodiskty and Hikaru. And I find Naroditsky to be a great teacher and I learn a lot from him.

Yes I would like that

A lot of my improvement from 1700 to 2000 was just playing games and improving my positional understanding that way. ofc that doesnt mean finding a book to study wont be useful

Understanding positional play comes from understanding what each piece should be doing, what each piece’s job is.

Holes: This is a square that can no longer be controlled by pawns. If you can get a minor piece (or even major), supported by a pawn, on the fifth or sixth rank, your opponent should resign. Having a piece cemented in your opponent’s position can prove to be truly disruptive to their coordination.

Weaknesses: You need to know what it a weakness, and realize what pieces can target it. A backwards pawn, doubled pawn and isolated pawn are all examples of weak pawns. A square can also be weakened if only one pawn is controlling it. This is because if that pawn moves, the square is now a hole.

Captures: Understanding what the game plan is comes in here. Let’s say you have a closed Italian Game, and want to expand on the Queenside. You might understand that doing so will come with some pawn exchanges. So you keep the bishop pair, because bishops work best on long, open diagonals, where they control a lot of squares.

Bad bishop: why should my bishop be hiding behind pawns? It’s an attacking piece, made for pressuring and slicing. Get your bishop outside the pawn chain, advance your pawns to let it out. If you can’t, be willing to have a trade, in fact, look for a trade. It’s a useless piece. If an opponent wants to trade a bad bishop for your good bishop, decline (unless you have a massive winning advantage).

Good bishop: The opposite. Strong attacking piece, outside the pawns, pressuring pieces, in the game.

Bad Knight: it’s just not in the game. Sitting on the second rank, chilling at home. Be willing to trade it.

Good knight: I think I mentioned it before, but if you have a knight on the fifth or sixth rank, your opponent should resign.

Rooks: Want to get the rook in the game? Double them up on an open file. When the time is right, you can consider infiltrating on the other side of the board. A nice outpost square might be on c6, supported by a pawn, where it’s difficult for your opponent to remove you.

Queen: Your pieces need to be harmonious. Your Queen is not the strongest piece, it’s the weakest. Every time it’s attacked, you have to move or block it! So annoying! Your Queen doesn’t always have to be at the heart of an attack. It can play a supporting role from the background.

Targeting pawn structures: you need to know how you can weaken a pawn structure. For example, in a rapid game I played, I captured a knight, doubling my opponents pawns. This doubling of pawns also locked in my opponent’s bishop for the rest of the game. The doubled pawns could not move. And I had a pawn chain on the other side. A pawn structure can change the game.

Clamping on a pawn structure: Have a pawn on A5? Move it to A6. This might disallow the opponents pawns to move any farther if it’s a 2 on 1 majority situation. 1 pawn hindering 2 can limit their ability to create a passed pawn.

The element of time: Understand that in the opening your goal is to safeguard the king, and prepare your troops for battle. No time for one move threats. A tempo in chess is a move. Make sure your pieces are on stable squares. Before you make a move, ask yourself “can this piece be attacked by my opponent in the future? If so, is it worth placing it here right now?”


This is what I send to my little students. It’s worded and may be hard to apply though. I just think it’s a good starting point and some things that I try to keep in mind. I play d4 so it comes in handy.

It kinda makes me think of a video from Naroditsky where he sees a spot that would be a great outpost for a knight but before sticking the knight there he first prepares it by trading of every piece that can capture the knight. And then first after he traded of the knights and the color of the bishop that can capture the king, then he puts the knight on the outpost and it can then only be removed by a rook.

"Good knight: I think I mentioned it before, but if you have a knight on the fifth or sixth rank, your opponent should resign."

I have never before been thinking on how strong a knight is on the fifth or sixt rank like you stated. I mean oufcourse I try to avoid if I can to get my opponents knight in my side of the board. Like keeping a knight or bishop that can capture the knight or having a pawn being able to kick the knight. But I mean I never thought of the position in the way that it would be an insta resign.

Well not necessarily resignable. It’s a little exaggeration. I think the reason I included it was to emphasize just how disruptive a knight can be when you just can’t remove it. Sometimes it’s better to just take it out with a rook honestly.

So yeah, I exaggerated, but it made a point. Didn’t it?

Chess is a bit like resistance training.  When you first start lifting weights, you may progress very quickly (the so called "newbie gains").! After about 5 years of consistent training, that slows down significantly and you improve at a more gradual pace.

Just like resistance training, many times what got you to where you are is not what is going to help you to continue improving.  When you reach a plateau, you need to reassess your weaknesses and work to make them strengths.  For example, suppose you reach a point where you find you are losing winning endgames more often.  That would be an indication of a weakness.  You should study those types of endgames and be able to convert those positions.  If you notice you are losing more games in a specific opening, perhaps you do not understand the ideas in that opening and need to review some GM games in that line to see how they handle the position.  Etc.  Basically, to continue making progress, you must identify your weakest points and make them stronger.

Yeah I like it. I think I even heard Hikaru said something like a knight on a certain square is worth more then a queen. I don't remember the exact square do.

Maybe I could use chess insight to spot my weakness. I think one have to pay for it on chess.com right? However I have an account on Lichess to. With a less games but it might still do the tricks.

https://lichess.org/insights/Jimemy/result/openingVariation/variant:bullet,blitz,rapid,classical,correspondence/color:white

Linking it here in case if someone else is interested.

There are a few ways to identify your weaknesses.

1)  You can make notes when you analyze your games and compile the notes over a period of time.  When you see the same kind of note popping up, that would indicate a weak spot.  This is the method Rowson talks about in "Seven Deadly Chess Sins".  It is effective, but also time consuming and can take a while.

2) You can hire a coach who can work with you.  This is the most efficient way, but also the most expensive.  A good coach will be able to look at a sample of your games and see things you are doing repeatedly that are costing you games and then work to help you improve those areas.

3) An alternative to hiring a coach is to use something like the Chess.com Insights feature or AimChess.com.  AimChess is better, in my opinion, for a few reasons (not the least of which is it will look at your games across multiple sites - the one thing it doesn't have yet is the ability to import any games you may play OTB).  But both of these will help you identify patterns in your play and show you how you can improve them.  While not as good as a quality coach, it also is much cheaper (AimChess is like $7/month if I remember correctly).

Here is a game where I played versus a 2000 rated player in Daily.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/411650003

I lost.

The knight sacrifice I did not see coming. And there was a way to save the queen with a counter sacrifice with my bishop that I did not see. However I thought I would be able to get some play If I traded the queen for two pieces but that was not really the case. I mean I stopped mate and hanged in the game for a little longer. In the end I thought I have build a fortress and might be able to draw or at least play for a draw. But yeah that did not work either and in the end I hanged mate. However he did accept a rematch so we are playing one more game. My thinking is that it might be very good lesson for me to play versus him since he is way stronger then me in. I am around 1600 in Daily. And my most played time control is Blitz so daily might not be my cup of tea but I think it can be worth the time because I get a lot of time to think and I can use the games to analyse after.

And that games also kinda show my lack of understanding. Since I got him to push pawns on both queenside and kingside, so my first instinct was that it would be very bad for him to push all pawns like that. But as you can see from the game my instinct was wrong.

Also the game shows that I do not understand how a fortress works.

A quick review of that game shows that you tend to make 1-move threats.  These are moves that do not take into account your opponent's reply and the position it puts you in.  For example, the Bg5 to pin the knight when his king has not castled invites h6 as an immediate response.  If you try to maintain the pin, he can push g5 and force your bishop into a passive position on the board (which is what happened).  You can provoke h6 if you want, but then you should follow it up with Be3 to keep the bishop in an active position (and try to trade off his very active bishop).

1-move threats are not a good thing (though they are often quite effective in faster time controls) because they tend to weaken your own position.  Focus on what you would do if you were your opponent and saw a move played.

The knight sacrifice was available simply because he had more pieces attacking than you could bring to defend.  When that situation arises, tactics are often in the air.

The other thing I noticed is a few times where you kind of shuffled pieces with no real goal.  Qe2 followed by Qf3 makes no sense.  If you wanted the queen on f3 (not a good square in that position, but that is another matter) why take 2 moves to get it there?  You did the same thing with your king later.

I think both of these main problems are related.  Specifically, you are operating without a plan in mind.  It is like getting in your car and just driving.  If you don't have a destination in mind, you will just wander aimlessly.  With each move, ask yourself, "what am I trying to accomplish?" and "If I play that move, what should my opponent do in reply?"