What to study?

What is your weakest area?

Tactics, strategy, openings, or endgames?

Get a well respected / classic book on that topic and really study it. Play over every line of analysis. Take notes. Read it more than once. That should be worth a few 100 points all by itself.

"... 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

I was going to say the same thing. Openings are important they decided how the battle is fought.

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Look.  Depending on how your brain is wired 3 changes in perspective and visualization pattern memory banks will make it possible for your to wrap your brain around what is going on on the chess board and the position set up there.

If you would like a brief explanation hoow this works.  Please let me know. 

Don't pay any attention to the rating given for me.  Notice that I have not played any games.

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Brief explanation?Was that the detailed one? 
The briefest explanation is that you are crazy.  The only question is little circles or big circles.

And, since you are so crazy it is possible that the voices in your head are telling you to kill yourself.

Dismissing a concept or idea out of hand is not good common sense.  Err on the side of caution.  Examine it first then decide.

Study openings IN DEPTH. All the maneuvers, key squares, ideas etc.

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Alright let us see how much you know about chess.  I'm sure you looked at the 800 rating attached to my icon.  What you didn't look at is that I have NOT played a single game on this site.  So, where did they get the 800 rating. They know nothing about my playing strength.

Here this question:  How do you identify the first move of the middlegame?

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Sorry, no offense intended. 

The middlegame answer has to do with pawn breaks.

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Well then you might as well throw the baby out with bath water.  The changes in perspective is endorsed by "My System" by Nimzowitsch.

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It is obvious that you have never heard of pawn breaks.  In almost all games the first move of the middlegame is the execution of a pawn break.  It signals the first move in the plan of attack against the enemy position.

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Look it up in almost any publication about the middlegame.  You will find tha what I am telling you is correct no matter how you play.  In  almost all cases the execution of the pawn break represents the first move in the middlegame plan of attack against the enemy position.  It signals the first move of the middlegame.

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Winning pawn structures by Alexander Baburin

This particular book about the middlegame highlights the importance of pawn structures and in particular pawn breaks at critical  junctures within those winning pawn structures.

PAWN STRUCTURES ARE HIGHLY IMPORTANT IN CHESS!!!

BUT SO IS CONCRETE OPENING KNOWLEDGE

The exchange variation of the French Defense.  You selected the exception to the exception of the middlegame variation.  1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3. exd5 (White executes the pawn break prematurely--too soon--takes all of the tension out of center and converts the pawn structure into a drawish symmetric pawn structure.  Future tension in the pawn structure lies in the move c4 for White and c5 for Black.  In the ensuing moves 6-12 both sides that equality in control of the center is the policy.  By playing 6.c3 White has, for now, relinquished the initiative (the attack) in favor of equality. Black then plays 6...c6 and continues the application of equality in the center.  No attempts to unbalance control of the center.  The exchange of Qs seems to shift into the endgame.  Black initiates the first move of the  middlegame plan of attack with 14...f6.  Black has initiated an attempt to control the e5 square.  Eventually the maneuvering dissolves into a pawn break at c5/d4.  Yes, 14...f6 is not a move where the execution of a pawn break is the first move of the middlegame.  Yes, this is an exception.  But remember I posted almost all first middlegame moves are executed pawn break moves.  14...f6 is the exception. 

Since you are the naysayer and I have analyzed the middlegame move in your example;  it is your turn to analyze an opening to determine the first middlegame move.  Here is the sequence: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bd3 e6.  Prove that you know this variation of the Sicilian Najdorf Scheveningen Style the English Attack.  That you know why Black's move 6...e6 is Black's first movee of the middlegame and yet it is not the execution of a pawn break.

See I can find obscure examples of exceptions to the pawn break rule too.

"... 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

I love how whenever anybody makes a "I want to get to 2000" thread on chess.com looking for advice, anybody but 2000+ players respond to the thread.

"A typical middlegame scenario develops as follows: at the end of the opening both sides have more or less completed the development of their forces, but so far there has been no major contact between the two armies, except possibly in the centre. Now the middlegame starts. Both sides manoeuvre, trying to improve the position of their forces and to weaken the position of the enemy forces. They must be on the lookout for possible ways to win material, or to start a successful attack on the enemy king. Of course, there are many other possible scenarios. Sometimes the forces engage in battle at a very early stage, before development is complete, while in other cases a blocked pawn-structure leads to slow-motion manoeuvring and the main battle occurs far later. …" - GM John Nunn (2010)

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The complete citation is GM John Nunn (  title of publication pgs.             )  We would appreciate the complete citation. Thanks                                     )