Who here is still improving?

Who here is still improving?

If so, how long have you been improving for, and what did you do to break through any plateaus?

i started at 750 and I am at 1150. after almost 1000 games. I still suck, but I improved from basically switching from 3|2 blitz to 5|5 or 10 min blitz, in which you can think and improve... I played a couple of 15|10 games too. I think you improve by conciously thinking through the next moves instead of focusing on your rating... when I played the first 500 games in 3|2 there was zero improvement because I was playing aimless moves without analysis..then again I feel a plateau coming to me and you are better than me so as in anything in life, the better you are, the harder it becomes to improve.

i should be pretty far from a plateau, but I already feel it is harder to improve than it once was. I am still improving. in 4 months I went from 750 to 1150. maybe in 4 months more I will be 1300 and after a year 1500 and so on. its bound to be logarithmic, plateaus are normal !

..just keep your eyes on the graph....

hahahaha.... those pics

congratulations

I'm fairly sure I'm still improving.  Part of it not having played for a bit, so just regaining strength, but I think I'm also learning new things.  Key to getting better in my experience is to play someone better and have them explain to you what moves where wrong.  In general, I feel like worse players have zero game sense at all, and same way, better players think the same of me.  It also really depends on what level your at.  Tactics are a good thing to study, but they are definitely not an end all be all.  I feel like the strategic understanding of the game, especially positional considerations are crucial in improving and for that advice from a better player (especially in an OTB scenario) is crucial.  Lastly, I think Blitz is REALLY bad for new players.  They don't have the game sense to move correctly, and they don't learn anything from those games (especially since they don't go back and analyze).  Better to spend the time thinking about each move, and on the spot gaining insight from mistakes.

1659 rating is in the top 95%? Thats pretty crazy. I've never seen stats or graphs like that here. (p.s. hottie with thigh highs, yeahhh)

For me I didn't learn how to play chess until I was about 19 years old, and one of my buddies introduced it to me. I became addicted/passionate about it pretty quick and started playing online (after I was beating him easily). I played off and on over the years without too much improvement. But about 7 months ago I started playing again after a LONG span without any chess. And I made the decision to actually improve my game, and since then I have had a lot of breakthroughs. I think I was playing at about 1200 rating blitz here, and now im about 1650, and probably having even better success on other sites.

For me two of my biggest learning moments were reading some article and it was talking about just learning a couple of goto openings and learn them in and out and rely on them almost exclusively during these "early" learning years... The idea never occured to me before, but it makes sense to me so I dont have to spend much time learning alot of different openings and I have a better chance getting a playable middle game now because im in familiar territory.

The other thing I stumbled across Fins unprotected piece fundamentals video and that really inspired me to slow down and think deeper my play.

And now my biggest imporvements have been because I'm doing so much "tactics" drills and training. In fact most of all my chess study time is dedicated to just doing tactics and puzzles, its making my chess brain razor sharp, especially the past couple weeks, I'm on a huge winning streak right now... So I'm gonna continue imporving I hope, relying about 70% study on tactics, and the rest mostly trying to fine tune my opening repertoire and some positional stuff.  

Seriously I tell you from my experience TACTICS HELP A LOT. I improved, I mean I jumped from 1466 to 1528 in 10 days.

Ratings over internet means a lot. Over the board you are limited vs who you play. Training online vs OTB, one big advantage is will improve you a lot faster. Online you face all kind of different opponent, possitions, strong, weak, masters, patzers everything. Over the board you just have to adjust yourself to 3d and vizualization,and some psyhological things/rules..

Blitz for new players is excellent tool for fast improvement and establishing game sense, intuition, reflexes, patterns, openings, taste of everything fast. They will find out quicky whats good or wrong, if they analyze after games ofcourse. First they have to watch how masters play blitz with commentary. What they need is experience, rather than slow long game where even if they have whole time in a world cant think/find good moves. Later ofcourse after few thousand blitz games, they should continue with slow time controls.

https://www.chess.com/stats/live/DragonPhoenixSlayer?type=bullet my bullet rating has increased i do play mostly on lichess now though

 1119

WHAT?

i do think blitz can be good for most beginners they probably wouldnt use any of their time if the played rapid

When i was a beginner i joined local chess club - All of them were stronger than me so they gave me time advantage.. but.. what was the point.. i was bad and just starring at the board with so much time to think and i could not see anything or make a bad plan. Ofcourse i knew how to checkmate with queen or single rook but... I was curious what will happen if i go here with that piece, that was all i was thinking.. I had no experience... i did not knew what to do.. what i needed was 100 games from which i could take some analyses.. But 100 games in 30 min or more time control will cost me soo much time.. and people there were not happy to play me or help me.. they were old.. angry.. they were smocking and i quit. Later discovered chess over the internet... it was so much fun playing chess, browsing internet, watching tv, listening to music, and best part was games were 5 min each or so.. i could do what ever  i want and quickly and see whole board ... Soon i improved a lot and become much stronger.

I wish i had a chess club to go to

That was not real chess club. Just a single small room next to football stadium with 3 tables and few chess sets. Room was locked most of the time. Only 4-8 players. Chess here was almost dead.