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.
'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).'
Same here. I got into in college when an overly competitive roomate would rub it in everytime he won. In retaliation... I secretly bought Chessmaster 2000 (this was 1993) and practiced in my room for a month... Next time we played, it was like taking candy from a baby.... he got so mad he threw the board and stommped out, refusing to play me every again!!
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.
i wish i knew some stronger players that could give me odds