How To Quickly Improve Your Chess Game

Is it possible for a chess beginner to gain enough knowledge and skill to improve 600 rating points in 90 days?

For most people, it is not enough to simply play the game of chess and leave it at that. While it is a game, it is also a pursuit of mastery and a continual call to improvement.

To help our members on their journey to chess mastery, we studied chess players that improved their game significantly in a relatively short period.

We analyzed players that started out below the beginner rating of 800 (after enough games to give us confidence in our estimation of their level) and then made it to an intermediate rating of over 1400 within just 90 days.

I will refer to these players as “fast improvers.”

That is an impressive accomplishment. What did these players do to improve that much in such a short time, and what should you do to similarly improve?

Here are the four things that rapidly improving chess players do to get better:

1. Fast improvers play much more chess games.

While this may seem obvious, simply playing more games is one of the most important habits to develop on your path to chess mastery. We found that our fast improvers played two-to-three times the number of games in a week compared to other players that did not improve as much.

Recommendation: Aim for about 10 quick games on most days if you want to improve as quickly as possible. Or just play a game or two more than you are playing now to steadily improve at a more moderate rate. The key is to play, play, play.

2. Fast improvers analyze most of their games.

Those who improve their game the most are about twice as likely to use the Game Report, Retry Mistakes and other Analysis features available after each game. Some 74 percent of fast improvers regularly analyze their games compared to 41 percent of other players.

Recommendation: After every game, take just a few moments to review your Game Report and analyze or retry your mistakes. It doesn’t take long, but it makes a significant difference when you learn from your actual mistakes in your own games.

3. Fast improvers play more Puzzle Rush.

It may not seem like much, but on average, our fast improvers completed one extra Puzzle Rush per week, and that seems to have made a big impact. Their personal best scores started out around the site average of 14 and then steadily climbed to more than 25 over the year that we tracked them. That’s an 86 percent improvement!

Recommendation: Aim to play two Puzzle Rush games on most days. This habit leads to faster pattern recognition and essential chess instincts. The best part about Puzzle Rush is that you learn without even knowing it, and it's also fun.

4. Fast improvers do just a few more Lessons.

Like with Puzzle Rush, it seems that a slight difference in using Lessons makes a big difference in results. Our fast improvers completed just one more lesson per week than those who did not improve as quickly.

Recommendation: Try to complete one Lesson per day. Each lesson takes just about five minutes to complete, but the overall impact on your game really adds up over time.

The Bottom Line:

All players can improve their chess games, but like any other skill, it takes consistent engagement and some time.

If all four of the recommendations seem like too much for you, don’t worry about it. Just do one or two and you can move closer to the ideal compared to your current habits. 

Over time, any consistent efforts you make to follow these recommendations even a little bit will result in improvements to your chess game.

Good luck! And may you too be known as a “fast improver” in the near future.