How To Improve At Chess for < 1000 ELO

Hi !

Are you the person below 1000 ELO who is stuck and wants to improve? Are you the person who is at the stake of quitting chess because they can't reach 1000 ELO? If you are, then you are at the right place. This blog will give you all of the information which will get you to the right path to improvement. So why waiting? Let's kick of.

Many people <1000 ELO on chess.com who don't have premium are stuck and cannot improve. They start thinking it is because they don't have premium or they don't have a chess coach as they cannot afford so expensive prices. But trust me self-study can also help you improve a lot by a big margin! But the hardest thing is that you need to stay on the right direction and I will give you the really important tips you should follow.

Things to do

1. Read more than watch more!  What I mean is that you should read chess books and watch less videos. It is because when you watch a video you then forget what you learnt in it but when you read a book then the things you learnt will stay in your memory for longer!! Reading at least 20 pages a day is sufficient

2. Do at least 5 puzzles daily, Non-premium users are allowed to do 5 puzzles everyday on chess.com. 

Thus one of the most important steps you can take to improve your game is start solving tactics. There are few things you must keep in mind while working on tactics. First of all, you shouldn’t spend the whole training session on it. Spending 15-20 minutes a day is totally sufficient.

Select the problems you can solve fairly quickly. If you need to spend 30 minutes to find a single solution, the problem is too hard. Ideally, you should spend around 2-3 minutes per problem or less for finding all the crucial lines and variations. You can read this article https://thechessworld.com/articles/training-techniques/improving-your-chess-by-solving-tactics-5-tips-to-follow/ to learn how to solve tactics.

That way you can solve 5 problems a day. It may not seem like a lot, but it will result in 35 problems/week, 155 problems/month or 1825 problems/year. That is a good foundation and will make you proficient at finding most combinations.

3. Do puzzle rush [any time control is fine but survival is the best].

4. Do puzzle battles to see how fast you are compared to others.

5. Work Smarter not harder! This is really important! There is something known as overworking many people do which makes them get stuck.

6. Study GM Games

Why is it important to study grandmaster games? From analyzing games of very strong players, you learn many ideas and maneuvers which are next to impossible to discover yourself.

There are couple things to keep in mind when going over the GM games. First of all, you should study well-annotated games and try understanding why the moves were played. Approach the game from an active position. Put yourself in player’s shoes, identify all of the threats, come up with a plan and only then compare your findings and analysis with what happened in the game.

Active learning is more superior technique than simply reading annotations. Make your brain work while going over grandmaster games, and it will do the same in your own games.

7. Analyze All Your Losses

Analyzing the games you lost is one the most important aspects of getting good at chess. Many  players prefer either not to analyze their games altogether or just to focus on analyzing the wins. We cannot learn from somebody else’s mistakes but we can from ours, we then know where we keep doing wrong.

We learn the best from our own. Touching a hot plate once and getting burned is 1000% more efficient than being told 100 times that touching a hot plate is dangerous. In chess it works the same way. By missing a back rank mate once or twice you’ll beware and avoid future accidents.

By analyzing your lost games you will understand what went wrong and will do your best to avoid this kind of things from happening in future games. It is painful to look at your losses, but it is the only way for getting good at chess. If you want to learn how to analyze games I suggest reading https://thechessworld.com/articles/training-techniques/7-most-important-factors-in-chess-position-analysis/ & https://thechessworld.com/articles/training-techniques/10-questions-to-ask-yourself-when-analyzing-your-own-games/

8. Play Competitive Chess Over The Board

Second very important step for getting good at chess is practice. The most common mistake amateur players make is assuming that playing online chess is enough. Online chess can be a temporary alternative for over the board chess. However, to fully concentrate on the game and perform at your best a real face-to-face competition is a must.

Even when playing practice matches, the amount of value you gain from over-the-board games cannot be compared with online chess. There are no GMs and IMs that became who they are from online chess. They play online, but more so for fun rather than for serious training. If you want to fully benefit from your practice matches, always choose over-the-board! It’s as simple as that.

9. Stay Positive

Staying positive is a very important step, if you want to start getting good at chess. You should not get frustrated by your failures but rather start treating them as a part of the training.

It is much better to lose more games now, rather than lose a very important game later when it really matters. If you start getting negative thoughts, just say “STOP”, breathe deeply and focus on achieving the results you desire!

10. Build a Chess Library

If your goal is getting good at chess you must have a chess library. All strong chess players have a collection of resources they study and periodically consult. For example, you may face a certain Middlegame position that you’ve previously seen in one of our training videos.

Then, you may re-watch part of the video discussing that Middlegame to remind yourself how it should be played. Similarly, you may retake some of the lessons from the 21 Day Course (assuming you already completed the course). In any case, building a library is a very important step in the career of a chess player. You should consider adding some of our great resources to your library if you haven’t done so yet!

11. Train Other Chess Players

Training other chess players is a great way to improve your own game. By sharing your knowledge with others, explaining the concepts you start understanding it on a much higher level.

Teaching others requires a thorough understanding of the subject. Possibly you will need to refresh some of the things, to formulate the ideas in a simple, easy-to-understand way. But once you do, you will get surprised at how your own chess improves. By helping other players to master the game, you will become a chess master one day!

If you want to improve your chess level, you need to have a clear study plan. If you aim for a dramatic improvement at chess you need to work on all of the elements of the game in a systematic way.

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Thank you!