I’ve hit my barrier it seems...

All of March I’ve been stuck at 1600... rip, any tips for me to get to 1700? 

win more games.. ez

Welp

Focus on your weaknesses and train

take a break for 2 weeks, then restart

Been stuck at 1700 since december, it's no big deal

I recommend @energetichay 's road to FM series

Players could give tips on chess improvement all day, but it misses the underlining point that is more critical to understand here...

The real question being probed is: "How to gain rating when I seem to be nearing a plateau?"

I think the first step is acknowledging how much your "pace" of progressing has actually slowed or not. Creating this thread means you are aware that your rating is more representative of your current chess ability and that is great! Ironically, this is the first step to improvement. 

The process here is the same if you are having trouble keeping above 1000 rating, 1600 as in this example, or even 2000. The key is to step back for a bit and use a bit of introspection. What things have you done that have helped you reach this ability? Maybe you analyze all of your chess games afterwards. Maybe you practiced many theoretical endgames and so on.

Once you recognized those things, then keep doing them. Now the tougher part (sometimes a lot tougher) is recognizing where you may be lacking and how to improve that.

Maybe you don't do chess puzzles as routinely as you probably should, or perhaps you don't understand pawn structure concepts too well etc. 

I think @SpeedyCyclone is on the right track, but I believe it is deeper than just training weaknesses. Take the example of maybe not doing puzzles as often as you probably should. In this example, this does not necessarily mean that tactics are even a weakness for you (might even be a strength!). It just means that you might be limiting some potential to improve even greater than has been thus far. 

Feel free to pm me @Moonwarrior_1 and we might be able to narrow possibilities down more specifically. The trouble is that one can't simply give out blanket statements like: "play longer time controls" or "do more chess tactics" because everyone is different and therefore whatever potentially stands in the way of chess improvement would be different for different players.

Can I PM you?

Who is "you" here? A Ewe [you] is a female sheep isn't it? Do I look like a female sheep to you? Do I look like a male sheep to you? (although they say some people look like animals )

If you meant me, then of course you can send a message. If you meant the thread op, then you probably could - I'd just send it lol

Kids be like:  "I'm stuck at a rating for a whole month"

Meanwhile me as an adult 1700:  "I've been stuck for a year"

I mean it's known that kids improve much quicker

Actually, I think this was a joke about attention span

I don't get it 🤷

Then obviously that your intent wasn't the under-the-radar joke I thought it was xD

The jab is that a month feels so long without improvement for a child because they have shorter attention-spans than adults usually. Perhaps the adult has other priorities in life (e.g. a paying job) and time flies for their chess, or perhaps the time just seems longer to the child because the one month makes up a larger percentage of their own life?

Whatever the reason, jokes aren't as funny when they need to be explained...

Oh, sorry you had to explain it then (but I really didn't get it).

No, I meant it as kids improve so fast that a month feels like a long time to them.

Even when I was rated ~1000 I steadily improved at the pace of about 100 points a year.

And yes, as an adult I couldn't sit around and play chess all day, so that's probably a big part of it.

xD That's okay. 

Interesting is actually contemplating if the one month improvement pace is significant or not and for what reason. Even if a 1000 rated adult were to improve by 100 points in a month, it makes you wonder: is it because it is easier to gain rating at lower levels (which is true based on the math but maybe not salient here), or because kids learn faster (also usually true)? This latter portion may beg the question, "if an adult gains 100 rating points in one month, then how much more might they have gained if they were younger, with a mind like a sponge?"

It is amazing how quickly children sometimes grasp things that adults sometimes struggle with. 

Yeah, it's easier to improve at low levels, but I seem to think of my "beginning chess" differently than some people. I'm counting the time when I was really interested, so I played a few games online a week, and maybe solved a few puzzles every month. If I had been doing more I'm sure I would have gotten to 1200 (or whatever) pretty fast and not taken ~2 years

In contrast, you'll see some people's profiles like "I've been playing 5 years" and their account is 7 years old (with many games played). So they're probably not counting until they're going to OTB tournaments and buying books or something like this.

Ah thx everyone

if you think being stuck at your rating for one month is "your barrier" then I'm not sure what to say. 

I've been stuck at 2200 for five months now.

Most people take years.