"The Race to 1400" Thread: Under 1400 Standard? Get In Here!...

Hey Chess Friends,

I saw someone post a forum thread asking how to get to 1400 standard from 1300 and thought it was a good topic.

Most of the advice from higher rated players seemed to be to just focus on:

1. Tactics (both attacking and defensive)

and

2. Eliminating blunders and mistakes

I thought about it and realized although it's great advice, even the best advice is only as good as the person who will listen to it and take action with it to get results.

So here is a place where we can do that.

Full disclosure up front!:

Although I haven't personally broken 1400 standard rating yet, the advice and suggestions from the higher rated players who have, seemed to resonate with me as the right way to go.

So, even though I'm quite busy with work and college at the moment, I figured it may be fun to create...

"The Race to 1400" thread for a few reasons:

1. To challenge others who are near 1400 but haven't broken 1400 yet to reach for that next milestone in their progress

2. To challenge myself and others publicly and hold myself  accountable to my goal as well as provide some accountability for others who may want it with like minded people who share the same goal

3. To provide a place for those who are under 1400 but want to reach that strength to come share and discuss:

- "what's working now" - methods of study, practice, thinking, that seem to help you improve your results

- "sticking points"- same old stuff that seems to hold you back and some plans of attack on correcting these mistakes

- "progress" - a place to share progress you made to keep you motivated and inspire others in the same position as they also want to improve.

Not for you? If this doesn't apply to you right now, great! And congrats! You could probably save time and get more value out of visiting another topic.

Is this for You?

If you are rated under 1400 standard and this feels like it resonates with you, then feel free to join in and share:

1. What your current standard rating on here is:

Example:

1350 Standard

2. When you plan to reach 1400 as your "goal target date":

Example: January 1st, 2014

3. Plan of Attack:

Example: 50 tactics trainer problems daily for the next 2 months, 10 chess mentor lessons, analyze standard game losses with computer

4. Current Sticking Point Problems:

Example: I make silly mistakes that I know better because I lose focus or don't check for my opponent's best replies when I analyze critical positions, I don't try to calculate what best move or plan my opponent could do next and prevent counter play, etc.

5. "What's working Now":

Example: I did 1000 tactics trainer problems in one week and noticed my rating improved by about 50 more points, so only 50 more points to go before I reach my goal!

Here's What to do next And

How to Participate in the Race to 1400

Okay, so now that we know what the purpose of this thread is and how it's designed to work,

I will "put myself out there" publicly and go first with the  way to announce my participation in the "Race to 1400 Thread" in the next post I add to this thread below. 

I will announce "I'm in" by answering the 5 details supplied above as they apply to me right now personally and encourage you to participate by doing the same thing, the same way.

Welcome to the Race to 1400, Good luck on reaching your goal and Let's do this!

"I'm in!"

1. Current Chess.com Standard Rating: 1350

2. Target Goal Date: January 1st, 2014

3. Plan of Attack: Play at least 5 Standard Rated Games with people rated between 1330 and 1400

each day between now and Jan. 1st, raising the rating strength seek as my own rating increases

and analyze my losses with the Chess.com Computer to see how to correct my mistakes.

4. Current Sticking Point Problems: My biggest sticking point seems to get careless and impatient which causes me

to make sub optimal moves and make mistakes that I should have known better than to make.

5. What's Working Now: I've noticed when I take more of my time and analyze the position more in critical positions that I seem 

to make less mistakes and my opponents eventually crack under pressure and make a mistake instead.

This looks like good stuff .Good luck to all.

Looks great but strive for 1500-1600 rating instead. Good luck and avaliable for any help :)

@DoubleBruce -- Thank you for the encouragement and support.

@TJMaxAttack1 -- Thank you for the encouragement and your support. (It sounds like good advice you gave and I believe I will eventually do that, but I know I'm the type that needs to break the progress goals down into more bite-sized, manageable, realistic ones first before raising the stakes.)

Update for today, 11/26/13

I think creating this Race thread was the kind of accountability I needed to settle down and focus on the goal.

Today, I have recorded new best wins on standard and also new personal high for standard.

Something that seemed to help was to play a couple of games against the Computer3Hard and then play people who were in the 1400s.

Somewhat suprisingly to me, I won most of my games even playing the higher rated opponents at the higher rating level.

I am encouraged by the results of the last two days because I am actually learning from my mistakes and correcting them.

I am pleased to report that today I reached my first goal of 1400 standard rating.

(I will continue to maintain this thread in case anyone who is still below 1400 standard would like to participate.)

After a long break from chess I'm ready for the challenge.   My first few games I quickly jumped to 1369 easily beating a few 1300+ players in live standard.  since then I have plummeted to average 1200 as it seems I have completely lost my ability to do threat assesments. so that is my goal, to play slower and not make simple mistakes.  also things like not answering the phone, the door or eating soup while playing.  GL to all.  My target date is Dec. 15/13

1. What your current standard rating on here is:

1323 Live Standard

2. When you plan to reach 1400 as your "goal target date":

I don't have a target date for 1400. My target is 1500 on 1st of July 2014 (my 2nd chess birthday)

3. Plan of Attack:

 tactics books + chess puzzles on chesstempo (1000/month) + master games + analysing my own games

Here is my reading list:

Bruce Pandolfini - Weapons of chess (light strategy)

Martin Wateschnik - Chess tactics from scratch, 2nd edition

3) http://www.chesstactics.org/

4) Susan Polgar - Chess tactics for champions

5) Yasser Seirawan - Winning chess combinations

4. Current Sticking Point Problems:

Not focusing enough during the match, playing the 1st move that comes to mind. Not considering my opponent threats and going with my plan only. Hanging pieces .

Not calculating all the variations in the endgame 

5. "What's working Now":

- What worked so far it doesn't seem to work anymore, I've hit a wall around 1300 live standard and 1400 on chesstempo.That's why I've decided to study the tactics books

Great idea, looking forward to post here when I get over 1400

Just reached 1400.

I have not studyed the books mentioned above, just a quick look through them. Not even tactics :)

What helped me a lot I guess is that I've start going to the gym one month ago. This helped me to sleep much better and I can focus much better now. 

Even though I blunder I think that I'm not leaving pieces en prise so often and I pay attention to my opponent's mistakes.

That's it, nothing special, just ask all the time the usual questions and don't let pieces hanging

One more thing, I've read something interesting in IM SIlman's last article which opened my eyes:

"When amateur chess players start a game, they tend to think in terms of winning. They hope to find some combination that will wow their friends and leave their opponent in awe. They want to play a great game so they can show members of their club, tell their wife about it (who may not even play chess and will have no idea what you’re talking about), or post it on chess.com (or the famous site,www.icrushedmyopponent.com - please don’t get this confused with Crush My Battle Opponent’s Balls, which is a guitar solo by Dethklok lead guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf) so everyone can finally appreciate your genius! Clearly, in most cases, chess is about ego, domination, and self-aggrandizement.

----------------------------------------

However, the chess pro tends to avoid that kind of melodrama (thought it sounds like fun!). Instead of going into a frenzy about how I’ll smash my opponent, when the game starts a Zen-like state envelops me. I sometimes give a loving look to all my pieces. Much like a football game where the coach gets his players into the right mental state for combat, I want my pieces to know that I have faith in them, that I’ll do everything I can to make them all as powerful as possible, and have them look as elegant as possible as they glide down the board. It’s not about winning, it’s about making my pieces happy, and if I succeed in that, I know they will make me happy too – BY CRUSHING MY OPPONENT WITHOUT MERCY!"

Well done! 

I have just two days for my target goal of the 15th to hit 1400 on live standard, currently 1324, I was trying to hit 1200 blitz first which should be today.  If I really crunch tommorow and Saturday I just might hit the mark!  This Study Guide below from chess.com is really awesome, I almost don't want to post It!  

http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory

Great work to everyone who has already reached your goal and if you're still working on it, keep going, you can do it.

Just checking back in with everyone with a report on how it's going for me. After reaching the goal 2 days after this thread started, I got lazy in my thinking again and dropped several points.

Well this morning, I am happy to report that I broke 1400 standard again.

What seems to have really helped more than anything is mindset.

I think doing Chess Mentor in addition to tactics trainer has really helped too.

The thing about Chess Mentor is it is really good for helping you to analyze positions and determine the right move at the right time.

I think I had neglected using it as much as I should have earlier and it may have held my progress back.

I've also just been getting really lucky that my opponents seem to be making more mistakes than before.

Maybe they always did and I just didn't notice them.

Something that has me feeling good right now is winning both of my matches in a team match because it seemed like it was more than just for me, but for a team too, so that was kind of nice.

One word of encouragement and advice I feel like I should pass on that has helped me keep my mindset during critical positions is to just focus on making good moves and good things will find a way to happen.

There have been several times where I thought I was going to go into a losing position or lose, but my opponent either missed the move or made a mistake and gave me new life. Those are the kinds of things I'm talking about with the just keep focused and make good moves and opponents making more mistakes.

Like they say, chess is a game of mistakes and whoever makes the *next to last mistake* wins every time.

Let's do it!

Leaningthemoves wrote: "What seems to have really helped more than anything is mindset."

I have to agree.  yesterday I lost a game after I got rattled by an openents mistake and equaled in a position I was ahead in basically becuase I had the wrong mindset.  Finding those winning tactics and staying ahead in chess is something that requires calm and focus to be able to use all the principles you have learned.  Nice work btw! 1400 live I think is a very impressive milestone and in my book is the first marker of respect as far as chess knowledge goes.  

Thank you for the kind words Sangwin. I've got to stop playing when I haven't slept too. I could win 7 of 10 but then get sleepy and then drop the next 7 in a row before I realize my mental fatigue is the culprit.

I do feel pretty good about this first milestone for standard. I think if I can maintain it and continue to improve, then 1500 will be the next goal.

I've had 1440 in blitz and 1300s in bullet, so I don't think it will be too hard to pull those up, if I can maintain focus, like you said. 

Another fault I have had is not playing seriously and just playing for fun, but I think setting goals could help me find the right balance between making progress and enjoying the process, hopefully both.

"Another fault I have had is not playing seriously and just playing for fun, but I think setting goals could help me find the right balance between making progress and enjoying the process."

I think you are really onto something there.  I know that I've had to modify what I find fun or what it is I enjoy about the game as I've progressed.  Most all players with proven live standard ratings above 1500 are part of the chess culture; having read the books or have coaches and go to otb tournaments and what not..    I keep the quicker time controls for fun and just taking shots and am trying to reserve the longer games for my more serious attempts.  Personally, I am totally cool with my chess skills and you almost have to question why a person would want to get better past the 1200blitz 1400live 1600cc level of play, and still think its fun 

I totally agree with you on this. For me personally, much of it is because I have found a deeper appreciation of the game, the more I understand of it. I remember what joy and excitement there was when I first learned the basic tactics and mating nets. It was like I felt like I had some secret knowledge and couldn't wait to play people I had played before. 

I realized there was much more to this game and that it wasn't beyond my reach if I was willing to sacrifice some time and effort to study, practice and training.

I went on a kick of doing as many tactics as I could during an hour for a few months.

It was during this time when my live rating jumped from 900 to 1200-1300.

I could hardly believe how directly related the tactics training to the rating increase seemed to be.

I noticed similar increases with endgame study and opening study, along with positional tips I picked up from videos and books.

The truly exciting part to me now is, I'm only a couple years in to this thing and realize I have my entire life to learn.

And to think if I could increase so many hundreds of points so fast and learn so much so fast, then imagine what level of playing strength and chess understanding/skill I can rise to in the next two years!

I do go through intense little spurts of a couple of days on a weekend or something where I just seem to live and breathe chess and play "in the zone" and win 80-90% of games in all time controls and just improve like a light bulb was switched on.

Then, invariably I'll make a mistake and get frustrated at the loss or lose interest for some reason and then begin to go on a losing streak and lose all the points I had gained a few days before.

But, I view this just as much part of the learning process as I do learning chess knowledge.

When I say I view "this" just as much part, I mean the part about learning about how I learn and respond too.

If I can improve my own mental and emotional toughness to stay consistent even through apparent losing streaks, then perhaps I can decrease the damage done during those times and learn to minimize the valleys while striving to maximize the peak times!

Once I feel I can play at this live standard rating strength consistently, I will next strive for 1500.

G'day!

interesting thread - and I agree, mindset seems to be  important. Had been over 1400 a week ago and began to feel comfortable. While before I had picked my matches according to how focused I was, 'playing for fun' took over and my race down to the bottom of 1300 started

So, the plan of attack is to choose again the right time for playing.
And: Keeping track of mistakes. Excel will be my man from now onwards - hoping to see which tactical and strategical mistakes I keep repeating.

Good luck everyone

Good day!

That's a good point about choosing the right time to play and keeping track of mistakes. It's one of those things we all say we know to do, but it's too easy to just say, "oh I knew that but just didn't calculate correctly or wasn't concentrating (or fill in the blank)."

But we can manage what we measure, so that just makes good sense to keep track of the mistakes so we can identify them and learn to eliminate them from our play.

Wouldn't it be amazing if there were just two main types of mistakes you were making that you eliminated and increased your rating another hundred points? That sounds kind of far fetched, I know, but over time, if you eliminate mistakes, you've got to believe you'll make less of the same ones that were costing games and maybe win a few more than if you didn't track them and correct them. 

Thanks for checking in and be sure to update this thread every so often with your progress and results.

And let's remember, this thread is created purely to help us reach the next milestone.

So, guys (and girls), I want you to post here when you are struggling just as much as when you hit that next milestone. When you share your struggles, you cut them in half and they will only serve to make success all the sweeter when we look back and see how far we've come.