What did you do to progress beyond 1500-1600 in rapid/classical?

Started playing six months ago and have now played 1000 games  and currently at 1400 in blitz (5/5) and 1500 in rapid. For the last two months I have hovered between 1475-1550. I switched to playing 15/10 exclusively since playing 10 minute games caused me to time out or making quicker moves which caused me to just make moves that created nothing.

 

It feels like my wins comes from taking advantage of mistakes my opponent is making, very few times it feels like my win comes from outplaying my opponent in the middle game. At times it feels like I get myself into weak positions right after the opening and have to play an upward battle to get into an equal position again to try and win in the endgame.

 

Since my struggle is in no way unique, I would like to know from people that struggled the same way, what paths you took to progress as a player and how long it took you to improve.

Looks like you did improve over the last months.

Just keep playing to your best ability and after the game look at the game. Look at the opening and make sure you are playing accurately and you have a reason for every move. If you miss any tactics or get into a bad position or miss anything, save it as an image or something so you can remember it. 

The easiest way to improve is to focus on things that happen the most. If you always get a decent position from your openings and know which types of tactics happen and you get familiar with them, you will play faster and do much better. 

Stay away from blitz if you value improvement. 

This is a simple example of something you need to improve on. Don't be too afraid of the queen taking the b pawn as it's usually a poisoned pawn and you can gain development plenty of compensation for the pawn. What you did further weakened the light-squares when your light-squared bishop is on the other side of the pawn chain unable to help. Both ...Bd6 or Nd7 would have been far better and you would have actually had a better position. You can simply play Rb8 and regain the pawn with tempo on the queen with a completely winning position, if he takes your b pawn.

Thanks for the advice.

I have gotten my queen in trouble taking poisoned pawns like that but on opposite side I am so worried about losing the b and possibly a pawn that I fail to see the brutal counterattack that I would be doing with my rook on the other side of the board.

I also spotted the nice tactics if he ever dared taking my D pawn with the queen.

I got to 1500 then tilted lol

I've missed these myself so many times, it's such a common theme which is why I chose to highlight it.

I learned how to better protect my pieces.

I hit the books.  Specifically, I read My System by Aron Nimzowitsch.  If you're anything like I was, your positional play is a lot weaker than you realize.  Once you absorb the hypermodern concepts, it may take a few months for your tactical methods to adjust to the change, but it will easily add 200 points to your playing strength at all time controls.

Study classical players and tactical ways to attack

Looking at the games I have played the last few days after I made this thread I really need to work on my positional play,

 

I make a bad pawn move which results in weak positions. I also get myself into cramped positions and sometimes I can play myself out of the position but when my opponent plays accurate I end up losing.

 

The one thing that I have become better at when playing slower games is anticipating what my opponent attempts to do which makes it easier to play out of bad positions.

I just had the poisoned b pawn situation and it quickly led to disaster for my opponent. Thanks for the great advice.

I waited until chess.com changed 10min to rapid, and got a 500 point increase for free.

But seriously, I'd recommend looking at middlegame plans for different openings - you'll get an idea of plans for both sides, and you will be able to play in those positions better than your opponent because you know the plans for the position.

i like the idea of looking into middlegame plans because the reason why I sometimes get into trouble is that as black I react to what my opponent does instead of having a plan on my own. Its one of the reasons why I ditched qgd and now play king's indian defense. It feels like I have a better general idea of what I'm supposed to do when playing KID, in qgd I was always at the backfoot.

 

I glanced a bit on my system, just small things like general ideas on why to move pawns and feels like I got a better grip at developing pieces and how to fight for the center. Still so much to absorb and plenty of things that just go over my head.

 

I also looked at daniel naroditsky's rating clinb which are very instructional. I have a tendency to rush actions and it was interesting to see his thought process on how to build up a good position and then execute a vicious attack that rips open his opponents position.

 

I realize now that the stagnation in my rating earlier on was because I played too many games where I wasn't focused and my rating suffered from it. Trying out different openings also caused a lot of trouble, the positions became different from what I was used to. The style of play also changed quite a bit going from 10 minute up to 15/10 games, there's too much time for opponents to spot the cheapest tricks and it took a while for me to actually use that extra time properly. 

 

It feels like I improved a lot over the three weeks since I made that first post. Thanks for the good advice.

Same story here honestly.

I am unfamiliar with many common openings, so when I play against them, I have no idea what I’m doing and so have to improvise.

In my latest game I improvised something which turned out to be a bootleg grand prix attack against the Sicilian.

I lost, unsurprisingly, due in large part to my incompetence.

I blundered my rook for no damn reason, lost my light squared bishop to a basic tactic (the queen checking my king and then capturing) and lost my dark squared bishop to a mouse slip (or more accurately a finger slip, given that I play on a tablet) which resulted in my a passed pawn for my opponent as well.

I had a nice little mate threat going, but in the words of Carlsen it was “too weak, too slow” and he was ultimately able to defend rather trivially.

Slowly its getting better so here is advice to myself I hope I can continue doing.

 

• Improve your openings

I still haven't learned my openings properly. After every game i need to review my moves to see where I deviated from my plans. Its getting better but its still far from great. I rely far too much on opponent making early fumbles and if that doesn't happen I get into weak middlegames.

I also got some weak spots as black against d4 that needs fixing.

 

• Focus on playing good chess

When coming up with good moves, keep looking at what your opponent is trying to do so you don't get caught. Most of my mistakes comes from lack of attention and not lack of knowledge.

 

• Keep up with tactics

Make sure to take your time in tactical situations, calculate your moves instead of just blitzing it out and hope for the best. This goes especially for practice where I am just hopeless.

 

• Put as much focus on your good games as your bad games

I can learn a lot from the times when I play good games, how my opening created good situations, how I play positionally good moves that made it hard for my opponent and when I managed to win an even or lost endgame.

Reinforcing good habits is extremely important to play good chess.

 

• Stop playing blitz

The constant time pressure means I don't have time to look at what my opponent is doing and I notice that it carries over to when I go back to rapid.

all my chess life I learned from my mistakes and thus fewer and fewer mistakes.

Since I finally managed to reach 1800 in rapid its time to make a post on what I did to break through 1500-1600.

• I had some openings that led to positions that I didn't know how to handle. I changed to playing a closed sicilian that gives a structure that is similar to KID as black. Before I had a tendency to be slightly worse out of the opening and now I get into equal positions and sometimes a better position.
• Since I'm playing openings that fit my playstyle I don't have to spend as much time in the openings and can use my time when its needed.
• I play fewer games per day and put more effort into each individual game. It reduced the amount of sloppy games and ratings drops I used to have. When I play bad and lose I take a break.

The reason it took so long was that I had some time off playing rated chess here and played casual chess on a different site.

4 years only to reach 1800?

I had some previous chess experience from my pre-teen so probably had knowledge around 1100-1200 rating but hadn't played chess for around 25 years before joining the site. took me 6 months to from there to 1600, after 9 months i took a 2.5 year break and returned 5 months ago.

during the first 3 months on this site i spent somewhere around 6-8 hours per day working to improve my chess. let's just say i was very bored during covid pandemic.