don’t feel like I’m improving...

My rating (I only realized today that I pretty much only play rapid) has gone up a little lately (still not anything to brag about), but I don’t feel like I’m actually improving. I read things people post here and I honestly have zero idea what they’re talking about. I don’t have any clue about strategy or the names of any of the styles of any type of play... I just know how the pieces move and use that to try not to lose pieces until I see a mate opportunity.

I’d love to be able to understand what it is I’m doing from a strategic standpoint, rather than just winging it blind without knowing what’s really going on.

I mean, seriously, I’m ignorant to all of this. But here’s the thing... reading just bores the life out of me. I’m very hands-on in my approach to learning anything new. What would be your best advice for me in trying to achieve my goal of both understanding what it is I’m actually doing, while continuing to improve my skills? Should I find a local club? Get a coach? Just keep playing and hope to pick it up as I go?

Any advice would be more than welcome!

First of all, you could follow the song from Queen: Keep Yourself Alive and not worry about rating too much. "I tell you just stay satisfied; stay right where you are."

Seriously though; chess is just a game. It is a game I love and it can be more than a game, but it is just a board game at the end of the day - if study bores you, then you don't have to put much time into it. Most chess players do not make a living by playing chess, so you may as well enjoy it as a hobby. With this said...

1) If you don't want to improve much, then don't put in the time. There is nothing wrong with playing chess for fun if you don't want to put in the effort to improve a lot. 

2) If you do want to improve, but don't want to spend so long on it, then I recommend tactics and basic "theoretical endgames" and basic checkmates. Tactics training is probably the one thing you can do to increase your chess rating the most for the least amount of time invested. The endgames and checkmates take a bit longer to learn, but the goal is to give you an idea of what you are "steering for" during the game and to give you more endgame confidence. 

3) As for the opening stage of the game, you can save time and effort by not trying to memorize the openings; this isn't nearly as important as most beginners believe it is. You can get by on "Opening Principles" enough to probably get you to around 1500 chess.com level for the opening. 

https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again 

 

All you're trying to do is get a better position than your opponent. More space, more active pieces, less weaknesses (or less exploitable ones at least.) Don't start the game thinking you have to mate the enemy king via a direct attack. 

Dear Captain_Beef,

I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you.   Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.

You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.

So, the question you asked is not so easy to answer, but I can tell you one thing for sure. In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.

I hope this is helpful for you.   Good luck for your chess games!

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

Tactics and opening principles are two great places to start. Neither require much reading. Opening principles is a simple set of ideas. Tactical patterns are simple to understand and then are strengthened and practiced by doing puzzles. But what do you mean by reading bores you? Do you mean study or reading? Chess study tends to be light on the reading. Many chess books impart knowledge by encouraging the reader to play through annotated games that provide instructive lessons, so it is a learning by doing approach but you do have to read the annotations and play through the games to understand the ideas and help them sink in. There are plenty of websites that keep it short and snappy, and you tube of course. Can you be clearer about what the barrier is? Even coaches will give you homework. If you want to improve but dont want to study, that is fine but you will have to accept a slow progress.

BTW. In answer to your question, join a local club where the more experienced players will analyse your games with you and explain it. A coach will expect you to study and give you homework. Picking it up as you go generally also relies on some study.

Thanks, folks.  I definitely appreciate the info!  To address one question that was posed, I definitely do NOT have a problem with studying.  I just don't get anything from reading.  I was explained that a lot of chess instruction (reading materials) would have me physically work through what I'm learning.  So that's certainly something I'll look into.  But I think I'm going to get the most from playing and analyzing with someone who knows what they're talking about.  Potentially a coach.  But definitely going to be looking for people to play with locally.  

And I don't aspire to be some great player.  I just really love the mental aspect of the game - problem solving and mental challenges are what motivate me.  I simply want to get better and actually know what it is I'm doing when I do it.  

Spend most of yoir study time doing puzzles.  Figure out the solution in your head before you make your first move.

If you are wrong, figure out why your solution is not as good as the one in the puzzle.  

 

Do at least a half hour of puzzles daily and in a couple of months you should see improvement.

If you haven't taken advantage of the free week of diamond access on here, do that and go through as many of the lessons as you can during that time.  They are a good resource for getting started.  There are short 3-7 minute videos with some examples you play at the end enforcing the lesson.

Since you're not into reading, how about videos?  On YouTube, I highly recommend John Bartholomew's videos - start with his "Chess Fundamentals" series.  That very first video may be the most important chess lesson - defending your pieces.

The puzzles on here are also great to go through - I'm just starting out trying to get better than "this is how the pieces move" and the puzzles have helped me to really see the board in a whole new way and things to look out for.  I've done I think close to 2,000 of them now and I think I've picked up a lot from them.  Really good players always say that the key to learning chess is about recognizing patterns, and I think that's what the puzzles help you learn.

If you want some entertainment thrown in with learning, there are some GMs who stream on Twitch who also try to throw in some teaching.  I recommend GM Daniel Naroditsky (goes by Danya) and his Twitch name is GMNaroditsky.  I also recommend GM Maurice Ashley and his Twitch name is GMAshley.  I find them both instructional whereas some like GM Hikaru Nakamura are more entertainment and I don't really learn much from him because it's too fast and too high of level for me to understand - it's like a whole different game he's playing.