What should a 1450 player study to break into the 1600+ range?

"... Sure, fast games are fine for practicing openings (not the most important part of the game for most players) and possibly developing decent board vision and tactical 'shots', but the kind of thinking it takes to plan, evaluate, play long endgames, and find deep combinations is just not possible in quick chess. … for serious improvement ... consistently play many slow games to practice good thinking habits. ... I know that a large percentage of my readers almost exclusively play on the internet - after all, you are reading this on the internet, right!? But there is a strong case for at least augmenting internet play with some OTB play, whether in a club or, better yet, a tournament. ... I would guess that players who have never played OTB usually gain 50-100 points of playing strength just from competing in their first long weekend tournament, assuming they play five or more rounds of very slow chess. ... Don't have two day? Try a one-day quad (a round-robin among four similarly rated players). … about 100 slow games a year is a reasonable foundation for ongoing improvement. ... Can't make 100? Then try for 60. If you only play three or fewer tournaments a year and do not play slow chess regularly at a club (or on-line, where G/90 and slower play is relatively rare), then do not be surprised that you are not really improving. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf

Interested to hear what others have to say. 

I've got a way togo to catch up to your point, but I think I have some good resources for you.

I'm following this resource for my journey to 2000 rating:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627084053/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman19.pdf

Steps 3 + 4 discuss resources and ideas for cracking 1400-1700.

I also prematurely purchased the book "How to Reassess Your Chess: Chess Mastery Through Imbalances".

It's designed for players in the 1400 to 2100 rating and contains tons positional concepts and other deeper theory. Looks like 658 pages of pure gold, can't wait to get to the point it's time for me to study it. 

Best of luck. See you at level 1600.  

I think the original OP is no longer here, but this advice helped me a lot.

Analyze your games for recurring weaknesses and look to improve upon them. GMs do this all the time with their coaches. Most of us can't afford coaches (I can't!) so we need to use other resources - generally books and videos.

Practice tactics - and how do you best learn about tactics? Read about them; if you don't know a certain tactic exists, how can you possibly get good at it? Now that you are aware of them, study them, learn them. Then look for openings in your games to use them. And just as importantly, look at your moves, your positions to ensure you don't open yourself up to any.

Good luck.

 

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

When I first realized that I liked chess and wanted to improve I started going to the local chess club and playing tournaments.  While there, I met a few other players who liked to spend saturdays at the local coffee shop and play.  I started joining them, and while I wasn't as strong as they were (at the time) I managed to surround myself with chess players and learned a lot about the game.  Coincidentally it was the small talk during playing/watching that improved my game (along with practice).  While everybody is different and has different learning methods, I really recommend finding the time in ones day to sit down and play chess with other people in a friendly atmosphere as a way to improve.

Tactics alone will get you to at least 1600 blitz, mixed in with basic positional concepts (outposts, weak pawns, lead in development, etc). Knowing how to draw and win KP vs K endings is essential, knowing Lucena and Philidor positions can help you too.

As a 1450 player, I have broken into a 1600 rating a few times. However after 1 or 2 games, I start going back down again.

here is another thing i often forget about but since i have done this it has helped me

because i pretty much use chess.com only on the ios app i am not able to really use it’s features to ultimate max (it’s ok i dont need it atm)

my coach- strongly recommended (because it was so clunky how i caveman tried to transcribe games and send them to him to look at before our lessons) i look into database software

only so i could upload games there, easily insert comments, variations, etc and then easily send the pgns to him

not only did this make our lessons better but it has been a huge help for me

all my chess.com games i “copy/paste” into my data base and i can organize them however i want (right now putting games into “fall 2019 games” and i have 7 games in there

i can easily insert variants and annotations; save it and do with it as i need

this made my post game “analysis” so much more efficient and effective

the database does other stuff but i havent even explored it really as i am totally content with how i can use it atm


so for all of us improving players who care enough to ask more experienced players for advice- getting a database to easily organize all of our “longer games which we analyze after playing to improve” is very helpful and requires little effort (my ios database app was cheap if it cost anything at all- it is called “chess studio”)

Surprised that you didn't suggest a draw offer.

blitz is blitz chess. standard is standard chess.