For those who got premium memberships on chess.com, how much did your rating improve?

For those with premium memberships, how long has it been since you got it, and how much has your rating improved?

Is it worth the investment in your opinion? Chess is only a hobby for me, no plans to compete OTB or anything, i just want to get better but seem to have plateau at 600

I didn’t really get membership to get to 400-1750, I did win diamond membership from a tournament but I didn’t use it to its full extent, I just watched a lot of Gotham chess videos and read some books.

Mine improved by about 400 elo

If anything, its down.  I paid a little to support the site, which I have used free for a long time, but the lessons... it jumped into the middle of a series with spew about what they want you to do and then an insulting message for every move you make that matches what they told you to do, you have to hunt down a prep move for a strategy that was not properly explained in a convoluted position at a GM level.   "No, no, no .. we want to move to c5 yes but you just lost the game by doing it NOW".   

I would be very surprised to find even one lesson like that.

i went from 900 in blitz to 2450 as my highest

Really, the best thing about the membership is the unlimited analysis and puzzles. I don't often use the lessons. Never really felt the need. Perhaps they will be more helpful for advanced players. 

Game review is quite helpful. It can be difficult to individually go through every move with the engine, especially if you don't have much spare time. Although the coach's "explanations" are virtually useless, it provides a quick way to see your mistakes, which you can then go in-depth into with the engine. 

Puzzles are also quite helpful for improvement, at least at my level. 

Since I got membership, I gain 400 in blitz and rapid time controls. I’m not a bullet player by any means but I play it the odd time when I’m drunk.

Gained 2000 points and currently at 2800 for tactics training which is my main focus and the practice has carried over to OTB in terms of board vision, executing captures and mitigating blunders.

You can sign up on Lichess if you want free rated puzzles because you should be doing a dozen per day.

With regards to analyzing games, do you know what to look for? The most important things is understanding why you are blundering and repeating mistakes? Ask a higher rated friend to explain the why behind everything.

To be perfectly honest, the beginner lessons weren't too bad but I got a lot more from watching youtube videos, reading books, and using Lichess Studies than with premium chess.com. Also, Lichess gives you a free analysis of your games which will help you improve. They also have free puzzles too but you can also find a chess puzzle book on archive.org that should be outside copyright

It hasn't changed my rating at all, but that's not why I upgraded. I wanted unlimited puzzles and game review, so I'm happy with the value I'm getting. 

 Fun fact: the engine analysis on chess.com is also free and unlimited.

Although premium membership and improvement in rating are not directly connected, but certainly it really helps you to take your game to next level in the long run. Best thing about membership is puzzles. I am currently on a 7 days trial, it's gonna end tomorrow. I really loved the quality of puzzles here. If you keep solving puzzles for some time, I am sure it's gonna help you in your games as well. This is why I felt membership can indirectly help you. It's not like, you bought diamond membership today and you will start seeing improvement from tomorrow. Unless, we put in hours into the proper utilization of the subscription, it's gonna be in vain for sure. So, ultimately it boils down to your dedication only.

I love lichess studies, but I also think that the lessons here are very helpful. I personally find it easier to study information by learning it from a "lecture", as opposed to a "study guide",  probably because of my particular learning style.

I use books to learn so I can go at my own pace and I don't have to understand any accents. Simon Williams is a good teacher but the other guys who aren't European have thick accents and don't have very good English so it makes it hard to understand them. But it is very good to their ideas in their opening books as you can go at your own pace, easily skip the parts you don't want to go through and have it all saved on Lichess to refer back to when needed. 

I did use Lichess studies for the  Chess.com video series on sacrificing against a castled king so I can go back to the games without having to wait a week for my lessons to renew 

But you can't go straight to the mistakes. You have to find them manually and I don't like the Engine analysis on chess.com as I do on Lichess. Lichess is a little bit faster and I can go further into a position if needed without paying for premium. Also, it gives me access to the opening explorer so I can see what masters, my opponents, and even I faced in the position without having to use a different tab to look through the games. Works on the phone too with the exception of looking through you own games unless you use the browser

My current lesson, the response after attempting to find the move and failing:

You missed Karpov's maneuver. Will you get it on the next try? I'm not sure. Lay your bets, ladies and gentleman of chess.com! Lay your bets!

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

The hint: Karpov's move is now standard in these kinds of positions. 

Even if I find the move after a few tries, its rarely teaching me anything at all, its some convoluted position that some GM got into that I have no clue what they are trying to do. 

I mean, you are 2000, I am barely 1500.  Maybe you find these kinds of lessons meaningful, but its beyond my level. I don't get why they are in these convoluted positions, nor where they are going next, and the text provided is typically historical nonsense or a ramble about some obscure opening.

This is out of context, Who knows how obvious the move is in view of the previous examples and tips.

How obvious it is depends on how good you are.  It is not at all obvious to me, nor are the hints and explains useful.  Its beyond me.  There isn't any need for it to add insults on top of that.  And this is what I paid for?! 

@jonnin - You are right. Everything after "g5 is incorrect" is useless, and probably a failed attempt at humor. The problem is that text on a web page is free, so they can put as much nonsense as they like. Similar to EKAFC, I prefer to learn from books. Text in a book costs them money in paper and ink, if nobody buys the book then it is their loss, so they tend not to waste it on stuff like that. (Although one author I won't name still manages to put a lot of irrelevant stuff in his chess books.)

I think I was about 700 rapid and 1000 daily or so when I got a premium membership. That was about 18 months ago. I am now 1129 rapid and 1583 daily. I have done over a thousand lessons but that is a bit misleading because some of the lessons are just like a simple two move puzzle.

To be honest nobody needs a premium membership to reach 1000. You can get there by watching some free videos on YouTube and/or reading one or two chess books. In my opinion the value of the chess.com lessons is mainly to help you go up from 1000 to somewhere nearer the 2000 mark. But it takes a lot of practice and hard work.