How to surpass 1400-1500 rating?

Hello there,

I've been stuck between 1400-1500 rating since last few months. Can anyone tell me what and how i can improve my games and cross 1600? I mostly play 3 min blitz games. 

Tactics, studying the middlegame, some basic endgames need to be studied and maybe try and analyze your own games a little to learn from them too. Honestly, there are so many ways to improve. And without knowing your strengths or weaknesses, it's hard to give you more specifics for you as a player. But the above will make you stronger and it will raise your rating (over time).

"I mostly play 3 min blitz games." Get better at slower time controls first.

Play longer time controls and practice tactics. That got me to 1600.

Make another forum instead of hijacking this one please.

Stop playing blitz.

He reached 1500 in blitz!

As others have correctly advised....

Play Longer Time Controls...
For many at the beginner-novice level, speed chess tends to be primarily an exercise in moving pieces around faster than your opponent while avoiding checkmate, in hopes that his/her clock runs out sooner than yours. And/or hoping to notice and exploit your opponent’s blunders while hoping they don't notice yours. The reason for this is that there is little time to think about what you should be doing.

It makes sense that taking more time to think about what you should be doing would promote improvement in your chess skills and results.  An effective way to improve your chess is therefore to play mostly longer time controls, including "daily" chess, so you have time to think about what you should be doing.

This is not to suggest that you should necessarily play exclusively slow or daily time controls, but they should be a significant percentage of your games, at least as much, if not more so than speed games which, while they may be fun, do almost nothing to promote an understanding of how to play the game well.

Here's what IM Jeremy Silman, well-known chess book author, has to say on the topic...
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

And Dan Heisman, well-known chess teacher and chess book author…
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/http:/www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/dan-heisman-resources

and the experience of a FIDE Master...
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-blitz-and-bullet-rotted-my-brain-don-t-let-it-rot-yours

for some good stuff on general chess improvement, with a view toward learning what you should be doing, browse my blog.....
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics tactics

This will help with one of the biggest problems in chess which is NOT TO BLUNDER.

I will also state that although positional understanding and endgames are important in chess development, it is MUCH more advisable to study tactics and learn the patterns. The main reason is simple. Tactics are the language of chess. If you have no understanding of the language you will not be able to utilize positional concepts as you will not even see threats that are there. In reality, without a good tactical understanding you are walking into a minefield. The good news is that you can learn to be proficient in tactics. The bad news is that it will require some repetitive work. Anyway, hope I helped!

Opening preparation with sharp/tactic positions.

I was also playing a lot of Blitz. the last few weeks I have been playing only 10 or 15min games, along with doing puzzles daily and I am seeing much better results already.  

Dear Ernkv3,

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. Oh, and regarding playing too many Blitz games... this is very harmful for your chess improvement! If you always want to make fast decisions, it becomes a bad habit and it totally ruins your chess. Play Rapid games instead.

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

A lot of people say that keeping your blunders to a minimum can help you reach 1500 quite easily. Perhaps you can analyse your blunders and how/why you made such blunders. Factors could be time pressure, lack of tactical knowledge, not really thinking moves through when you have ample time, etc. Acknowledging the major cause and learning how to prevent or fix the issue would certainly help you reach 1500. Oh and of course, use longer time controls as the rest of the people in this thread said. It really helps.