Advice on beating the 1500 ELO plateau.

What's up, Chess.com dudes and dudettes,

Basically I've plateaued mega hard at around the 1500 area. Been stuck here for quite some time, and was wondering if any of you super skilled chess wise-nuts can give me some advice to break the plateau?

My knowledge of tactics, and openings, is fairly decent. I've used Youtube to learn a lot about the game, and feel I have a fair understand of key concepts from beginner to intermediate and some advanced territories, but just can't seem to get past this level. Some days I'll play like a megaton super flashy 1800, and others I'll be falling in the 1200 area. 

My final goal in chess is to hit 1800, and I believe it's highly doable - Just thought it would be cool to create a solid discussion on how to get there.

Thanks to all who read this. 

Yours sincerely,

IM (Intermediate Master) Arron Fowler 

I only play blitz so it might be different for me but in blitz 1500 you need to not make blunders, understand how a move will change your position, see and counter your opponents play, be able to calculate like 4-5 moves ahead, and all the other basic stuff like endgames.

Sound, dude. Thanks for the comment.

I'm pretty good with endgames - got pawn, rook and two bishop endgames down.

I can calculate 4 to 5 moves ahead pretty well.

Move positions I'm pretty good.

Kind of feel I've got a lot of the knowledge of a 1800 player, but definitely make some of those silly blunders here and there that cost the game. Trying to find maybe some smaller more obscure ideas that I'm missing that could elevate. Stuff like overloaded pieces, etc.

Was wondering if maybe diet or good night's sleep can help play elevate?

A good night’s sleep definitely can help you play better, I’m not so sure about diets(as I haven’t yet tried one).

If you are making silly blunders, check before every move that you are not blundering. Also double check your calculations to make sure that your plan works and your opponent can’t prevent it in some way.

Cheers, dude.

What Elo are you now, and how long did it take you, super duper chess lady? 

the “search forum topics” is criminally underused 

Yeah, I think 100 points a year is a pretty good amount to be fair. I put about 8 hours practice in a week, and that's how much I'm progressing so far. I know chess skill kind of stagnates as you get older though, so hoping it's still possible to reach 1800. I'm 30 now.

Also, it is extremely doable. I was rated 200 a year ago. All I did was watch YouTube and play. I inhaled gothamchess and daniel naroditsky for a while, and here I am.

Gotham has been a godsend. How many hours did you put in, dude?

yeesh. if you asked me like half a year ago, I would have said around 6 hours a day. nowadays, I put in around an hour a day. maybe that’s why I’m not improving as rapidly, though.

Yeah, I've dropped off the hours over the past year, but 6 hours a day is pretty insane, dude.

#1

"advice to break the plateau?" ++ Analyse your lost games

"My knowledge of tactics" ++ Is not decent

"and openings" ++ That does not matter

"I've used Youtube to learn a lot about the game" ++ That is a poor medium for chess

"Some days I'll play like a megaton super flashy 1800, and others I'll be falling in the 1200 area."
++ Some days you spot tactics and some days you do not.

"My final goal in chess is to hit 1800, and I believe it's highly doable" ++ Yes, 2000 is doable.

Yes you can still improve.

But i'll take some naivety away: 1800-1900 is still considered garbage. At that level you're only starting to see what real chess is. But you're hardly seeing anything (the real moves).

My advice is to work on precision and go deeper. Study master games and try to find the moves. Do more puzzles, stop playing for fun. Chess is not fun, chess is logic. There's a higher human motivation.

So instead of following personal affinities, try to solve it scientifically. Set up hypotheses, play with a focused goal for every session, and draw conclusions based on what the session achieved. That's the elevation of the mind that leads to elevation of your game.

And no, you're never too old, the question just is how much time do you have.
To make each step up takes exponentially more time, and becoming a grandmaster will take more than full-time work. I bet it takes periods where 60-80 hours a week is normal. But to 1800, you can do 10-20.

So, I looked over a few of your most recent games. And you are correct that your biggest weakness is blundering. And to be honest, I can’t really understand these blunders. One game, you hung your queen in one move. One game, you lost a knight to a two-move tactic. One game, you played a highly speculative bishop sacrifice that led nowhere (which was only saved when your opponent played a highly speculative bishop sacrifice that led nowhere).

But if you want to get to 1800, first you really have to improve on that. I think that alone will get you to 1800, not making these one or two-move blunders. And second, I don’t know if you usually play speculative sacrifices, but you probably will win more games by playing safe and by actually calculating your sacrifices instead of by guessing. And if you’re not sure if a sacrifice is sound, you probably shouldn’t play it.

Just my two cents.

I looked over a few more games, and maybe you’re making blunders when you’re just focused on one really nice idea that you have? And you’re not visualizing the move and thinking, “what are ALL the ways my opponent could punish my position after this move”?

You would ultimately know better than me why you’re making blunders, but that really is the first step. I would guess that you could hit 1700 on that alone. After that, you’d probably need to learn how to defend. Because you attack a lot, but it feels like you kind of don’t understand how attacking works. And you’ll know a lot better how to break down an opponent’s defenses once you practice defense, yourself.

Busterlark, 

That Queen blunder in that game was because it was 3 am in the morning, and I was playing whilst being pretty tired, dude. 

I do tend to make some blunders like that every so often, but most blunders are like missing an odd pawn move that can lead to an opponent attacking.

A lot of my sac tactics are intentional. I understand how attacking works, but sometimes it will hit others it won't. I like that bit of advice where you say look at all the ways I can punish my opponent. I do tend to see a really decent tactic, and then get tunnel vision just toward that one tactic and miss out on a potential misfire in the attack. 

Thanks for the advice though, dude.

Maybe you shouldn’t play at 3am when you are tired, play when you are most alert.

lol

See Zonechess,

I find it interesting that people have different perspectives on what is considered good in chess and not.  In my opinion, 1800 if your gunning to become a GM or master of somekind isn't too great, but in the grand scheme of things 1800 is pretty decent. It's better than a huge percentage of the website, and I find you never have to be the World's best player at something to be good at it.

The idea of 1800 being good doesn't come from 'naivety' - I know GMs, IMs, NMs are miles better than 1800, but I'm not aiming for that. I'm aiming to get enjoyment out of the game, and be to a level which is competent and in everyday life considered pretty decent. I'd much prefer to be an 1800 at the game that has a serious love and passion for it, than a 2200 that gets 0 enjoyment out of what he's doing. 

I mean realistically a 1200 - 1400 who is at the beginning of the intermediate stage will absolutely woop a casual player, or beginner, so in some aspects a 1200 is still considered competent at the game. I just feel that a lot of expectation surrounding what is good at chess is far too high. 

I do appreciate your advice though, dude. Will make sure I sink in around 10 hours a week, and eventually I'll get to the target goal.