Advice to improve rating ~1000 rapid

I’m 37 and started playing for the first time in March 2021. I know I stand no chance of being amazing, but I’d like to be a lot better. I went above 1,000 in rapid (I know, dizzy heights) but then seemed to get stuck.

I have a local chess club, and I’ve been to visit and play OTB. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a teaching / sharing environment and it’s more about the team. It’s not really adding anything.

Does anyone have any tips other than buy a book / do some chess.com puzzles (I’ve done a ton of them)? I have been toying with the idea of getting some coaching help, but that feels mad at this level.

All constructive comments welcome.

Maybe you should watch chess videos on Youtube. Gothamchess has some good videos on how to improve.

Is there kind of a dedicated corner for you to play a quieter game or to analyse a completed game (be it yours or others)? You could possibly use such a spot. But this depends on the COVID restrictions in your country.

 

For online, you could possibly start on studying endgames first, where fewer pieces mean fewer complications in gameplay but one error can be fatal.

Have a daily schedule working on just a few things every day.

- opening : have 1 main opening as white and 1 or 2 for black and study the lines and get them down. Knowing your openings helps prevent early blunders, can create and early advantage for you to convert into a win, and simply your opening will often dictate your strategy or main ideas in the middle game.

- tactics: tactics is huge at that level. Do your puzzles daily, at least 25 of them and don’t just take guesses at what the first move is. Move the first piece after you have calculated the entire variation to end in your head.

- Game analysis: REVIEW EVERY GAME! Find your mistake and understand why it was a mistake, also reinforce what you did correct.

That’s the gist honestly. I don’t recommend a whole lot of studying on end games unless you are blowing many games that way.

And most importantly watch yours and your opponents 1 move blunders. Guaranteed 1 or 2 of these are happening every game at that level.

Good luck! 👍 ☕️

i suggest a diamond membership:

i've taken 1,000 quality lessons from here.

lots of puzzles, every day... they will take your game very far indeed if you stick with them.  think of 3/5 rush & puzzle battle as the cardio, survival rush & standard puzzles as the heavy lifting.

the endgame trainer is waiting for you.

better to play the opening on principles:

castle quickly, control the center, develop with threats, minimize weaknesses, be efficient...

determine your weaknesses & eradicate them.

I looked at your 2 most recent wins (one white and one black) and 2 most recent losses (one white and one black).

The number one thing is greed. You have to be greedy. Don't lose even a single pawn for free.

Below is obviously not your proudest game, and I see you were trying to develop checkmate threats, but think of it from white's perspective. You give away piece after piece and then the game is over. White didn't even have to do anything to win, just accept the free pieces.

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The other is opening principles. I think you're already aware of them, at least you're clearly beyond the beginner stage of developing 1 or 2 pieces then attacking, but you're not 100% of the way there yet. You often develop 3 or 4 then attack. You're often not castled. You often don't place and maintain a pawn in the center*

You're also making some basic errors:

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Don't develop a knight to the edge

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Don't develop a bishop to a square where it blocks a center pawn.

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*Some openings don't place a pawn in the center early on, and some don't maintain a center pawn, but playing classically will give you clearer objectives in the middlegame such as attack in the direction your main pawn chain points (kingside or queenside).

 

Ok, that was what not to do, but it will be helpful to tell you what to do instead.

1) Try to complete development as quickly as possible. Development is "complete" when all the knights and bishops are off the back rank, the queen is off the back rank, and you've castled. So now there are no pieces between the two rooks on the back rank.

 

2) Try to make every piece mobile.
Bishops like diagonals that aren't blocked by friendly pawns.
Knights like outposts (you can google "knight outpost" if you've never heard of this)
Rooks like open or half open files (again you can google "half open file" if necessary)
Queens usually like to stay within a few squares of their starting square
Kings like to be castled to a side where the 3 flank pawns have not moved.

 

3) Play a pawn break in the center to open ranks, files, and diagonals for your pieces.

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And what to do after developing, and playing a pawn break?

4) At that moment you're well primed for trying to infiltrate. This is generally the stage new players try to skip to right away (infiltrating and attacking).

For example

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Instead of castling and trying to finish development, black jumps ahead to infiltration. Qxb2 posts a piece on the opponent's side of the board and threatens the knight. Moves like this tend to have much more success when you've spent the first 10-15 moves focusing on quick development, castling, and playing a pawn break in the center.

 

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So to recap:

 - Be greedy! This is the most important thing. Don't lose even a single pawn for free.
 - Challenge yourself to follow the opening principles more closely.
 - Avoid common mistakes like developing knights to the edge or bishops blocking central pawns.
 - Mobility is what gives pieces value. Bishops and rooks like lines unobstructed by friendly pawns. Knights like outposts.
 - Playing classically by placing a pawn in the center tends to make middlegames easier (your basic plan will be to play a pawn break in the center and infiltrate into the opponent's position)

Have you done it before?

That way still works, except chess.com wont show it at first. You have to post it, then click on the button to edit your post, then post it again, and at that point it will show up.

If you've never done it before, then you should see little icons above the text box. The one that looks like a chessboard will open a window where you can do things like paste a PGN or enter moves manually.

(warning, if you try to post more than 1 diagram, chess.com will only show the first one after you edit and repost. You'll have to re-enter all the others. So either do them one at a time, posting and then editing as you go, or copy the additional diagrams before posting, then when you edit, paste them and post and they should all appear)

Oh ok.

It's frustrating because chess.com makes them disappear at first, so a lot of people ask how to post them, and one guy even told me after editing and trying multiple times he couldn't get the board to appear.

OP watch John Bartholomew's fundamental series on YT , great stuff

Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it.
That little mental discipline alone is enough to get to 1500.

Thanks to everyone for their help, much appreciated. Shout out to llama47 for the game notes too.

another poster suggested 'silman's complete endgame course':  gotta say that really is a great book.  well-structured & full of vital information, reading it through carefully will easily jump your practical playing strength up by several hundred points & that's an excellent one to keep around for reference material, too.

i can also heartily recommend jeremy silman's 'reassess your chess', which is essentially an excellent system of thought detailing how to break a position down to its fundamental components & come up with a middlegame plan.

everyone has been offering stellar advice... i'd only add that it's extremely important to focus on calculation:

'strategies' are created from various ideas.

'tactics' are comprised from myriad patterns.

basically, it's great to [think about] 'keeping your king safe' behind a castled shelter of pawns... just make sure you [look ahead] to spot that 'back-rank mate' coming up & factor the possibility in before continuing the game.

no amount of planning will help if you're still dropping pieces or overlooking checkmates.

try to maintain your composure & avoid reactive playing, though... the beauty of analyzing concrete lines of play for EVERY MOVE (like a computer engine does) is that you will always be able to determine when it's appropriate to push a pawn up to give your king air... and when you can ignore the 'threat' because you're able to immediately slide your own rook down to checkmate their king first.

everyone begins somewhere & many great players started later in life... study hard & you'll improve;  ask for help if you get stuck.

Here is something I've written from my own experience:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

In general, I've written a guide on how to improve your chess in general, and some instructive YouTube channels that might help you out are in there. Of course, it is free material and buying a book is probably more efficient, if you find the right book for your rating. But the guide is mostly on what you can do with free material.

In any case, good luck.

There is a free 10 week email course offered by IM Mat Bobula which is aimed at all players below 2000 level. I tried it recently and my rating went up by a little over 100 points.

How much I would have gone up over the same period if I hadn't been taking the course, I cannot say. But I thought I would share because I got some value out of it.

when you talked about developing that knight to the side of the board it wasn't the best example. that was french defense ideas and the plan was to develop the knight to f5, though i think Nge7 would've been better in that case.

@Skipton_Fist message me. Let’s play chess at regular basis. Let’s be chess buddies.

Play more slow games. At your level playing blitz is detrimental, you're playing more by intuition and hope than calculation. It's like comfort food, it's fast and tasty but will you leave you panting for air vs serious opponents and won't power you on to actual chess prowess.

I don't suggest buying a book right away, use your diamond membership and watch some of the lessons they have on chess.com. They literally have tons of them. Yes you can buy a book and learn efficiently but nowadays being able to pay 15$ a month and watch lessons from GM's teaching you things that are in books is simply a much more efficient way to learn IMO. To start though I'd focus on learning the basic mating patterns and maybe play survival now and then to start understanding tactics a bit better. Don't worry too much about completely knowing opening theory right now. Focus on putting your pieces on the best squares. Last two things I'd suggest is to play rapid if you really want to improve and consider learning a decent gambit and trying it (blackmardiemer, smith morra etc), it'll help you understand how to build and keep initiative in your games. Good luck bro. Lessons on chess.com are very good I'd recommend them over a book.

There are also openings that temporarily block a center pawn with the development Bd3.

There are exceptions to every rule / suggestion in chess, but you have to start with the basics first, and fill in the exceptions later.

If a 1000 rated player tries to play in a standard way (quick development, safe king in the opening, pawn break and mobile pieces in the middlegame) while being greedy (not losing anything for free and capturing material that's given for free), then they will gain many 100s of rating points.