Difference between 1500 and 1800??

What's the differences?

300

Often the endgame is the only place I can beat a 1500.

Yeah I completely agree, i find 1500 lack positional understand which leads them to play weaking moves in the middle game

About 300 dimimeters I'd say. And the ability to plan multimove combinations; knowledge of openings is way broader; playing the endgame by the book.

Good comments so far.

Just wanted to add a fun one by Kasparov who said most GMs would play most of the moves in a world chess championship match. What makes the world champion best is just a few moves a game they will find the best move that a normal GM would not. If we imagine that means 2500 to 2800 that's also a 300 point gap.

When Karpov was world champion he made a similar statement when asked what made him better. He said in general the world champion is a little bit better at everything (openings, endgames, calculation, etc).

Anyway, people looking for 1 trick or idea to increase their rating are generally asking the wrong questions. To get better choose the area of chess you're weak at and study it. It's probably not openings or tactics (although it might be). But it's probably an area you find boring or confusing and have been avoiding.

You can't get to 1500 without have some tactical competence, and most players study too much  about openings.

So for most 1500s it's going to be strategy or endgames (as others have suggested).

(and I mean this for OTB... if you're 1500 in some online rating but 1000 in blitz then you're probably not actually 1500...)

What do you think is the difference between OTB ratings and blitz ratings on this website, what OTB rating would somebody with a 1500 blitz rating on this website have? And what OTB rating would somebody with a 1700 blitz rating on this website have?

This is how I see it...

Kids who play blitz all day are the most inflated (kids are fast and playing all day makes you better at blitz). For them, OTB = blitz - 400. Maybe even -500 or more for a few of them.

Take away one of those (you're either middle aged or don't play blitz all day) and maybe -300 is correct.

Take away one again (you're either older than middle aged or almost never play blitz) and maybe -100 or -200.

Take away one again (you're old and don't play blitz much) then sometimes chess.com blitz can even be lower than your OTB. So at that point you're adding points to your blitz to = your OTB.

So for example, you might see I'm 2200 blitz... knowing that you can automatically assume I'm weaker than an NM or CM (2200 USCF or 2200 FIDE) unless for some reason you find out I'm 80 years old

Disclaimer:  this is just my way of estimating people. I'm sure others do it a little differently.

I am neither a kid, nor middle aged, I am 23 years old (oh my god, now when I say this sentence "I am 23", time goes by really fast, it feels like it was yesterday when I was like 16-17). I mainly play blitz and rapid, I rarely play slow time controls, my blitz rating is oscillating between 1700-1800, my rapid rating is now 1900 (I reached it mostly by playing 10 minute games though). 

Yeah, you're not a kid anymore

Sure, then maybe -300 for you, I don't know.

Ideally you can look up a player in your area (google for local tournaments / clubs because sometimes they post the names and pictures of winners, etc). If you can find someone local, google their name, and look at their chess.com account, that might help you estimate yourself.

Mozda ce ti ovo pomoci:

https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/

Naravno ovo nije uklesano u kamenu, vec cisto kao anketa i prosek onih koji su ucestvovali, a imaju online i FIDE (USCF) rejting.

@OP

We are all different. In general, the difference between 1 800 and 1 500 rated player is that 1 800 rated player will win in vast number of games. If 10 games are played, on average 1 800 rated player will score 8 or 8.5 out of 10. 

But there are all kinds of players out there. For instance, one player might be extremely strong tactically while not creating good plans in the middlegame or playing really bad in the endgame. For instance, I would say I am ok for my level in the opening stage, I am pretty good in the endgame for my level, and perhaps better than average in creating plans, but I am probably below average tactically wise. So some player rated 300 points lower than me could be better than me in tactical department or at least on my level, but a lot worse in the endgame or in middlegame play.

You can't just draw a general conclusion for everyone. In general 1 800 player is somewhat better than 1 500 player in pretty much everything, so it is not a really helpful conclusion.

You forgot positional understanding. 

Well, I wouldn't agree, but I respect your opinion. For instance, I feel that 1 500 rated player is much more likely to worsen his position by leaving some weak squares to be exploited, than 1 800 rated player. 

I had some games where I made normal moves, and 1 500 rated player just loses patience, makes some weaknesses and defeats himself. 

Of course, I am perfectly capable of doing that myself, but still 1 500 rated player will do it more than myself, and 1 800 rated player will probably do it even less.

Heh, no need for me to lose my mind over a normal response.

Of course, I agree that blunders are our greatest enemy, from beginners to probably every level below master (even GMs lose their mind and blunder when they are pressed enough).

What you say here is more or less what Karpov said about his preferred style of play.

To be fair, this is more or less how I view the game. I would like to see the position and try to decipher it so to speak. This is most likely the main reason why tactical stuff is the weaker part of my game, and why I prefer playing longer games. 

I have a question, does knowing when your opponent is in such a passive position that you can launch a kingside pawn storm and your opponent won't be able to exploit the weaknesses and attack your king before you successfully attack theirs in a position that you haven't seen before vs knowing when you can't do kingside pawnstorm counts as positional understanding? If so, then I think 1800s are better at recognizing when such a pawnstorm is justified and when it isn't compared to 1500s. 

When to push pawns in general and grab space vs when pushing pawns is weakening is also better understood by 1800s then by 1500s in my opinion.

When and how to challenge the dominant center or the pawn chain of your opponent even at the price of leaving you with a weak pawn which can potentially be attacked later is something that I believe 1800s are better at recognizing than 1500s are. 

What are the plans and what you should be doing in general in the middle game positions of the openings that you play is something that I also think 1800s are better at than 1500s are.

I remember watching a titled player on youtube playing 800 rated players or something. 800 rated player made a 1 move threat and the youtuber said that maybe this one move threat isn't so stupid after all because it provokes a weakness. However, after a couple of moves it became clear that an 800 just wanted to make a 1 move threat and had no other idea in mind. I genuinely believe 1800s will make such moves with the idea of provoking a weakness and then they will be able to exploit the weakness (which I myself have done in some of my games). I think 1800s are better at this than 1500s are.

All of these things are subtle though, because one blunder nullifies everything that I have said so far and I do believe that the frequency of blunders is one of the main differences between an 1800 and a 1500 rated player.

You talk a good one, but you don't know what you're supposed to do.

It is odd to me to address to you in English, but this may be interesting for someone else, so I will do it regardless.

There was a certain online chess test of sorts that estimates your Elo (of course  doing it is more or less for fun, it shouldn't be taken seriously). Anyway I did it 2 years ago shortly after I restarted playing chess after some 20 years, and my younger brother did it as well. I was always the stronger player, and the gap is not small because he was never that interested in chess.

In any case when we did the test, we got almost identical Elo estimation. Why? Well in some positions I did better than him, but in 1 or 2 positions he made 1 move blunders, as he didn't see the piece was hanging.

But in fact, those were not blunders, because there were very specific reasons that made those moves either correct or better than what I've come up with. So, his solution was good, but the reason why was beyond his understanding by a lot. 

It is like when you get the right answer in math test but you do it completely the wrong way, making several mistakes along the way that cancels each other out.