How to break through to the next level? (1600-1700)

Pawn structures. Not just the simple stuff like doubled or isolated Pawns, but middle-game families of Pawn structures, like Jump formations, chains (and the associated head-duos and levers), Benoni formations...

My recommendation: Pawn Power in Chess by Kmoch. If you wanted to be methodical, read My System by Nimzovich first.

This has helped me as well.

That was my first thought, because that's how it worked for me too.

I'd say Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis and for strategy Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy.

Obviously @blueemu suggests different books. Read reviews on amazon and see what's best for you.

Here's Seirawan's take on Nimzowitsch

https://www.chess.com/blog/GMYAZ/open-letter-response-user-radovics-letter-to-me

I already broke through to that level. This thread does not help me

Huh... Pawn Structure Chess is a watered-down version of Pawn Power.

Ah, yes... the Heroic Age of Kmoch... when men were REAL men, Pawns were REAL Pawns, and small furry animals were REAL small furry animals.

We will not see its like again.

Yeah, maybe it's better, I haven't seen Kmoch's book.

I have both My System and Modern Chess Strategy though, and I'd go with Pachman for sure.

Just trying to be fair about it.

People seem to either love or hate Kmoch's pawn book, so I figure there must be something to that.

Don’t listen to makehelltal. Opening study is almost worthless. Unless it involves studying the Alapin variation of the Sicilian 

Yes. Listen to this guy!!

I love the fried liver!

Both Nimzovich and Kmoch were very polarizing writers.

One point is that both of them were High Prophets of brand-new Chess paradigms. They were carrying the banner for a whole movement... although in Kmoch's case it might have been a one-man movement. It's not realistic to expect bleeding-edge innovation, and objectivity too.

So some parts of the books are a bit over-blown.

When you read the books with that perspective in mind, they become both more readable and more entertaining.

In any case, I swear by them. And yes, I have the Soltis book AND the Pachman book on my shelf as well.

eh i cant get to 17's seem to never reach 17's otherwise im good at 

One thing that really opened my eyes were Josh Waitzkin's videos for Chessmaster.  Seven annotated games, and he really dug deep into both the chess and psychological aspects of high-level play.  I must have watched them a half-dozen times each, and I adopted most of his openings and his general style of play shortly after.

I believe you can find at least some of them on YouTube.  Having a master walk you through a game, seeing how they think, is never a bad thing, and it might give you a necessary change of perspective to take that next jump.