Making (no) progress in live chess.

Hello to all,

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the following subject:

I've been playing live chess for quite a bit during the last 2-3 years - today 5744 games so far with the ratio of 55% won the rest lost or drawn.

It's just that my rating (and also my skill as such, I feel) hovers around the same area as thousands of games before. I'm currently ranked 1445 at Blitz chess and my best has been 1499. I feel that I despite having put a lot of hours (I don't even dare to count) into the game, I don't think that I've made much progress.

I've noticed this with other live players too. I've played against people from years before whose rating is just the same. Of course it's just fun to play as such but a big part of chess as a hobby is the desire to keep improving, right?

Now, as it is clear that by playing live and correspondance alone doesn't seem to get me any further what would you people suggest? In correspondance I'm currently around 1750 - so no beginner but not really advanced either. I do the tactics trainer (so far 60 hours) but the issue remains. 

If any of you fellow players feel that a certain excercise or method has helped you become better at live chess, please share your insights.

Thank you

Pessi

helsinki, finland

My rating has dropped substantially over the past year, at least in bullet. 1600s are playing much stronger than they did a few months ago. I don't have a hypothesis as to the cause, but I blame my mouse.

There are a lot of different ways to improve and there isn't any magic bullet.

Studying all aspects of the game are important. Doing tactics. Playing over games of Masters/IMs/GMs. Analyzing games, masters and greater and your own. Books on openings, middle games (strategy, tactics, positional play). Watching videos. Playing longer time controls (even correspondence). Get a coach.

If you look over your old games you may be able to see where your biggest weakness is and start working there.

• Do you come out of the opening behind? Then study the openings you like to play and the ones you see most often by your opponents.
• Do you drop pieces or fall to tactics or even miss tactical resources against your opponent? If so, you need to improve your tactical training.
• Do you loose in the endgame? Study endgames.

I'm not going to say I have the answers, as I'm trying to improve too. However, those are some of the many steps (there are others). It takes time and you won't always see improvement. However, if you can eliminate or minimize one you weaknesses you will improve at least some.

Bullet ratings have been adjusted slowly over the past 7 months or so, and are still slowly dropping. This is being done by taking 2 points out of the rating system erey time there is a large (200+ points?) upset. See erik's post here. (option 2 is being implemented)

However, I've heard from various authorities that playing live games is good for the "learner" (I can't imagine anyone who isn't one) since it developes your tactical eye.

Putting a lot of hours into chess, unfortunately, does not necessarily promise results. Much more important than the number of hours spent is what you spend those hours doing. It sounds to me you have been amassing a hell of a lot of playing experience -- which is all very nice -- but experience is only useful if you can understand and integrate it into your games.

First thing I would recommend would be for you to get a coach. Trouble is, good coaches are very hard to come by. Even grandmasters, who may be fantastic players themselves, usually suck when it comes to teaching. Also, I don't know your budget (a lot of these coaches are very expensive -- often at the same time as not being very good).

Assuming you don't get a coach, I would advise you take a look at some of your 5744 (wow!) games. Try to look over mainly games that you lost, try to understand why. Try to figure out how you could have prevented the loss, or even if you had missed wins! Try to come up with patterns i.e. what stage of the game you generally lose in, what types of positions you don't do well in, what types of positions you do do well in, etc.

After you figure these types of things out, you should try to target these weaknesses. Its hard for me to give you guidance here without more information, but I'll give you some examples.

I'm assuming you probably aren't as strong as you would like to be in the endgame (most people you're rating aren't). You should look at Silman's endgame book. It helped me a ton, it could feasibly raise your overall game by a couple hundred points -- and even if not, it would definitely increase your love for the game!

For openings: make all the moves you wanted to make but the books never let you!! :D Don't worry I'm not (that I'm aware of) one of your live opponents in disguise, trying to sabotage you while pretending to help you. There is method behind this madness! The point is, you probably have fallen into a rut, playing the same openings over and over again. You probably know the basic moves and setups that are "recommended". Well, find out WHY they're recommended!! Go crazy, play the most bizarre, eccentric, interesting responses you can think of and find out why the "wrong moves" are wrong! It takes guts to do this -- and chances are you'll drop some rating points at first -- but your playing strength and understanding can only benefit.

Middle game is more complicated to diagnose without any information. On a hunch, this is probably not where you should be focusing on. One thing I can tell you is DON'T FALL FOR TACTIC-TRAINER-ITIS!!!@#@!

Seriously, its become like a religion -- anyone under (and sometimes including) 1700 otb strength automatically assumes that if there is anything wrong with their middlegame, obviously the tactics trainer will save them. Tactics trainer for most people is a compelete waste of time! At best, it can be used as a tool for "getting back into shape" -- nothing more! It will not (in most cases) increase playing strength or even tactical ability, and if it does it will be by a miniscule amount. Ironically, the best way to work on middlegame at your level is probably just working on endgame and opening. That way you will understand, to butcher a famous quote, "whence you came from, and wither thou are going"... or some such. And that in itself will prove enormously helpful to your middlegame. 

IF you must use some training tool, use the chess mentor. It will be much more productive than tactics trainer.

On top of all of this, it is always beneficial to go through master games. Pick a side -- I usually pick the winning side :) -- and try to come up with responses to the other players moves. Try to understand why both sides made the moves they did, and how they could have come up with them.

I need to run, but I hope this helped. Good luck to you!

Thank you for your insightful comment. I feel you hit the target. I fear that I've indeed fallen for Tactics Traine-itis. And also I tend to play the same few openings (King's Gambit & Najdorf) over and over again without experimenting much.

I will heed your advice and concentrate more on studying rather than just playing alone.

Thanks and all the best!

Get a commonly recommended chess book.  Any of them.  Authors include Silman, Nunn, Pachman, Reinfeld, Chernev, Seriwan, Vukovic, or others.  Read that one book cover to cover, and when you're done if you feel like you didn't get >80% of everything it was trying to teach read it again.

Like other posts said, seems you have playing experience and tactics.  Time to build some knowledge :)

Considering all you do is play blitz, a good book well studied is worth 100 points at our level easily.

The problem that I'm having is getting my bullet up to the level of my USCF rating is far harder than it was. I'm typically 200-300 lower at bullet. I was in the top 2% in bullet here, but in the past few months have dropped to the top 4%. Most galling are the frequent losses to players who lack elementary skills.