Secrets of mastering chess quickly

After 8 years of playing chess i have realized chess tactics are critical in a players improvement and i will explain why. Chess tactics help you cheat the game in terms of improvement, a person that has solved 100 thousand chess tactics is good as if he played 100 thousand games because chess tactics help you get to the meat without cooking, getting spoon fed. Maybe that is why Bobby Fischer released a book called Bobby teaches chess and the book was entirely a book on chess tactics. Video analysis by chess grand masters is fundamental as well. Chess books are really becoming obsolete and the reason for that its because its really time consuming reading a chess book unless you are able to just click a button and the moves automatically happen. Chess should be played 10 percent and studied 90 percent if you really want to improve. I hope this helps 

 - Everyone knows tactics are important since decades ago.

 - Being good at puzzles doesn't mean winning more games (if the other aspects of your play aren't up to par).

 - Fischer didn't write that book, and the format wasn't his idea. The book also wasn't tactics, it was mostly a book of back rank mate puzzles.

 - Video analysis is passive learning that's hard for most people to remember a day later. Playing moves on a board and thinking is harder... but improvement isn't easy.

 - If all a person has been doing is playing, then yes, it would help to mostly study for a while. After learning new things though, you have to play to learn how to properly incorporate them into your game.

After tactics, video lessons (if we assume you don't have coach) is the 2nd fastest way to improve really. It can be someone playing the game and you observe or game analysis or specific topic.  There is nothing better that to see and someone to explain to you. Unless you are old school and don't like technology , books are for you.

Chess mentor also really helps a lot here, i recommend it above books, becouse you can move pieces or play vs computer and everything you need to know is at one place.

To master chess you need to understand chess. Tactics are like the fundamentals. You need to be able to look at master games and understand why they play the moves they play and what they think during a game.

Tactics will teach you chess magic, you dazzle your opponents like a wizard. Chess.com tactics are very sweet, check out chess tempo as well they have very nice chess tactics. Video Analysis is better because in a book you cant explain everything but with a video you can explain everything plus u demonstrating. If you master your tactics you will see things other players wont see. Almost every good attack requires a tactic you must know that

That is true but that doesn't mean tactics are the only thing that you need to "master" chess.

"Every now and then someone advances the idea that one may gain success in chess by using shortcuts. 'Chess is 99% tactics' - proclaims one expert, suggesting that strategic understanding is overrated; 'Improvement in chess is all about opening knowledge' - declares another. A third self-appointed authority asserts that a thorough knowledge of endings is the key to becoming a master; while his expert-friend is puzzled by the mere thought that a player can achieve anything at all without championing pawn structures. To me, such statements seem futile. You can't hope to gain mastery of any subject by specializing in only parts of it. A complete player must master a complete game ..." - FM Amatzia Avni (2008)

I have seen high rated and strong players that play really well when they are playing their openings, which are like just couple. (Not to mention any names, but i watched many  games by NM Ferrari and he plays only 1 single line as black ) Some fail at fundamental and beginners tactic or some are very weak  at endings and yet still high rated. Others don't know lines and always play some random move like a3 at very beginning, but are strong positional and at defense and sees and newutralises your attacks.

 your threats... Others avoided practicing much endgame theory and tactics and openings and did rely mostly on what they saw and know by observing  games by masters and copy plans and ideas. - That was me at beginning, later i study tactics, endings etc. General opening principles are not enough above 1700-1800

You can be expert without to be good at everything, but i think for self-respect i prefer to be good overall at everything, maybe not so much, but not to have any big holes in my chess understandings.

Oh, and play as many 5|0 games as you want, but in terms of "secrets of mastering chess quickly" never play more games than you're willing to analyze.

I think the best is to stop after each individual game, and at the very least review the opening and look for the single biggest error. If instead you play 10, 20, 30, etc in a row and don't analyze until you're done playing, you may be making the same mistakes over and over which will reinforce bad habits.

If that works for you, keep at it! We all tend to find things that help us along the way, along with things that we don't find useful. It differs from player to player.

Though, it's probably best not to advise others on how to "master" chess, unless you're a master chess player yourself. :P

Positional understanding is like a sniper zooming on his target, chess tactics are the bullets you need to finish off your opponent. Nobody said ignore other aspects of the game, everything is helpful in chess improvement but tactics are number 1 in that list of priorities. Do more chess tactics, Nakamura beats all of us here on chess.com and he solved more than 3 thousand chess tactics and how many have you solved unbeliever?

3000 is not that many.

I beat my first titled master OTB after only doing two things: playing lots of blitz, and reading positional chess books (like My System and Excelling at Positional Chess).

I didn't discover tactics puzzles until later on. So, at least for me, books and playing were my two main sources of improvement (the opposite of what you said in your OP). Which is why I said: what works for some players is often different for others.

Though, I do agree that tactical ability is very important. It's not everything, though. Put too much importance on it, and you risk neglecting other areas of improvement.

How do you explain players with lower tactics ratings who beat players with higher tactics ratings? IMO, it's because tactics, while important, aren't everything.

Finding tactical solutions to a pre-set position is one thing. Learning how to steer a game in a certain direction is another thing entirely.

If you told Hikaru that the reason he's one of the best players in the world is only because of the tactical puzzles he's solved? He'd probably laugh. :D

Teichmann70 wrote:

"... learning chess ... It take many years of backbreaking practice!"

Sort of depends on how much chess one wants to learn.

As I find myself improving, I believe beginning to master the game involves relearning everything that got you to start understanding the game in the first place.  Its when principles start to get bent and ignored because you're looking at the consequences of any change on the board instead of individual moments of strength.

  For example...i just played a game where I moved into a fork with my rook.  It was ok.  either capture led to a mate in 2 or 3 moves. 

I had to learn to see the position not the tactics (moving into a fork?!).  i was instinctively going to react to a "bad situation" by making a more immediate and passive move.  I have let go of all attachment to plans, and pieces. Read the board, set a goal, and make it happen or your opponent will.  as usual, Chess functions as a perfect analogy for life.   

Every move completely changes the scene and the power of a move is defined by the ripples it creates.  i had to stop asking "whats the best move" and start asking "what happens if do this?"  that may seem obvious but you'll know what i mean it happens to you.

this is what is always being communicated that it cant be taught. its a gradual realization a sudden understanding of the board like a language starts to makes sense. and you need to know more