Ok, been playing chess for long time now..my uscf rating is 1585 my highest is 1591..played in many tournements World Open..etc got serious with chess about 5 years ago..the normal Uscf rating is 1600-1700 so i guess i suffer from a mental disability or am i not studing the right things? and i used to boast well my rating is only 1500 but really  1800 strength...Well i found out the hard way i was a miserable 1300 ...anyway ive seen some real 1800-2000 uscf not even know how to checkmate properly with a king bishop and knight! and one TD how to draw against king and pawn..im open to about any suggestions...

What does it take to get to 2000 uscf? is it a special gift the player has or is it just many games? 

Fezzik and paulgottlieb both make excellent points.

About 40 years ago, I was around 1700 USCF and had just agreed to a draw against a 1900+ player where I was pretty clearly winning.  My old mentor, then a "low" master strength, asked me why I did it and I told him I would still gain rating points for the draw.

He was harder on me for that than anything else, ever.  "Rating?  Rating doesn't get you anything once the clock is ticking.  Never even think about your rating!  Learn the game, play, practice, and work on your weakest areas, and your rating will take care of itself!"

His point was that ratings are just a number, a distraction - which in this case caused me to give away half a point in a tournament game.  Enjoy the game, and play it hard.

2000 takes some talent, but I agree with Fezzik, not a whole lot.  You said you got serious about 5 years ago, but before I say "five years is a long time, if you're still 1500 for the entire 5 years blah blah blah" I'd have to ask what do you mean by serious :)  How many chess books have you read (entire chess books ;) and how many of your tournament games have you analysed?  I don't mean analysed by, I reviewed it at the tourney and then put it into fritz and looked at what fritz said for 10 minutes.  I mean analysing it yourself or with a stronger player for lets say at least an hour total.

It's funny that some tough players don't know certain techniques.  Such as the B+N mate or perhaps another technical endgame.  The reason such a player might beat you though is they're a better analyst over the board.  Their evaluations are better and their calculation is cleaner (don't have to look at the same line 5 times) or more to the point (better moves considered, more bad moves dismissed).

There's no way to tell what you're doing wrong without knowing you and your chess pretty well.  So the advice I (or someone else) might give will probably be hit and miss.  If you want my opinion though... 

I would recommend objectivity though.  Look at your wins and losses and find your mistakes regardless of which side won in the end.  It doesn't matter how clever your trap was or how many of your opponent's fall for it, if there was a subtle defense that left you in a bad position you can't play that way anymore.  I would recommend you read a strategy book like Pachman's or Silman's Reassess Your Chess.  After that resolve to play only the moves you truely believe are good.  Not because they're sneaky, or aggressive, or they've worked in the past.  Not because you assume your opponent will respond by defending, ignoring, counter attacking, etc.  Just the individual move by itself you have to like, and you can only start to do that with some strategic knowledge.

That and tactics.  Not timed tactics.  Solve puzzles until you get them right.  This will improve your calculation making it cleaner (you eventually won't be looking at the same line over and over to re-check it).

This is a great summary of what I was trying to say but didn't really.  Play, make mistakes, learn from mistakes.  Resolve to never make same mistakes again (it might happen again but like Estragon said play hard!).

Good posts above that too.

thank you i will get specific later have to go to work..

Nope i have only played like 12 tourney games in 5 years and i won 8 or 9..i have done the whole chessmaster josh games etc..great tutorial by the way..um the chess advice on here that tells your blunders is that a good tool if it is i will get account!!

.ok heres what i have heard...learn the same line ..play the same line untill your sick of it..know it inside and out...work on endgames of that line and more...i like wafflemasters advice+ about playing  in tourneys...ok question gambits seem to work for me and since im playing in the under 1600 section a gambit like the smith morra .icelandic.. is not so bad to play right??..i have lost from one pawn down before but the piece developement you get is great..and im attacking and hes defending...and it wasnt a gambit when i lost by a pawn...that game sucked...slow death..

are gambits ok to play in under 1600 section? it seems so i played this one trap out of the carro kann and it worked..no a gambit just a trap..couldnt believe it..also my friend got the elephant trap lose a piece in our section..i played the smith morra gambit in tourney and won in under 20 moves..etc..

The book "rapid chess improvement"...a study plan for adult players, by Michael de la Maza... from Everyman Chess, adresses this very problem.  I must admit, I haven't applied all the ideas in the book, although I have been inspired to keep up with the tatics training.

thanks irra

  Just a point, I do not think the normal chess rating in the USCF is that high, 1600 - 1700, That could make Americans the stongest chess players in the world, I think 1450 is about close!  Maybe in Russia 1600 to 1700? I am sure there is a way to find out, ask the USCF.

Well, I would say you don't really know your strength if you've played a dozen games in the last five years. Find some cheap local tournaments to play in and try. You might be surprised what your strength is. Or you might be  humbled. And from there, you'll have some concrete data that shows where you need to improve.

As for what it takes to get to 2000, I don't know, I'm not there myself. The people I've seen who got there played a lot of chess, though.

I don't think there's anything special to get to 2000, besides putting in a lot of time and effort into improving.(If you want to know the specifics, I suggest books like How to Reassess Your Chess by Silman and Think like a Grandmaster by Kotov.) Two thousand is totally doable. I've seen adult class C players go up two-three hundred points hundred points in a year.

    I remeber years ago when a expert came to our chess club and played simultaneous chess against all of us and whipped our butts, if you reach expert rating 2000+ you are something in my book. And please I am not talking chess .com on line chess I mean the real world OTB rated. 

"anyway ive seen some real 1800-2000 uscf not even know how to checkmate properly with a king bishop and knight!"

Yeah, not knowing that was a real problem for me... the one time it came up in a game back in 1996 or so.  I should probably learn it, because if I play another 2000 games, it will probably come up again!

My point is, not knowing that particular checkmate is not neccecarily going to significantly drop someone's rating in the long run.  

I'm also going to take issue with "the normal Uscf rating is 1600-1700".  My current USCF rating is 1423.  According to the USCF website, that puts me at:

Overall Ranking 11638(T) out of 45830

State Ranking (WI) 203 out of 700

In other words, I'm well below your figure, yet well above the "average" rating.

Yeah, but there's a vast number of children rated under 1200. Like, 27,000. And 5000 children rated over 1200. If you remove the kids under 1200 (or all the kids), suddenly your ranking drops significantly. The median rating for an active adult is like 1700.

I would rather like to think getting to 2000 requires commitment and dedication. past that requires talent and help from teachers/better players /. group efforts

commitment and dedication

don't do the crime if you can't do the time.  simple as that.  you have set your goal on 2000 , then its pratice, practice practice. and volume volume volume which requires hours of play

from 1700 upwards learn openings, main line and one deviation. 3 from each color so you can start an opening repertoire ,  then tactics,  and after that how to apply those tactics in your openings. 

most of the games from 1500-1700 are lost before the opening has been  completed ( 10 to 13 moves ) and before you can enter the middle game.

from 1800 and onwards you will find yourself more into positional play that is where books like "the art of planning in chess" comes in from Neil McDonald. 

This course will teach you how to make plans after the opening , and teach you the beginnings of positional play , lines , structures etc.  

after some time and  games you have played will find yourself lost when entering the endgame when playing beter players. 

that is where endgame study comes in.  ( silmans complete endgame course helps here)

you should be able to apply to newly acquired knowledge into practice.  if you are a normal club player and do stat comps + 1 tourney a year , you should be able to get around 20 games a season.

make it 3 seasons , maybe 4 , thats 60-80 games   in which you can reach 2000 from 1500 ,  which is about 100 - 120 a year

beyond 2000 requires  teachers/better players / group efforts. as most of the 2000+ won't play at your local chessclub, (2200-2300 and onwards)

all of the levels require game analysys from yourself, with computer/chess program help and peers perhaps.

maybe 8 to 10 hours a week , game included aswell as study , magazines etc etc , that would be a fair estimate.  ( at least , it is what I currently spent on chess )

 This is a good point. And it seems that, looking at your tournament performances, you were on an upward trend when you stopped, though you were a little inconsistent. It's hard to tell how strong you really are if you aren't playing regularly.

Point taken, but it's still not QUITE that high.  It's in the lower 1500's for adults, according to this link.  (Seems like a small difference, but it's enough to make the OP's rating slightly above average instead of below average.)

 Split the difference. Using this kid's numbers, you see 1608 is at the 49th percentile for active adult players: