How to improve your chess level ?

Hi everybody,

I just want to know if some of you guys have exercice to improve calculating capacity or strategies and tactics abilities. I learn chess by myself with a lot of videos, one or two books etc. But now i want to really progress and i don't know what is the best way to do that? I practice chess everyday and try to learn from my mistakes in game but well I'm still unsatisfied.

A young French man. Learn's sake.

Practice one opening at a time and learn all kinds of end games and follow some basic steps to develop pieces. Also avoid moving the same pieces over and over again. Let each piece develop then attack. Watch chess videos from good players like MatoJelic (my personal favorite), Ben Finegold (Chess club of St Louis), Akobian (same place as Ben), and ChessNetwork/Kingscruscher if you want deeper analysis of games.

For beginner videos these are some of my favorite ones:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgACBk-4dAs
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCkdHnay3I0
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yvzdZT4-qc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2bjIU6uvc

Mato uploads videos every day and all are worth a watch.
www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic/videos

Also as important or more important than learning the openings is learning different endgames and checkmates.
Play all kinds of different endgames from position against the stockfish engine.

Some more tips
1. Dont get your queen out early
2. Find out what your opponent is trying to do
3. Dont fall into forks and pins
4. Learn openings from level of difficulty start with easy openings then get more complicated.

Some of the best openings to start with in my opinion include:
Kings pawn games
Ruy Lopez
Scotch/Italian game.
Sicilian
Caro-Kann
and Pirc/Modern however less common very solid for the most part.
French (I dislike playing it but I have to play it from white)
Queens pawn games
Queens gambit accepted and declined (leads to all kinds of other openings)
Slav
Semi Slav
Kings Indian Defense
London System
If someone plays QG against you it is probably best that you chose the declined line or make it a Kings Indian.
Getting better the English opening is good and if you want crazy - aggressive then the Benko gambit is decent in the Benoni (a more difficult opening not recommended for beginners).

And lastly practice practice practice.

I am sure I am missing some advice but this should get you started.

if you really want to get better fast. I would say that patterns are really inportant. because if you see a plan quicker you can find the better one in less time. What is also really inportant is to see what the position is worth bad/good pieces, good sqaures

I was taught chess about 6 years ago when i was 7 and started to really play when i was 10. And i wish i was told back then that tactics are needed to a certain level( mate in 4 forks pins Rötgen double check smotherd mate), but Positinal chess is way more inportaint handier as you get a real feeling for the game

In short: Learn your patterns these are almost comparable to tactics and focus on positinal chess

Thank you for your answers i'll follow your advices.

best regards.

At your level, tactics make all the difference. 1000-1500 ELO players usually give up the game because of a one or two move blunder (ie not seeing forks, skewers, pins etc) so I would really encourage you to practice tactical ideas. Try doing the puzzles in lichess. Do 10 a day, and solve for accuracy. Few months of this should improve your chess rating by upwards of 100 or sometimes even 300+ points.

I wouldn't recommend you study openings yet. Learn the first 5 moves of the basic stuff, like the Ruy Lopez, Najdorf, Slav etc. Try using the database of chesstempo.

Regarding endgames, just learn the basic patterns and forced mates. (ie k+ p vs k, q + k vs k mate, rook + k vs k mate, etc etc)

Final piece of advice : Don't play blitz/bullet. I would recommend 30+0 games. Rapid games can stunt your development starting out.....

Yeah, thats pretty much it... i got to 1600 doing this.

1. Play tons of blitz
2. Analyze master games
3. Do tactics puzzles
4. Watch banter blitz

I don't consider bullet or blitz a good way to get better AT ALL. To get better you need to learn to give your moves more thought, which you will not do under short time restraints. Play classical games with at least 10+0 and analyze your games. Study a few openings and use them in those games. Pick a few good youtube and twitch channels you like that do chess. But do not expect speedy games to teach you anything except how to take pieces really fast without thinking.

1) Play over tons and tons of games on a real chess set full of slashing attacks and tactics repeatedly 1000 Short Games of Chess by Irving Chernev, 100 Soviet Chess Miniatures, the Golden Treasury of Chess by Francis J. Wellmuth, Adolph Anderssen Master of Attack by Sid Picard, Nezmetdinov's Best Games of Chess, My Fifty Years of Chess by Frank J.Marshall, Tal's Best Games of Chess, Spassky's Best Games of Chess by Bernard Cafferty, Fire on Board by Shirov, Alexander Alekhine's Best Games of Chess

2) Solve chess puzzles in magazines and books and mates in 1 2 3 4 5 6 software is great too either online or with a DVD like Alexandra Kostenuiks Chess King software or CT-Art 3.0 or 5.0 is good

3) Play games at least 25-35 minutes and lots of 3.0 blitz and rapid games

Good luck!

The most valuable advice for you is: Don't play blitz. Play longer games.

@Johnny - les deux méthodes les plus efficaces sont :

1) aller dans un club d'échecs et commencer à jouer en compétition OTB
2) prendre un fort joueur (2000+ OTB) comme coach, ou si possible, un coach professionnel