Five Years Without Progress: Why My Rating Stalled — and How I Broke Free

Returning to the Game

I was introduced to chess at the age of six — my grandfather showed me how the pieces move and explained the rules. By seven, I was playing confidently, and by eight, I had earned the 4th junior category. My attempt to reach the 3rd category was unsuccessful, and soon chess disappeared from my life for many years. I returned at the age of thirty. The reason was my eldest son — his school started teaching chess, and I decided to recall what I had forgotten, teach my son, and give it another try. Chess quickly captivated me and became a real hobby. I played almost every day, watched videos, read books and articles, solved problems, but as I later realized, none of this led to real improvement.

Part 1: Why Progress Stalled

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Mistake 1: Studying Chess Endgames “Backwards”

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I developed the idea that I should start by studying chess endings. It seemed to me that by mastering final positions well, I could confidently convert games to wins. For this, I took Yuri Averbakh’s book and deeply studied many complex and subtle endgames, including rare and difficult positions. My strategy was to build the right pawn structure, simplify the position, transition to familiar theory, and finish games successfully. The idea seemed logical: if I know how to win the endgame, I will aim for those positions. However, in practice, I almost never reached those positions. In the opening, I lost extra pawns, got into difficult situations, had to struggle to survive, and often settle for a draw. Ultimately, this approach did not allow me to progress.

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Mistake 2: Weak Opening Preparation and Underestimating Precise Move Order

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I studied openings — watched videos, learned the main ideas: piece development, opening lines, rook placement, and space control. I read books like Nimzowitsch and understood key principles. But in practice, I often broke the move order, relying on intuition. This caused development problems — pieces got stuck, the king stayed in the center, and the initiative quickly passed to the opponent. I underestimated the importance of precise sequencing: I played by rote, not considering how the opponent might change the plan. As a result, cramped positions appeared early in the game. This seriously hindered my ability to build a solid game from the start.

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Mistake 3: Playing Too Much Bullet and Not Analyzing Games

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One of the most serious mistakes was excessive enthusiasm for fast games — bullet chess. I played game after game non-stop, never reviewing my mistakes. Thinking I could fix things in the next game, I constantly switched approaches and theories, jumping from one concept to another without a systematic understanding.
For five years, my rating hovered around 1800, but there was no stable progress.
Many games played did not translate into quality — bullet chess ate up my time and prevented real development.

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Conclusions:

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My approach was based on isolated chess elements but did not cover the game as a system. I studied endgames without the skill to reach them in games, knew opening ideas but underestimated move order, played a lot but did not learn from mistakes. All this blocked progress, and now I see how important it is to structure learning differently. In the next part, I will explain how I began restructuring my learning and what changes really produced results.

Part 2: The Method That Changed Everything

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The breakthrough didn’t happen by chance — I changed my approach to learning. Instead of scattered knowledge and random practice, I focused on systematic work. Over six months of such work, my rating increased by 300 points from a stuck 1800 to 2100, and most importantly — I gained confidence in my actions on the board. Here are the key recommendations that helped me achieve progress:

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Recommendation 1: Automating Move Sequences

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The first thing I started with was opening theory. And I’m sure: this is exactly where you should start. I found structured material with a clearly visible end. Each opening was divided into branches explaining the sequence of moves.
My task was simple but labor-intensive:

• Study each opening;
• Memorize the exact move order;
• Automate it, so I wouldn’t waste time thinking over the obvious in every game.
  This approach helped avoid early mistakes. By move 10–15, I would reach a familiar position without losing material or falling into traps. I stopped confusing move order and consistently got decent positions out of the opening instead of just trying to survive from the start.
  This created a solid foundation for the rest of my game.

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Recommendation 2: Deep Material Mastery

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It’s not enough just to watch a tutorial video and get inspired by the opening. Even ten viewings don’t replace dozens of played games. Real understanding comes only over time. You’re unlikely to absorb the sequence of 10–15 moves from 20-30 minutes of watching one lesson as well as from ten games played.
The solution came in the form of rigid repetition and review:

• The goal was to memorize and automate moves so that not a single move would cause doubt.
  To do this, I took these steps:
• For each video, I created studies on Lichess with chapters
• Repeated each chapter daily, one after another
  According to the author’s recommendations, I was supposed to master an opening in a week — but in fact, after 6 months, I’ve only studied 2 openings and still make mistakes.
  After three months of daily practice, I not only memorized moves — I started understanding their meaning. Familiar positions no longer scared me; on the contrary, they suggested ideas. Most importantly: having mastered one opening, I began to consciously recognize patterns and more easily learn new ones.
  My progress is currently limited by the lack of theory for Black. As White, I win games (if I get one of two familiar openings), feel confident, and play known positions; with Black, my rating drops. Nevertheless, I firmly maintain a 2050 - 2150 rating, pulling through mostly games with White.

Part 3: The Program That Amplified the Effect

When structure appeared, I started looking for a tool that would help maintain and accelerate growth. During learning, I increasingly noticed that by going through studies step by step, I simply reproduced what I had learned. For example, solving lesson 5 in study 2, I already knew that the next lesson would have that confusing pawn move followed by the usual scenario. It all felt like memorizing a poem: the first line cues the next.
Moreover, the study page itself subconsciously prompted me: I saw the opening name, study title, chapters. All this influenced perception — I was not so much playing as recalling what I was supposed to play. I realized: I wasn’t training understanding, I was just reproducing patterns with hints.

What I Did

I decided to change this and drafted a program that helps me practice consciously and effectively.
My studies are private. Every time I finished a chapter, I got tired of clicking “Next” and then clicking “PREVIEW” again, so I added options to auto-click these buttons. Now when you start training, you don’t get distracted by extra actions but do only what’s necessary for memorization.

• Minimized the interface — removed all unnecessary elements: opening names, study titles, current chapter. No hints.
• Random order — chapters from studies now appear in random sequence. This breaks the “script” and requires real understanding.
  Here’s what my study memorization interface looks like:
  
  (I used Electron and web technologies. In fact, it’s a regular Chromium-based browser where I hide the page layout elements I don’t need.)
  The program works with the file base.xlsx where I simply specify the study paths in column D:
  
  After the program loads all the studies, you will see the launched window:
  
  I select the studies I’m interested in and start training:
  

What You Need to Do

1. Specify the path to the study in column D. In the browser, when you open it, this path appears in the browser’s address bar. All sub-paths included in the study are detected automatically.
2. Run the program
3. Select the lessons you have added
4. Enable automation of the Preview and Next buttons (interface hiding at your discretion)

Conclusion

If you feel your learning has become mechanical — maybe the problem isn’t you, but the way you study. Try disabling hints, changing the order — or, like me, create a tool that works for you, not instead of you.
My chess journey is a story about how important it is not just to work, but to work correctly. Sometimes just one good method and one well-chosen tool can change everything. If you feel stuck — maybe it’s time to rethink your approach. It’s not a one-day path, but trust me, it’s worth it.
P.S.: The program works only under ideal conditions; I haven’t debugged bugs or non-standard paths. It’s free as-is. It works for me; I’d appreciate it if you tell me what doesn’t work for you. Send all info to my email chess@nova18.com or @kavashige.
Currently, I’m testing a new version where you can set the number of repetitions for each lesson and make a random move in the position, for example, continue training from move 11.
P.S.S.: I don’t know if I’m violating any usage rules. If all is good, there will be a download link here.