How did you become so good?

Hello Sungjin,

you have already some very useful answers to your question. So I can only add that there are not so many "good" players. Whats good and what not is depending on your view and your own skill-level.

For me a 2000 lichess player is just an amateurish player like I am. He can beat me I can beat him every time every day...

But if I play against a lower rated opponent I often recognize that there are many basics missing:

- Allot of totally unnecessary tactical mistakes
- Basic strategical mistakes all the time
- Playing for attack in every position and every moment
- Not enough pattern recognition at all

I started with 1300 Elo (real rating) and played long time controls and studied chess books who gave me some useful strategical advice how to play a pointful game of chess. Planing your moves, developing ideas and learn how to read a position.

Best wishes
Nada

Being playing for less than 2 years, all you need to do is tactics puzles and play a lot! Also analyze every game you play (especially when you lose) and try to learn why you lost and fix it, if you lose by and unusual tactic, save this tactics and do it regularly until you have memorised it. Also playing classical games to improve is a myth. Play 5 minute games or quicker, these are the best for learning tactics quickly, which will make you improve fastest. I've never read a chess book all I do is what I've said above and I've improved steadily. DONT LEARN OPENINGS AND DONT PLAY CLASSICAL.

#20

i feel that 15+10 is a nice classical formula,this is a standard formula (for example) in chess.com....and is good to have a enought time to think and a good gain (+10) whitout play 2 hours for a single game. :)

i really like 15+10 :)

@Manglecopter:

You gave some very strange advice I would say.

Long time control is essential to develop chess understanding. Otherwise you will be a blitz player who stucks at tactical shots all the time and is unable to play a great game of chess.

Lichess is full of such kind of players. When you play against them you really are able to "feel" that they have never read a chessbook and have no real idea about strategical play at all.

Best wishes
Nada

#24
All top chess players agree that up to IM level, games are 90-95% tactics, ( Nakamura himself said exactly this a few days ago ). Before you are rated 2200+, almost all of the time you spend on learning openings or positional themes is time totally wasted.

It's nice to glorify learning positional ideas to play a beautiful game the way you just did, but look at the reality, we are similarly rated, yet you have probably being playing chess a lot longer. If look at the last 30 games you've played it is a clear fact that you lost by overlooking tactical ideas, nothing to do positional themes.

These types of chess purests will never improve as quick as people who assesss the reality of why they win and lose games and actively repair these flaws. All you have to do is look at your games and see you lost cos you simply blundered, not becuase you didn't know enough theory in the sicilian. This fact can't be glossed over with talk about beautiful positional games.

One more advice, If you want to break 2000 ignore Manglecopters advice.

@Manglecopter:

I never said that tactics are not important. That would make no sense. At the start tactic training is very important.

But what made me a better player is to know strategical ideas, how to play with pawns, how to avoid or to use weak squares, how to handle bishops compared to knights or how to play with open lines or playing for pawn pushes, with or against pawn minorities/majorities and so on....

If I am loosing games here on lichess its most of the time because of some stupid tactical oversight. Thats true. But thats because of the limited time you have in online chess. I rarely produce such mistakes in longer time controls.

I am also not really used to online chess (dont play so much here). My focus is on long games (tournament games) and here my rating is around 2000 FIDE-Elo.

I could be higher rated online if I would train my fast-skills every day but thats just not important for me and thats of course not the way to be or to become a good player!

Best wishes
Nada

#27 I must say it, another nonsence from you... Where did I say he need to learn oppening theory all day? I didn't learn oppening theory also... but telling someone not to play classical but blitz instead, and not to learn Strategical -Positional aspect of the game at all, in order to improve, must be the worst advice I ever seen online. So please don't give adices anymore, I guess your intention is good, but you are doing a bad thing for chess and people who want to improve.

I got to 1800+ by playing lots of bullet games :)