Questions from a player stuck at 800-900 for over 4 years

Openings are very important but learning it is very easy ,all you have to do is analyze your openings when you get it in a game by lichess database or by looking at it inba youtube video .any mainline opening like italian london ruy lopez queens gambit catalan ect are good. Knowing opening plans+tactics is the way to playing good middlegame.. Hanging a piece is common at all levels i will share a game i lost to show the point of learning through lost games

@nadjarostowa said in #50:

Yes. While it is possible that the last move changes lots of things and interrelated things, it often does not, and I wouldn't worry about too many things on a 1000 Elo level.

But every move changes some things. A piece has moved. It now attacks or guards other things. Are there direct threats? Look at the changes first.

Asking "why" the move has been played is also useful, although you will notice that on the 1000 Elo level there often is no conclusive answer, or the answer doesn't make sense. It will be most useful to detect pretty obvious threats, like capturing a piece or simple forks etc.

That’s what I also wondered. Because there must be a lot of players doing random stuff. So how to figure out what’s logical and not if I ain’t that good myself?

In online poker, the microstakes, if somebody was considered a donkey we played accordingly. Meaning, raise means I have something. Call is I have something and will not let go probably etc

So should we focus most on direct treats?

Here are a few steps to improve, coming from someone nearly 2450 rapid and 1900 USCF before I stopped playing OTB chess to focus instead on math competitions.

1. Learn an opening and spend a good amount of time studying it. Sure, you can definitely increase your rating a lot without knowing an opening well, but knowing an opening well will give you an advantage over those at your rating who will have no idea what to do. It will also prepare you for the future when you improve, as it will become more important. I used to think that openings didn't matter that much, but they are now the weakest part of my game as I've started playing chess again and I have to spend copious amounts of time learning different lines of the French and Petrov.

2. Do tactics on lichess until your rating is at least 1500. Do NOT play any games until this point. Even after you hit this benchmark, you should spend at least 30 minutes per day doing tactics. Only once you hit 2500 (this will take a while) can this be reduced, as by this point you probably have a solid understanding of tactics and the tactics become less applicable to games, as at that level the positions get more complicated and you wouldn't realize in a game that there was a tactic in that position. Currently your rating is 1140, so I think 1500 is very reasonable in about a week or two if you take it seriously. Don't just spend five seconds on a puzzle - calculate the whole line and don't play it until you are sure that is correct. This will help you to (a) not blunder pieces and (b) be aware when your opponent makes a tactical error.

Now you are ready to play some games of RAPID (not blitz, it is not great for improvement) or CLASSICAL if you have time.

After you finish each game, place it into a study and write comments as well as takeaways. This might seem like a big undertaking, but you should not be playing that many games, so it will be fine. I know I play bullet a lot, but I am mainly playing for fun - if you seriously want to improve, you need to play mainly rapid, but only a couple of games per day and spend a long time analyzing. This will help you understand what is causing you to lose and what helps you when you win.

I hope this helped. Feel free to DM me on lichess if you have any further questions.

@nizzledizzleshizzle said in #1:

What openings should I stick to at my level?
Italian game
https:// lichess.org/study/RLDjpfxg/XBGzawza
https:// lichess.org/study/Ym4l99Du/oKRJrQVK

@NTHSLeagueAcc said in #53:

2. Do tactics on lichess until your rating is at least 1500.

2.b. Do a fixed number (e. g. 10 a day) of checkmate puzzles, at least until you recognize most patterns... Is there a similar category for not being checkmated?

@OctoPinky said in #55:

2.b. Do a fixed number (e. g. 10 a day) of checkmate puzzles, at least until you recognize most patterns... Is there a similar category for not being checkmated?

I’ve been doing the one move checkmates. Pretty interesting how with some i still go: Really? One move?

“... Another of Morphy’s perceptions, which becomes clear in a large number of his games, is that superior development increases in value, in proportion as the game is more open. Therefore the side with the better development should endeavor as much as possible to shape the game as an open one, whilst it is in the interest of the side with the worse development to keep the game close. ...” - Richard Réti (a little over a century ago)
A game from the 2012 book, Simple Attacking Plans: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 f6 4 Bc4 Be7 5 dxe5 fxe5 6 Qd5 d6 7 Qf7+ Kd7 8 Be6#

5.d3 is blocking your Bishop, there is no reason to play anything different from 5.d4 but at least you could have thought of c3 as a better retreat path. This 5.d3 is a good move in Giuoco Pianissimo, when Black played earlier Nc6 to attack d4, so they can't support their b-pawn with c-pawn.

@kindaspongey said in #57:

You could have gone for 12 Nxe5 Bxe2 13 Bf7#

Even if you failed to see that nice tactics (I would never have noticed it), 11.Qe2 is clearly a move that does nothing, and you have the urgent problem of Rook-supported pawn and Bishop assaulting your Kingside, so 11.h3 was pretty obvious to me.

The only reason to play 11.Qe2 would be breaking the pin on your Knight defending via Qe3 (as you don't want to recapture breaking your pawn structure) but there is your Bishop preventing it. Actually, this position of the pinned Knight is quite usual, so think about it, as you will be finding it a lot of times.

@Cedur216 said in #24:

these rules have some exceptions [...]

There are always exceptions if you know when and why (most obvious when they attack a piece you just developed).

@Cedur216 said in #24:

Castling is surely very important in 95%+ of games

I often see GMs delaying castling for a number of reasons, even not castling at all (see Karpov 11...Ke7 against Kamski), but I think these need a lot of knowledge, far beyond beginner level.