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I am not improving.


Hello, i am not improving in chess and just win
people, who first year play. I solve tactics almost
every day. How much hours to learn and that it
was use. Maybe, someone can help me for free or
give advices. I had few coaches for money, it was
not help.
Read some books, play serious rating games otb, join a club, analyze, the full monty. It takes some years/decades though.
@Rebekkachess2 #1
It is good to do tactics puzzles daily, but positional chess and endgame skills are also important.
Analysing your own games can help to improve, by checking Stockfish evaluations and analysing with chess friends or in a team/group. Watching chess videos, reading chess books and magazines with annotated chess games can help.
Did you check the Saint Louis Chess videos ? www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub/videos
Training can also be done pretty well on http://chessable.com where there's several free of charge books to train with.
Then you can also look at your own strong and weak points. If you know your strong points, then you can take advantage of that in your games (e.g. if you are good in bishop endings, you can opt for that in a game). Your weaknesses you can work on, or try to avoid them for the moment (e.g. if you are not so good with knight endings you can train on that, and avoid opting for that in your games if possible).

I've looked at a few games. This is a nice win of yours, well done :
If you can afford it, I recommend getting a chess coach.

They provide many benefits but ones I like the most are:
- personalized improvement plan
- someone that cares about my improvement
- a real person that can explain things to me that I don't grasp fully that I learned on my own (like from a book or video)
- learn from someone that knows what they're talking about and has earned their title or reputation through hard work and demonstrated knowledge.

If you have a local chess club, you should seek it out, too. Other than finding challenging games, it is nice to have real people to geek out about chess with. I am not able to go to mine that often, but when I do I am grateful I went.

At the end of the day, to improve, you simply have to put a ton of time in to improve. I wish I could absorb chess knowledge through osmosis, but sadly I have to read the content, try to digest what is being said, have it clarified a lot of times by my coach and other club members, and put it in practice. Falling in love with doing chess stuff is helpful, rating and skill will naturally improve.

Other than raw talent for the top guys, most folks put in lots of long hours and failures over many years to get close to where they want to be. A coach can help you get there the fastest.

I wish you luck!

Remember everyone is a beginner and learning. Even the top GMs still put a ton of time into learning still. There is no peak, only the journey :)
Perhaps one of the biggest dilemmas when it comes to improving yourself. I know that feeling when you feel liked you peeked.

So here is some general advice that really applies to any skill. I know I'm lowered level so I can't give any real chess advice.

1. Be grateful for the skills you have. You are doing well and have overcome many trails that most people don't even get past. Cherish that feeling.

2. Remember Chess is a hard game. It doesn't get easier the more you play. The opposite actually happens. You find out that there is others who can and will put you in your place. This doesn't mean you are a bad player at all. Some will just be better than you.

3. Just like any skill once you reached the peek you have to start changing your mindset. What used to work now may not be the advice you need to follow now. Maybe there is a new way to start your games or different responses you need to look at. Maybe you need to go back to the basics and start studying the endgames. Again, I'm not good at chess but from other games I did play improvement came when I changed how I thought about the game. If I'm playing aggressively I then consider some defensive options if they can help.

4. Chess is a really old game with tons of resources. You can always learn more. This is true with any skill like art, music, baduk (another popular board game), programing, writing books, ect.

5. Take a break. One of the best solutions to a difficult problem is to not think about it. I know this is weird but it has helped me in many ways. In programming I'd often come across problems that made sense in my head but no matter what I did or typed it never got fixed. I couldn't really ask for help since it was my own code made specifically for a certain function. I just said "I'm done" and walked away from the project for a while. When I came back to it I found the answer. In fact it wasn't something big but a small change that made all the difference. There is something about rest that can clear our minds and make impossible solutions possible.

6. Don't give up. You can't improve if you don't give yourself time to improve.

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