Can't get past 1350 rating

@jibisapient said in #27:
> Play 1 game, then spend 10-20 minutes analyzing it with an engine. While using the engine don't pick the best moves, rather try to understand how to win, or how not to lose after bad/worse moves.

No, he should analyse by himself first, THEN with an engine to see anything he missed.

@myocarditis said in #21:
> Taking a pawn and skewering a knight and a rook?

Theoretically. But in reality you let the opponent escape. You take that pawn but he has 13...Nxe5 taking the rook anyway, ignoring the pin. Now what? You olny have 1 good move which is very hard to find (I checked with computer: it's giving up your queen for a nice mate with bishop and knight). So istead you should play 13. Re1, simple but keeps the pressure.

Conclusion:
Your move had a serious drawback which gave resources for black to counter and stay in the game. So before you make such a risky move (like in this example, taking a pawn when your rook is attacked), make sure that the tactics really work. Usually the opponent will have some countertactics. If it's too difficult then just look for a different move like simple 13. Re1 to keep matters under control.

@myocarditis said in #1:
> Everyone is better than me help... Been studying and playing 2 years now.

ive been stuck at my rating for 3 years! (not in the website) but then my brother was telling me to focus.

so i started to do a lot of puzzles and then puzzle races and after sometime my rating went 100 points above!

i ket practicing and practicing and then i got 200 rating in a few months!
so i think for u to keep up u have to do puzzles.

and ur rating is higher 1350 so u dont need to panic.
ask a friend to play or play tournaments, that is how i got a lot of rating.

@myocarditis

Good job!

The next step is doing 100 "Mate in 1".
Let me tell you why.
It doesn't have to do anything with finding mates when you play.
At your level, you need to improve two main things. Your chess thinking and your board vision.
Improving your chess thinking fast requires a good coach. Therefore, if you train chess alone, the most "cost (time) / benefit" option - right now for you - is working on developing your board vision.
There are more ways to do that, from my practice I recommend lots of M2 and M3 puzzles.
And practicing mates in one is a good, easy and fun preparation for that.

* 100 puzzles is not that much. It's 10 * 10 - and most of it you can just see instantly without any effort.
* It teaches to never give up. Even if it seems impossible, you can brute force through all moves.
You can aim for 100% accuracy.
* If you like neuroscience, you understand why this approach is great. You get immediate positive feedback - dopamin release - after playing one accurate move. So training chess feels great!

And I have a special challenge for you as well. Can you get your Puzzle Streak to 24? ;c)

When you do 100 "Mate in one" and you want to know the next step, report back to me and we will continue.

Keep in mind to advance a mere 100 points from where you are now you need to become twice as good as you already are.

I was ~1300 four years ago, in the beginning of 2018. I’ve always taken the game casually, tried to read a book here and there. There’s probably ways to push your rating faster but I’ve taken my time and tried to enjoy every step. I’ve also taken some breaks from chess as well.

At 1350 I did a lot of tactics, specifically Tim Brennan’s Tactics Time series. They’re amazing books. Solve the first two books and you’ll be 1500 easy.

Another thing that really helped me at around this level is John Bartholomew’s Climbing the Rating Ladder course on youtube. It’s free. Watching the <1000 and 1000-1200 rating range videos changed my life. They taught me some valuable things about chess that I use even today in every game.

At 1500, I started learning about openings. I picked up Vincent Moret’s Opening repertoire for white and black (2 books), and worked through them. That got me to around 1700. I’m not so sure about recommending Moret’s books as they’re kind of lacking (especially the black book), but at 1500 maybe it’s a good time to go on a site like chessable.com and start learning a basic opening repertoire.

Another alternative might be to pick up “A First Book of Morphy” by Frisco Del Rosario. This book teaches a lot about chess principles, and how Morphy used these ideas to utterly crush his opponents.

Another book that you might want to look into is Logical Chess Move by Move by Irving Chernev. I’ve read this book twice. Once at the 1350 level (or around there) and once at the 1700 level. It pushed my classical rating to 1850 on here.

I also have a friend on here who didn’t read any books, didn’t solve any tactics, and got to 2000 rapid rating simply by playing A LOT. We’re talking 4k+ rapid games.

Good luck with your chess! Try to enjoy the journey. Being higher rated isn’t all it’s cracked out to be, as players know much more about the game and every game turns into a major sweat fest. It can be quite intense and tiring at the higher levels. Sometimes I wish I were 1300 again, because back then the game was a lot easier to play.