I created a profile and started playing on lichess about 2 weeks ago. I have just passed the 1200 mark on classical. Where do I go from here? Just keep playing games? Tactics? Bullet? How long should it take me (realistically) to get to the 1500 to 1800 mark. I have some experience but it's pretty minimal: played a little bit as a kid, know how the pieces move, etc... but I'm basically a novice. I'd appreciate any input. I'm actually more interested in learning go, but I figure chess would be a good introduction; that anything I learn in chess would translate etc....
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Congrats on breaking 1200. Alot of more experienced players (im still weak, but lurk alot on topics like this) suggest staying in long time controls and practicing tactics for people around our rating. Good luck on your journey.
If you ever feel like playing sometime, I'll be happy to play a game or two with ya. Im barely above your rating atm.
I completely agree with
@DthNcnt . Practising endings and studying games is very effective aswell. I became a lot stronger when i joined a chessclub and i would suggest you to do the same.
Btw: Solving tactics on a real board is -in my opinion- much better than on a virtual board.
It's a long and continuous process that will never end as long as you remain interested in chess. Generally speaking, the best approach is to collect the lowest hanging fruit at virtually any stage in your chess development. Players of your skill level will typically lose games because of blunders/missed tactics, so the common advice is to work hard on your tactics to minimize the number of incidences in which you lose a game to a simple one-mover.
As you grow and practice tactics you'll find yourself throwing away fewer of your pieces and collecting more of your opponents'. Naturally as your opposition becomes stronger and your rating grows, you'll be playing against folks who have done the same thing and don't typically lose by blundering material. This would be an appropriate time to start developing an opening repertoire that you feel comfortable with. For example, you might find you like the French defense, so you grab a book on it and learn enough lines that you're not losing out of the opening or to traps. If you liked the French you might then study the Nimzo Indian (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4) to memorize the main lines. As most experienced players will tell you, don't focus too intently on learning openings in the 1200-1800 range, but do learn enough lines that you're not always feeling blindsided in the opening. It's good to feel like you've come out of the opening at least even with your opponent.
Endgames are another very common place for players of your skill level to improve, and they tend to also be low-hanging fruit in the sense that the most basic endgames can be memorized easily enough. If you don't know how to mate with K + Q v K, K + R v K, K + B + B v K, make sure you know those thoroughly. Move on to learning how to win with K + P v K and other material imbalances that can be reliably converted to wins. As they say, winning a pawn in the opening/middlegame doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to push it down the board.
It's never bad to find a practice partner to play some games with; hopefully someone around your skill level but preferably a bit stronger. There are numerous groups/teams on lichess that would likely be fertile ground for you to find a training partner. After you play a classical game or two together, have a look and analyze the games. What mistakes did you make? Are those mistakes easy to correct (e.g. you lost because you blundered)? Then have the computer analyze your games and compare your analysis to the computer's.
These are just the first steps in a long journey, but the principle remains the same: seek out your weaknesses, fix the easiest ones, search for more weaknesses, continue to fix them. As this process continues it becomes more and more difficult to correct your mistakes because they tend to require a more and more sophisticated understanding of the game. For example, a grandmaster who is looking to get better may know that they are not a good attacking player, but it could be a tremendous task for such a player to get better at attacking when they likely already have a very high level understanding of how to execute an attack already.
If you're having trouble understanding where your weaknesses are, a coach or simply another stronger member from a group on lichess will be happy to help you on your way. I would be happy to point you toward some resources if you have an idea of what area of the game would be exciting for you to improve.
Install stockfish in brain
the only place to go is 1300.
1500 mark... 6 to 9 months. 1800 mark... 3 to 4 years.
really the biggest thing to make a good player is interest in this game if u ask me... bcuz other u will lose interest like i did very quick, but u can get better pretty quick tbh... I think classical is the bad way too despite what everyone else says. I think it is boring though. I have a hard time sitting through even 3min games...
I disagree with
@Rumble_Fish you can get 1800 in 3-4 months is you do lots of puzzles, analyze GM games, and make a small opening repitore.
@chess_king3 Oh absolutely he can. 3-4 months 1800 is perfectly do-able, but that is why I said it is big that if someone interests the game. Because then they are able to focus the effort, I mean i think if any one like me just 2000ish bullet could get 2300 to 2400 in no time if studied hard and cared so much even higher. But a big thing is how much someone is willing to put in (And if it is enjoyable)
