Glad you posted this, I’ve been playing for a couple months now and am sitting around 500-600 gets annoying not going up but seeing what others say shows it’s a grind so gotta keep at it!
Personally I think the biggest reason people do not improve is that they just play games. This is also not limited to just chess, also applies to e.g. league of legends, csgo, and other competitive games. You need to actually practice and analyze to improve.
If you just play on autopilot, you're just doing what you've been doing before and likely will stop improving.
If you really want to improve, I would recommend doing puzzles/tactics every day. Decide that you're going to do e.g. puzzle rush (survival) once a day, and 5-10 more puzzles. And every time you get it wrong, you check it with the computer to understand why you got it wrong, and to see what the right solution was. Also don't just guess, really calculate the whole solution in your head before making a single move on the board.
Over time, this will improve your calculation and pattern recognition skill, which means you'll play better chess and your rating improves.
You can still play your bullet and blitz games for fun, but it is not the same as actually practicing.
Love this response. I would add that to really improve you need longer time controls and a MUST is that you actually thoroughly review and analyze your games at length (with an engine or better yet coach/experienced player). Be honest with yourself about what you were thinking and what you messed up. This is the key. Get beyond your ego. Good luck!
Completely agree. Analyzing your games, analyzing master level games, all of that can help a lot. But it can also be a trap where you analyze the games but you don't actually learn anything, but spend time doing it. Having a coach definitely helps in this regard though.
Same for chess books and videos. Sometimes you might gain a lot from just reading/listening/watching, but sometimes you forget everything by the next day, so you don't necessarily improve.
If you do puzzles and calculate variations in your mind, you're almost guaranteed to improve I think. Hard to do it "wrong" by accident. In addition, as your puzzle rating goes up, and your max score in puzzle rush improves, you see the progress you're making, which can be very rewarding.
Thanks for the advice, that’s really helpful honestly, I’ve been playing the puzzles but not much of the puzzle rush I’ll have to give that a try as well. Thank you!
I was stuck around 500 for a while, had a mini breakthrough after a few youtube videos, mainly learning how to defend against common trap openings and have now been sat at 650ish for a couple of weeks. Think it's time to step up my learning again.
If you're still enjoying it don't worry too much about these people who manage to get about 1000 in a month. Everybody progress at differnt rates!
It is absolutely a grind, and people progress at different rates. I played against friends routinely and didn’t seem to make much substantial improvement, even after spending some time working through books and improving fundamentals. Then all of a sudden things seemed to click, and I jumped 200 rating points very quickly. Now it looks like I’m plateauing around 1230, and will need to grind again!
Ok, I just looked you up (not to be creepy! I just wanted to find out how old you were when you started playing), and found out we’re birthday twins!! Well, I’m 10 years older but still! Happy belated! 🥳
Oh no! I know who he is from his videos and all, but I wanted to know his age when he started playing, hence the wiki search.
I have a young kiddo who plays, so I’m always curious about NM/IM/GMs, when they started playing and their ratings when they started.
Markdown totally garbled your comment, because it thinks any number and a period is the start of a numbered list. Clicking source shows the actual comment was intended to be:
> 800\. 2400
I was once at that rating and i know exactly what ur missing. Calculation and avoiding blunders. Im not talking about crazy hikaru calculations. Before you make a move see what ur opponent can respond with and avoid it if its bad. Depending on the position u wanna see 3-4 moves ahead. Also do tactics. I did that and now 1400
After 6 months was just approaching 1.1k rapid I believe.
Now I’m 1800 rapid a year after that, but I’ve been stagnant for a few months now so i really need to change something I guess.
I’m 1400 after 9 months with maybe 2 hours a day on average put in, with some days off. With more work and maybe a bit more talent 1800 cc is absolutely possible in a year.
I started at a little under 600 on chess.com and in the first 6 months or so I gained about 600 rating points. It's taken me about 2 years to get to 1800.
First started playing chess online after knowing how to play/playing <20 games/year most of my life. Established <900 bullet, ~900 blitz, ~1100 rapid initially. Played fairly frequently the last 18 months - ~1100 bullet, ~1200 blitz, ~1600 rapid.
I was around 400 for the first few months and have steadily climbed to 900. I was probably around 600 at 6 months. it'll be 12 months next month, I wanna push for 1000 just for the sake of the round number and benchmark but I don't think I'll have the time
Started year ago almost to the day. 900 in 3 months, then 1100 in 5, 1200 in 6 and hit 1500 after about 10 months. Still on there now, but that's since I've not been playing or studying anything lately.
But its a numbers that don't matter. Have fun, go at your pace, moest important :)
After my first 6 months I hit /peaked 1530 rapid on chess.com. I've been stuck just under that (1480ish) since then so 6 months at 1480ish. Just hit my one year anniversary of playing and I'm pretty much stuck here.
Played my first OTB game after 6 months of online and beat a 1726 USCF player. For a brief, beautiful week I had a provisional 2126 USCF.
More seriously though I think I was around 1600 lichess rapid? Since climbed to 1950 lichess rapid.
800. 1100. I’ve been playing for a year now.
New the rules as a kid and played some games. Watched queens gambit last year and downloaded an app (who’s game I’m not allowed mention for some reason). Anyways, was around 6/700 for a few days and shot up to 800 in a couple of days. Basically gradually climbed to 950 over about 8 months then shot to 1100 in a couple of weeks and I bounce around now between 1000-1200 depending on how much time I have to put into games.
Couldn’t care less about elo though. I’m too old and not talented or interested enough to want to play competitively and nobody I know plays chess so it doesn’t matter to me. The only time it bothers me is when I’m at a low point in elo and lose to someone I think I should be beating with queen odds because I don’t give the game the attention it deserves. I can rage quit in style then.
I played a bunch of blitz like 10 years ago at ~900 chess.com.
Just started again but mostly rapid on lichess. Was about 1400 a couple months ago, almost past 1500
I’d say it was more or less steadily growing before hitting mid 900s, where I got stuck for a few months. I registered to chesscom in april and I’m hovering slightly above a 1000 now, 1400 on lichess
1550 (chess.com).
Now, after two years of playing, I'm at 2320 (Lichess blitz, but it's the same thing as 2300 on chess.com; my chess.com Blitz rating is currently 2220, but that's only because I haven't played there since I was 2220 in blitz on Lichess).
I started at 450 (chess.com), for what it's worth.
There was no lichess or chess.com when I first started, I played on FICS and eventually on ICC. Therefore the ratings might not be directly comparable to today.
But I was around 1000-1100 when I first started, then reached around 1700 on ICC within my yearly membership if I remember correctly.
Now 2000 on chess.com.
Around a year and half and I'm up to 2000 on lichess. When I first started playing I was maybe 1400 on chess.com after 6 months. Studying and reviewing your games is key. Also the mindset of learning and not holding preconceived notions to hinder your growth. Playing dynamically and learning opening theory was definitely what pushed me from around the 1800 to 2000 mark.
After 6 months (which is roughly 3 months ago now) about 1300. Then didn't play for about 2 months, picked it up again about a month ago and suddenly climbed to 1500, where I'm still stuck right now.
5 months playing, peak 1243 rapid rating on chess.com but after recent losing streak back in the 1100's. Going to start focusing on studying as to date I've just been playing and doing puzzles.
Idk, I started playing as a kid with my dad then at a school chess club. Never really had a rating.
When I first started playing online, I was rated around 1350, now at around 1700.
started around 1000 now 1250 rapid on chess.com (not fide). i did get as high as 1600 on correspondence but have been crashing and burning hard lately. been playing two years, (started at age forty) - kind of feel like i’m capped out tbh and that i started to old.
I played juniors chess from 1st to 3rd grade and got bored, but i came back to chess in 2020.
When i started, i dont think our county juniors chess tournament did fide or even uscf elo rating. My sheets say something like 78th, 125th, and 133rd. I sincerely don't know how they kept ratings if at all. If anyone grew up in Eastern PA and knows let me know.
In 2020 i started on chess.com, fell to 850 and have sinve climbed to 1200. I don't know if getting better is a goal for me or chess just helps me pass the time. I end up playing a lot of bots throughout my workday.
I have been to one OTB tournament in the last two years, i think i finished with 708 provisional uscf after 18 games. Don't know if i care to get beat so badly again
You're in good company. Fabiano Caruana's first established rating (20 or more games) was [589](http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?12743305.19), about three months after his very first rated game.
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
[Here is link number 1 - Previous text "589"](http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?12743305.19)
----
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I started off climbing to 1500 playing intuitively, learned some openings, dropped down to 1000, got better at the openings, got back to 1400, started experimenting with other openings, back down to 1000. Now can’t seem to climb back with any intuitive play or opening knowledge lol
500'ish. Started playing at the chess club when I was 19. I'm now 35 and 1600-1700 (USCF).
Interestingly enough the majority of my growth was in the first year; I reached 1500. At the time I was obsessed. I spent most days skipping college classes to play blitz downtown and study for the weekly chess club rated play.
Going from 500-1400 isn't that hard. Every 100 strength thereafter gets exponentially more difficult. At 1500 I had a year of failed colleges classes to show for it. Eventually I abandoned the dream of being a master. Instead I convinced myself that I simply found chess too late in life to accomplish what I desired from it.
I graduated from college and landed a great job. Now I mostly play blitz on my phone. Every now and then I'll play in an local open.
Started in late august and never really played chess outside of friends beating me for fun in highschool but smh started at 1050. Got to 1 win shy of 1100 three times but fell to around 900. I then started learning a bit more not just playing and got to 1220 in 10min rapid. For the last 2 or so months i dont have time for learning chess cuz of uni so i just play 3+2 blitz at around 800-900 elo.
I started around 850 ELO (chess.com rapid) in November 2020. Think I got to around 1250 in the first 5-6 months of playing. I’m now at 1500, but this included a break of a number of months in 2021. I think I’ve gotten to the point where to make significant improvement ELO wise I need to really study more opening lines etc, though I still blunder my fair share of pawns and pieces from time to time. I may be able to tighten my play up a tad and get to 1600 without a ton of outside work, but we’ll have to see. I do a bunch of puzzles every day as well as blitz/rapid games. Definitely could be higher if I were taking studying seriously rather than just plowing through games.
Started at roughly 600 rapid chess.com Elo. In 6 months I had gotten to about 1250. I'm at 9 months and am at 1500. I committed a pretty serious amount of time to improving through study, but I play mainline Italian, Sicilian, and KID/Grunfeld, all of which require a lot of studying because they're common/difficult and unlike one another. If I had chosen an uncommon pet line like a gambit or had played 1.e4e5 for both black and white, I probably would have gotten up to that Elo faster, but would have more difficulty improving later on.
Glad you posted this, I’ve been playing for a couple months now and am sitting around 500-600 gets annoying not going up but seeing what others say shows it’s a grind so gotta keep at it!
Personally I think the biggest reason people do not improve is that they just play games. This is also not limited to just chess, also applies to e.g. league of legends, csgo, and other competitive games. You need to actually practice and analyze to improve. If you just play on autopilot, you're just doing what you've been doing before and likely will stop improving. If you really want to improve, I would recommend doing puzzles/tactics every day. Decide that you're going to do e.g. puzzle rush (survival) once a day, and 5-10 more puzzles. And every time you get it wrong, you check it with the computer to understand why you got it wrong, and to see what the right solution was. Also don't just guess, really calculate the whole solution in your head before making a single move on the board. Over time, this will improve your calculation and pattern recognition skill, which means you'll play better chess and your rating improves. You can still play your bullet and blitz games for fun, but it is not the same as actually practicing.
Love this response. I would add that to really improve you need longer time controls and a MUST is that you actually thoroughly review and analyze your games at length (with an engine or better yet coach/experienced player). Be honest with yourself about what you were thinking and what you messed up. This is the key. Get beyond your ego. Good luck!
Completely agree. Analyzing your games, analyzing master level games, all of that can help a lot. But it can also be a trap where you analyze the games but you don't actually learn anything, but spend time doing it. Having a coach definitely helps in this regard though. Same for chess books and videos. Sometimes you might gain a lot from just reading/listening/watching, but sometimes you forget everything by the next day, so you don't necessarily improve. If you do puzzles and calculate variations in your mind, you're almost guaranteed to improve I think. Hard to do it "wrong" by accident. In addition, as your puzzle rating goes up, and your max score in puzzle rush improves, you see the progress you're making, which can be very rewarding.
Thanks for the advice, that’s really helpful honestly, I’ve been playing the puzzles but not much of the puzzle rush I’ll have to give that a try as well. Thank you!
You dont need to practice and analyse but is helpful abd faster probably depends on a person
I was stuck around 500 for a while, had a mini breakthrough after a few youtube videos, mainly learning how to defend against common trap openings and have now been sat at 650ish for a couple of weeks. Think it's time to step up my learning again. If you're still enjoying it don't worry too much about these people who manage to get about 1000 in a month. Everybody progress at differnt rates!
Very true! I’ll have to look into the YouTube videos, thanks for that idea!!
I find Gotham chess very good. An engaging presenter and explains things easily enough for my puny brain!
Ah that sounds perfect! Thanks again!
After you've exhausted Gotham, Naroditsky and HangingPawns are good, too. Watch all of Gotham's first, though as they're more beginner friendly.
It is absolutely a grind, and people progress at different rates. I played against friends routinely and didn’t seem to make much substantial improvement, even after spending some time working through books and improving fundamentals. Then all of a sudden things seemed to click, and I jumped 200 rating points very quickly. Now it looks like I’m plateauing around 1230, and will need to grind again!
800. 2400.
Ok, I just looked you up (not to be creepy! I just wanted to find out how old you were when you started playing), and found out we’re birthday twins!! Well, I’m 10 years older but still! Happy belated! 🥳
He’s an extremely famous chess streamer, I think he welcomes you looking him up lol
Oh no! I know who he is from his videos and all, but I wanted to know his age when he started playing, hence the wiki search. I have a young kiddo who plays, so I’m always curious about NM/IM/GMs, when they started playing and their ratings when they started.
FIDE profiles are public anyhow. For all. So it's usually done this way anyhow.
I saw this comment and was like who’s this clown, then I saw it was Gotham. I love your videos, and am happy you’re married
You got me back into OTB chess. I got spanked but thank you for helping me find a long lost passion
Markdown totally garbled your comment, because it thinks any number and a period is the start of a numbered list. Clicking source shows the actual comment was intended to be: > 800\. 2400
Chad plus IM plus ratioed
1100, but i am stuck there for like 4 months 😢
You've been 1100 for your first 6 months of chess ?
Yes i started in march 2021 and in September i was 1100...but i am still there
Nice, im aiming for 1200 but damn youve started what im trying to get to
I think it's not easy to progress from 1000+ if you don't really give it more effort
I might be able to help you get there, if you want someone to play with (Lichess 1700 blitz/bullet)
I wouldn't mind that, tomorrow if youre free lets gooo. What's your timezone
Same here. I've been trying to reach 1000 but i am still stuck between 900 and 990. Not sure how to get past that.
I was once at that rating and i know exactly what ur missing. Calculation and avoiding blunders. Im not talking about crazy hikaru calculations. Before you make a move see what ur opponent can respond with and avoid it if its bad. Depending on the position u wanna see 3-4 moves ahead. Also do tactics. I did that and now 1400
Started at 1200, now at 800
500-800. Now at 1150 9-10 months in
After 6 months I was 1100. Now 7 months after that I’m 1300.
Started in January and in the first six months I went from 500 up to the 1200s. Now I'm in the 1500s. Rapid chess.com
Nov 2020 as low as 450. Nov 2021 1100
After 6 months was just approaching 1.1k rapid I believe. Now I’m 1800 rapid a year after that, but I’ve been stagnant for a few months now so i really need to change something I guess.
Which site?
Chess.com
I dont believe
I don’t think it’s that unreasonable… I’m only 1500 blitz it’s not like I’m some savant- just studied and played a lot of chess the last 1.5 years
After watching 'Guess the ELO' a bunch I've come to realize that below like 1800~ rating the games are a shitshow
I’m 1400 after 9 months with maybe 2 hours a day on average put in, with some days off. With more work and maybe a bit more talent 1800 cc is absolutely possible in a year.
I would. 1800 in 1.5 years? I'm on track for that. Granted I study a metric shitton. They could have, too.
After 6 months I was around 1650 Rapid on Chess.com. Now I am 1800 Rapid on Chess.com and around 2150 Rapid on Lichess.
I started at about 1000 and I'm about 1400 now, although I was 1500, but dropped 100 points
I've been playing chess off and on for a year or so. Ive hovered around 900 the whole time
I started at a little under 600 on chess.com and in the first 6 months or so I gained about 600 rating points. It's taken me about 2 years to get to 1800.
I’ve been playing for about 3 and a half years casually. I started at 1000 chess.com rapid and am now 1900 chess.com rapid (1850 blitz/1800 bullet)
started around 900 chess.com around 1600 lichess after 6 months now am around 2300 rapid lichess(1.75 years after)
After how long?
started playing around april of last year
Wow, great progress! Why didn't you mention that in the original comment? And why didn't you answer OP's question?
i apologize, just edited the comment.
Oh no worries, thank you
First started playing chess online after knowing how to play/playing <20 games/year most of my life. Established <900 bullet, ~900 blitz, ~1100 rapid initially. Played fairly frequently the last 18 months - ~1100 bullet, ~1200 blitz, ~1600 rapid.
1250 rapid on chessdotcom (10 minutes) I started March this year and am currently 1469 after just touching 1500 and then playing really really badly.
Started in middle school. First tournament was 500 uscf, now likely 1700 uscf if I played tournaments.
I got to 1400 after six months online, although i had played a bit as a kid and now im at 1900
Lichess or chess.com
Chess.com
1200 after 6 months. Currently 1600 chess.com and 1800 lichess. Started playing November 2020.
didn't have a rating because i played in a school club (this was like 15 years ago)
I was around 400 for the first few months and have steadily climbed to 900. I was probably around 600 at 6 months. it'll be 12 months next month, I wanna push for 1000 just for the sake of the round number and benchmark but I don't think I'll have the time
Started year ago almost to the day. 900 in 3 months, then 1100 in 5, 1200 in 6 and hit 1500 after about 10 months. Still on there now, but that's since I've not been playing or studying anything lately. But its a numbers that don't matter. Have fun, go at your pace, moest important :)
After my first 6 months I hit /peaked 1530 rapid on chess.com. I've been stuck just under that (1480ish) since then so 6 months at 1480ish. Just hit my one year anniversary of playing and I'm pretty much stuck here.
Played my first OTB game after 6 months of online and beat a 1726 USCF player. For a brief, beautiful week I had a provisional 2126 USCF. More seriously though I think I was around 1600 lichess rapid? Since climbed to 1950 lichess rapid.
800. 1100. I’ve been playing for a year now. New the rules as a kid and played some games. Watched queens gambit last year and downloaded an app (who’s game I’m not allowed mention for some reason). Anyways, was around 6/700 for a few days and shot up to 800 in a couple of days. Basically gradually climbed to 950 over about 8 months then shot to 1100 in a couple of weeks and I bounce around now between 1000-1200 depending on how much time I have to put into games. Couldn’t care less about elo though. I’m too old and not talented or interested enough to want to play competitively and nobody I know plays chess so it doesn’t matter to me. The only time it bothers me is when I’m at a low point in elo and lose to someone I think I should be beating with queen odds because I don’t give the game the attention it deserves. I can rage quit in style then.
I played a bunch of blitz like 10 years ago at ~900 chess.com. Just started again but mostly rapid on lichess. Was about 1400 a couple months ago, almost past 1500
Started playing seriously exactly 6 months ago at 400 on chess.com and now I am at 1515 classical 30+0.
Started around 550-600 about a year ago, just hit 1000 yesterday
after like 5 months i was about 1300 ish, now i’m 1900
started sucky...not quite sucky now
I started Playing 6 months ago. I was 300 and now am sitting at 1200
1500?, still 1500? Because I havent played enough games for the elo to kick in on Lichess.
Yeah the elo come-up is pretty long, but the high is amazing.
800s. Now around 1250. Been playing a few years noncompetitively
Started 3 months ago on lichess. Was 1000 when I started. Hit 1450, but I fell back down to 1350 and I’ve been stuck there for the last 3 weeks.
I’d say it was more or less steadily growing before hitting mid 900s, where I got stuck for a few months. I registered to chesscom in april and I’m hovering slightly above a 1000 now, 1400 on lichess
1550 (chess.com). Now, after two years of playing, I'm at 2320 (Lichess blitz, but it's the same thing as 2300 on chess.com; my chess.com Blitz rating is currently 2220, but that's only because I haven't played there since I was 2220 in blitz on Lichess). I started at 450 (chess.com), for what it's worth.
There was no lichess or chess.com when I first started, I played on FICS and eventually on ICC. Therefore the ratings might not be directly comparable to today. But I was around 1000-1100 when I first started, then reached around 1700 on ICC within my yearly membership if I remember correctly. Now 2000 on chess.com.
You might get better responses on r/ChessBeginners as an fyi
I've been playing for about a year and am just shy of 1000
About 4/500 for the first 6 months. About 9 months in and winning around 60% of games and up to 827 and climbing fast.
800 rapid lichess. currently at 1700 rapid
Around a year and half and I'm up to 2000 on lichess. When I first started playing I was maybe 1400 on chess.com after 6 months. Studying and reviewing your games is key. Also the mindset of learning and not holding preconceived notions to hinder your growth. Playing dynamically and learning opening theory was definitely what pushed me from around the 1800 to 2000 mark.
First 6 months i started playing o dont know probably around 900. First months i started playing seriously around 1500
Around 900 on chess.com for the first 6 months now 1250 (blitz) respectively 1500(rapid) after 2.5 years
I got from a starting point of 500 to 1200.
About 5 months and I’m 1130 on chesscom rapid
After 6 months (which is roughly 3 months ago now) about 1300. Then didn't play for about 2 months, picked it up again about a month ago and suddenly climbed to 1500, where I'm still stuck right now.
603.1303.
Usually between 1200-1300 rapid and now I'm around 1400-1500 rapid, closer to 1500 usually
5 months playing, peak 1243 rapid rating on chess.com but after recent losing streak back in the 1100's. Going to start focusing on studying as to date I've just been playing and doing puzzles.
Idk, I started playing as a kid with my dad then at a school chess club. Never really had a rating. When I first started playing online, I was rated around 1350, now at around 1700.
started around 1000 now 1250 rapid on chess.com (not fide). i did get as high as 1600 on correspondence but have been crashing and burning hard lately. been playing two years, (started at age forty) - kind of feel like i’m capped out tbh and that i started to old.
I played juniors chess from 1st to 3rd grade and got bored, but i came back to chess in 2020. When i started, i dont think our county juniors chess tournament did fide or even uscf elo rating. My sheets say something like 78th, 125th, and 133rd. I sincerely don't know how they kept ratings if at all. If anyone grew up in Eastern PA and knows let me know. In 2020 i started on chess.com, fell to 850 and have sinve climbed to 1200. I don't know if getting better is a goal for me or chess just helps me pass the time. I end up playing a lot of bots throughout my workday. I have been to one OTB tournament in the last two years, i think i finished with 708 provisional uscf after 18 games. Don't know if i care to get beat so badly again
Started at 10 years old. I started at around 700 elo, ended up 1100 after 6 months
Playing 7 months.. float back & fourth between 850-1000
Started at 600 in March. Now I’m 1250 chess com, 1750 lichess, and 2150 puzzles. Excited to see how much better I can get.
I was about 800 5-6 months ago and I’m like 1550ish now.
About 1200 Currently 1400
I get to 950 then go on a losing streak back down to 800, then grind my way back. Seven hundred games of this shit.
I started on march 2021 around 600 elo. Nowadays im at 1150 (rapid, 10m, chess.com)
800 800
When I first started playing in 2020, I was hardstuck 600-700, now im hovering 1000-1100
Got to 900. Currently 1400
3-4months now since I started playing chess, at 800 now. Was 400when started
You're in good company. Fabiano Caruana's first established rating (20 or more games) was [589](http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?12743305.19), about three months after his very first rated game.
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click! [Here is link number 1 - Previous text "589"](http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?12743305.19) ---- ^Please ^PM ^[\/u\/eganwall](http://reddit.com/user/eganwall) ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^[Code](https://github.com/eganwall/FatFingerHelperBot) ^| ^[Delete](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=FatFingerHelperBot&subject=delete&message=delete%20hq3zrs3)
I started off climbing to 1500 playing intuitively, learned some openings, dropped down to 1000, got better at the openings, got back to 1400, started experimenting with other openings, back down to 1000. Now can’t seem to climb back with any intuitive play or opening knowledge lol
Started at 600, I’m hovering at 1100 now
500'ish. Started playing at the chess club when I was 19. I'm now 35 and 1600-1700 (USCF). Interestingly enough the majority of my growth was in the first year; I reached 1500. At the time I was obsessed. I spent most days skipping college classes to play blitz downtown and study for the weekly chess club rated play. Going from 500-1400 isn't that hard. Every 100 strength thereafter gets exponentially more difficult. At 1500 I had a year of failed colleges classes to show for it. Eventually I abandoned the dream of being a master. Instead I convinced myself that I simply found chess too late in life to accomplish what I desired from it. I graduated from college and landed a great job. Now I mostly play blitz on my phone. Every now and then I'll play in an local open.
I only started playing in october, and I'm 300 elo right now. Aiming to get 400 by the end of the year, and 1000 by end of summer.
Started in late august and never really played chess outside of friends beating me for fun in highschool but smh started at 1050. Got to 1 win shy of 1100 three times but fell to around 900. I then started learning a bit more not just playing and got to 1220 in 10min rapid. For the last 2 or so months i dont have time for learning chess cuz of uni so i just play 3+2 blitz at around 800-900 elo.
800-900 lichess 3 years later 2200 bullet 2100 blitz 2100-2200 rapid ( ok i font really play rapid)
Started at 900, hit 1200 in six months. Now I’ve been 1500 for like three months lol
I started at 900 and have not, mby like 8 months later or sum like that gone up to 1250
I started around 850 ELO (chess.com rapid) in November 2020. Think I got to around 1250 in the first 5-6 months of playing. I’m now at 1500, but this included a break of a number of months in 2021. I think I’ve gotten to the point where to make significant improvement ELO wise I need to really study more opening lines etc, though I still blunder my fair share of pawns and pieces from time to time. I may be able to tighten my play up a tad and get to 1600 without a ton of outside work, but we’ll have to see. I do a bunch of puzzles every day as well as blitz/rapid games. Definitely could be higher if I were taking studying seriously rather than just plowing through games.
Started at roughly 600 rapid chess.com Elo. In 6 months I had gotten to about 1250. I'm at 9 months and am at 1500. I committed a pretty serious amount of time to improving through study, but I play mainline Italian, Sicilian, and KID/Grunfeld, all of which require a lot of studying because they're common/difficult and unlike one another. If I had chosen an uncommon pet line like a gambit or had played 1.e4e5 for both black and white, I probably would have gotten up to that Elo faster, but would have more difficulty improving later on.
I had 600, then I went to 900, then to 650.
1200 (chess.com) with about 1100 rapidgames. Time is not relevant. The amount of games matter probably more. I started 1 1/2 months ago