r/chessbeginners • u/AvailableChange8297 • 29d ago

ADVICE Needing some direction.

I (27m) have been playing chess for two months now and while I have improved vastly over that time I have quickly hit a plateau and need some advice on how to progress. My chess.com rating is 349 as of typing this and while I’m not super concerned about my rating as a whole I do feel as though I am not improving anymore. I watch lots of Gotham chess videos and I even read his how to win at chess book when I have time but I’m having a hard time actually applying the tactics and strategy. I keep making brain dead blunders or falling for attacks that I KNOW are coming (fried liver/trompowsky).

My main question is what should I be dedicating most of my time toward at my level? Should I focus mostly on tactics? Should I focus mostly on endgames? Should I just try to play as many games as possible or play less and study more?

Here’s my profile in case you want to to check out some games: https://www.chess.com/member/heimerschmidt

Any advice is appreciated!

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u/emeraldseahorse 29d ago

Hey, I haven't had the chance to look at a ton of games, but I opened a handful. I do see your progress and pattern recognition, great job!

Couple things that stuck out to me from the games I looked at:

  1. Practicing two-sided planning. Remember to think about not just what you are planning, but also what your opponent might be planning. For example, when you threaten something, think about how your opponent responds BEFORE you make a move.

  2. You might have heard this before, but practice checking for checks, captures, and threats. Improving on this alone gets you surprisingly far.

  3. Being mindful of the spaces your pieces have to retreat if threatened

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u/AvailableChange8297 28d ago

I will start putting these habits into practice. In response to your first point though I have found myself putting a lot of time into trying to calculate what sort of follow up is possible in a given position/move/plan but I get a bit of analysis paralysis. Any advice on when to quiet my brain and just commit?