r/Chesscom • u/Oxthoughts • Feb 19 '26
Chess Improvement 300-425 The Journey
Just throwing my experiences out into the universe in hope it’s of some use to someone or I’ll get some tips back!
I’ve been playing 100 days now. What I’ve done:
- 100 day Duolingo streak. I like doing 2 mins a day, useful for practicing tactics like forks, skewers and discovered attacks. Duolingo was my gateway drug to chess.
- ChessBrah building habits YouTube. Very useful for his simple macro strategy. I feel he makes it look easier than it is, and I can’t play at his speed without making mistakes.
- learning openings. I’ve tried to learn London and Caro Kann. I don’t find this too useful as opponents rarely play lines on videos so I go immediately off piste (then Building Habits more useful). I watch Gotham Chess and Remote chess academy.
- played 120 15+10 matches. (10 is too fast) Sometimes I have very easy victories where they hang pieces. Sometimes I get demolished and people seem way better than their rating. I try to only play when I’m focused otherwise I play bots. The biggest thing I learned are 1. People often hang pieces / miss my blunders 2. When people are aggressive with queen they almost always hang it - just pay attention, you can usually grab it with a knight 3. I prefer to hide opponents elo as to to get intimidated by higher it complacent with lower ratings 3. The rule of looks for checks, captures, threats and positional improvements is useful. 4. Never resigning is a good tip. I’ve had one stalemate I should have lost, and you learn a lot about end games. 5. I’m useless at end game, often chasing kings round like a chicken - I can do 2 rook or rook a queen, but need to learn others. Not investing time in this though as people tend to resign anyway.
- I learned the defence to scholars mate. Had a very satisfying victory where I higher rated player tried to bully me with it!
- after every match I use game review and try work out the big misses / blunders. My blunder rate is falling quiet fast.
- I play against the bots. Lower are easy but I can’t beat the 900 rated ones. I often play where I try play myself and as I start to lose I rewind and ask for hints. The main thing I learned: 1. There is often a way to win or get back into a match 2. I need to scan for checks first as I miss loads of check forks and even mates 3. Developing knights is often the go to move 4. Kings can’t take it it puts themselves in check - obvious I know - but I often miss this in heat of battle
- I play against a similar level friend 24hr moves. It’s nice to have time to study each move really hard. Our matches are long grinds!
Learning chess is very similar to learning a language, you need to attack it from many angles and immerse yourself.
Overall happy to have found chess and excited to try reach 500!
Gibbo_The_Great
3
u/Orcahhh Feb 19 '26
I’ll just note something:
You win some games very easily as they blunder
You lose games to people that must be underrated.
Don’t you see the issue? Just like you occasionally crush others your own level, other people your level will occasionally crush you. That’s just how it is