3 ways to move from 1500 to 1900
Sometimes the advise of master players can feel out of touch, like they don't remember being in the shoes of an average player. While their advice is almost always correct, it doesn't necessarily make sense to the average player. For me, I was plateaued at 1500 less than three months ago, and here are the three things I changed to climb to 1900.1. Sound Openings
When I was a 1500, my favorite opening was Stafford's gambit, which is incredibly unsound but is full of traps. This opening gambled the entire game on whether my opponent would see the traps. This hindered my improvement because the success of Stafford's gambit depends on your opponents skill, not your own. If your games are dependent on your opponents performance and not on yours, you cannot improve your play. Eventually I decided to quit the Stafford's gambit and find an opening for black that was stockfish approved and played frequently at the master level. To do this, I used an analysis board that shows the top five lines. I set myself some parameters on what I wanted in an opening, and I searched through stockfish's to mines. I came up with the French Sicilian for 1. e4 and the Queen's Indian or Nimzo-Indian for 1. d4. The parameters I used were:
- I wanted a stockfish approved opening
- I wanted to prevent my opponent from establishing a strong pawn center
- I didn't want a locked pawn structure
- I want to play d5 or e5 sometime soon in the opening
After finding the openings I wanted to play, I studied them and practiced them for about a month before my rating jumped 150 points. Don't get discouraged if your rating dips when you make the switch. Playing a sound opening will eventually improve your chess play.
2. Piece Scope
As a 1500, I had tremendous trouble finding any useful plays in the middlegame. No likely attacks. No useful piece development. Nothing. The reason I found myself in these positions was because I never payed attention to piece scope.
As white, I would always develop my minor pieces to the same 4 squares, regardless of what my opponent was doing. When I was developing pieces, I had no thought of how they would aid my attack or what their next move was likely to be. When I played Nc3, I played it simply because it was closer to the center. Every move you make must be to either allow your pieces to move to a better position, or to stop your opponent from moving to a better position. For a simple example, white plays 1. e4, so the most effective moves are the moves that discourage 2. d4, or allow you to play 2. ... d5. The battle for the center can be reduced to each player trying to gain scope for his pieces. When your pieces have very few safe places to move, you will be unable to attack and unlikely to find tactics. When I became aware of the idea of piece scope, I had a very steep increase in rating almost immediately. When you are aware of where a piece can go you simply play better chess. When you analyze a move your can say to yourself, "What squares does this piece now cover, and what squares does it no longer cover?" Asking yourself this simple question whenever you analyze a move will cut down on blunders, allow you to find tactics you would have missed, and stop you from getting into stuck positions.
3. Tempo
When playing chess at the 1500 level, it is very tempting to simply clear to castle, surround your castle with minor pieces, connect your rooks, and ensure that your king is "invincible" before even considering your attack. This is not a great way to think. Chess is a battle from the very start, and every move needs to have a threat attached. The threat doesn't need to win material or even gain you the center. All the threat needs to do is keep your opponent defending while you develop towards an attack. Moving your Knight three moves in a row is not bad if it makes him defend for the same three moves in a row. To be clear, I am not saying you should take every forcing move but that you should play developing moves that force passive defense. For another simple example, when black's queen is in the center after 1. e4 d5, 2. exd5 Qxd5, white can play Nc3 which both develops the knight and forces the queen into defense. In chess, we say that white gained a tempo. Looking for opportunities to gain tempo and avoiding loss of tempo is important for attacking your opponent before he attacks you. When I started actively looking for ways to gain tempo in the middlegame, I improved significantly.
If I'm wrong about anything here, please don't hesitate to let me know. This is what helped me, and I hope it will help you.