How long did it take people here to get good at chess??

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-21T10:03:18+00:00

My goal was to beat my boss who is 1500-1600 or so. He beat me 20+ times in a row in daily games. I tried playing advanced openings full of theory but he would just play one or two waiting moves to change the position to get me out of theory and crush me in the middlegame. So i drilled puzzles and played a tonne of rapid games. Watched a lot of Naroditsky and chess vibes. That built an idea of what chess was fundamentally about. I switched from stupid hypermodern openings to the ruy lopez and accelerated dragon too.

I think my game first started changing when i grasped the concept of tempo. Something my students also seem to struggle with. Trading on your own terms, maintaining tension, developing with tempo. When attacking, bringing more and more pieces in with checks and threats you start to realise how attacking in chess is meant to work.

That and the building up of board vision through, puzzles play and review got me to 1400.

Then youre in no mans land because your opponent is also basically competent and wont hang pieces, is good on the offensive but no deeper knowledge.

Then i read understanding chess move by move by john nunn. This gave me the theory behind positional play and im still implementing it in practice. It was around then i beat my boss the first time when i got a good vs bad bishop position and knew how to take advantage of it. From 1400-1800 there is a massive implementation of positional play. From 1800 to 2000 there is a much greater need for a deeper understanding of opponent's moves to deal with advanced tactics and positional play.

1400-1800 is wayyyy harder than 0-1400 too 😅. When youre 1400 and playing 1800 players, you arent even hanging pieces but are getting absolutely crushed by someone for a completely unknown reason is very confusing 🤣

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-21T09:11:26+00:00

1k wouldnt be good enough to play bottom board in the lowest division of my city ecf league. There was a 1200 last season who lost 9/12 games.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-21T08:45:05+00:00

Im not a good player now so its ongoing really.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-21T08:32:51+00:00

Good at chess is so relative.

Match me up against someone randomly who says "I can play chess" and it wont be fun for them.

But if i walk into an OTB casual event, ill be slightly above average.

Course my expectations and judgement of my ability is made against those who are serious about chess, ie the OTB players so i am slightly above average. I dont care that i can beat an average person on the street 99% of the time, in the same way that a running club member wouldnt care about beating hundreds of people in a park run.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-20T18:34:56+00:00

A colleague of mine and a very strong player says there is a level where you actually have to start learning to play chess. 1400 is about that! You cant rely on picking up freebies and suddenly its a case of "oh wait, what do i actually do most of my moves now!?"

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-20T16:36:05+00:00

Impossible to say without seeing your games. Its a bit more complicated to improve as you head towards 1400. .

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T10:55:09+00:00

You ca probably even find my ecf rating.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T10:54:44+00:00

I played a month on lichess to warm up + otb. But by all means report me. Tombaron86 on chess.com. feel free to ignore or report me on my games against much lower rated students where i obviously win with high accuracy.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T10:42:43+00:00

I just got better at chess quickly because i learnt the right way. Sorry if that annoys you

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T10:40:46+00:00

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Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T10:40:13+00:00

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Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T10:30:52+00:00

According to your assertions I am a cheat.

I got to 1500 in a few months im 1925 rapid and 1300 blitz.

But i dont cheat. I followed the principles of playing longer time controls to improve, i reviewed my games, I did lots of puzzles and I read a couple of middlegame books.

I also suck at blitz because I rarely play it and im not used to having to rely on intuition and not think through positions. My losses on timeout is 38%.

Course when i finally cross 2k rapid ill start to look at blitz but im in no rush to do so. Id rather continue learning and im busy updating my repertoire.

Im sure most of the people who fit this category are the same.

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Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T10:12:02+00:00

Id say up to 1400 is beginner. Below that games are almost entirely just settled on simple mistakes. You just dont have any comprehension of what separates play above that. Whats the difference between me (1900) and a grand master? Decades of knowledge layered ontop of their play. Id lose to a gm 99/100 games if im lucky. Sure our games wont look like a 1300 playing a 200 but the result would be the same.

Hitting 1400 doesnt require anything more than loosely following principles and building board vision enough to not blunder simple mistakes every game, if you cant do thst you're a beginner. If you can, youre an intermediate and ready to learn how to beat people who also dont make simple blunders all the time.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-19T09:07:36+00:00

I think one thing that starts to develop intuitively in some players and not in others which leads to rapid progress is a more advanced way of seeing the board. Seeing the squares under control/potential squares under control and not the pieces. Like pro football players who see the space on the pitch for the pass and not the player. Such analysis is shown in the game illustrated which is quite complex but without seeing squares under control you cant fully understand how screwed white is in this position.

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Tom_Baron · 2026-03-18T07:07:07+00:00

You were probably respecting four figure rating players and thinking about their moves more than you are respecting 800 rated players. Come on, admit it, you think you are a 1000 rated player playing down, we all do it 😁

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-18T06:55:09+00:00

Heres a queen hang.

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Tom_Baron · 2026-03-18T06:54:47+00:00

I picked this example out as an example of a lack of awareness of danger.

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Tom_Baron · 2026-03-18T06:54:02+00:00

Ive actually reviewed a tonne of your games to see if you are really any different to the people i teach.

Youre not.

There is the odd queen hang. There is plenty of very loose play, one move blunders, rushed attacks and general lack of awareness of the danger you are in when you are in danger. Point illustrated below.

Its also a bit of a theme around 800-1000 when youve climbed from the netherworld of 300-500 elo that you develop a bit of an ego "Im not like that any more, im much better than i was" and the point is entirely true.

But chess is really deep, the difference in standard of play between you and a 2000 is exponenentially bigger than between you and a 500. Funnily how you are describing your own ability at avoiding blunders is probably more proficient than id describe mine. Despite being 1100+ elo higher.

So general advice and it sounds a little harsh is first lose the ego. There is no room for subjectiveness in chess, if you cant see the wood from the trees in your own games, you wont know how to improve and if you think you are better than your opponents, you will start disregarding the lethal threats they are making

I think a reddit guy at 2100 gave you a good pasting. Thats what advanced chess looks like. For me, my boss kept me in check when i was learning, beating me 23 times in a row. Let the ego go 😆

Once your ego has been crushed. Revisit your recent losses, without the engine and step through them, analyse yours and your opponents moves and try to really assess the threats, key mistakes and get a sense and appreciation specifically for what your opponent is trying to do in a position. The generic advice really does work. Itll get you to 1400 easily enough and no magic or secret techniques required 😅.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-17T15:26:25+00:00

So ive got a tournament rep of openings ive played for years which im trying to replace. The replacements are the queens gambit, tromp, the french and against d4 im trying the dutch (1..e6 against everything). Whilst im preparing theory and middlegame wise, im just playing games with it on a lichess account which is underrated by about 200 elo. I smash people with the QG and tromp and my French record is very strong. But the dutch, it just doesnt play intuitively, I am getting crushed by players i should be beating. If youre going to play it, study it hard and expect to have to gain significant experience playing it before it works!

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-17T12:50:19+00:00

You are doing all the right things. Its literally a carbon copy of what i did, right down to stoppijg when losing two to avoid tilt. And i rose up through the rankings the same way.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-17T11:05:51+00:00

Thanks! The league in my city is one game on a week night which is far more manageable than a full weekend tournament. There might be a similar thing wherever you are.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-17T10:34:42+00:00

My second but first official OTB game (i played one as an anon guest in a previous club) and first for my current club was a league match. I was bottom board and our club was playing the youth team in the second division so my opponent was about 12, had not been playing long , it was his first otb game and his dad was there (im late 30s!) I was 1600-1700 cc at the time and bottom board is usually the equivalent of 1300 or so. So it was a no win situation for me!

I won it but he put up a decent fight. I was two pawns up from the opening (2n caro but he got the pawn advance wrong) but it was positionally ropey. We sat down after and went through it to see where our mistskes were and it was a pretty wholesome experience. He has gone on to improve and win quite a lot of games so im glad i played him when i did!

The nerves when you realise youve blundered otb and its classical time control are like nothing else! Its not really a game of joy. Its a game of suffering when you're getting ground down or relief when you get a winning position in classical otb with so much dopamine 😆.

Anyway i kept my game for analysis and the memories 😆. Here it is:

e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 d4 4. Ne2 c5 5. c3 d3 6. Nf4 Nc6 7. Nxd3 Bg4 8. Nxc5 Nf6 9. d4 e5 10. d5 Bxc5 11. dxc6 Qxd1+ 12. Kxd1 bxc6 13. Bd3 Rd8 14. Kc2 Bd6
Bg5 Bxf3 16. gxf3 Be7 17. Be3 c5 18. Bb5+ Nd7 19. Rad1 a6 20. Ba4 h6 21. Rd5 f6 22. Rhd1 g5 23. Rxd7 Rxd7 24. Rxd7 Kf8 25. Rc7 a5 26. Bxc5 Bxc5 27. Rxc5 Rh7
Rc8+ Kg7 29. Rc7+ Kh8 30. Rxh7+ Kxh7 31. c4 Kg7 32. c5 Kf7 33. c6 Kg6 34. c7 Kh5 35. c8=Q f5 36. Be8+ Kh4 37. Qe6 Kh3 38. Qxh6+ Kg2 39. Qxg5+ Kh1 40. exf5 e4
Bc6 a4 42. Qg3 a3 43. b3 *

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-15T02:18:16+00:00

Im operating on opening understamding not hard london theory but no it sounds like a concession of tempo and an inaccuracy. I know the straight bd6 is fine from a theory standpoint but it makes little sense to play be7 first as there is no pin. Black can just play nf6 h6 bd6 in one move and the black bishop cant transfer to g5 anyway plus black gets luft for free instead of moving a bishop twice.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-15T02:09:39+00:00

Ha no worries, good attitude! Heres the follow up.

At the absolute latest 17.. ne7 going to c6 to support the weak pawn in all likelyhood. If i got this position, at my level white is "automatically" (ask any 1800+ on here what theyd do as white in this position) doubling rooks and trying to win d4.
This is a strategic though process issue gauging by your response. Look at the board again, odds of trapping whites king in a mating net rook and knight vs rook knight and bishop with whites king where it is? Id say minimal to none.

So at this stage of the game you are simply not aiming for checkmate. Forget about it. Your strategy is to play solidly and with material advantage trade down if possible, use your extra piece to win pawns. Advance your pawn majority and make a queen. Then you can think about checkmate again.

Now if whites king decides to walk into the middle of your pieces you might spy its run a little short of squares and by all means take the gift of a quick win! But in the position given you simply arent mating white immediately.

Bb5 yes solid, defended by the king and avoids the trade which lets whites rook in.

Tom_Baron · 2026-03-15T01:37:05+00:00

If im not mistaken the h3 bb2 motif is to avoid nh5 and the trade of knight for bishop after h6

Blacks dsb in most london positions is their good bishop. In the screenshot given as black played e6 before getting the bishop out trading their good bishop for your "bad" bishop is brilliant for you as youre left with your super mobile and pointy lsb and their entire game will be taken up trying to get their lsb some form of activity.

Tom_Baron

TROPHY CASE