LogFAQs > #940711709

I started playing against my roommates in college and have been going to a local in-person club since last year (until quarantine started anyway).

I started around 800 rated about 6 years ago and I'm around 1600-1700 rated on chess.com now. A couple youtube channels I would recommend are:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQsLDm9Rq9bHKEBnElquF8GuWkI1EJ8Zp (a good series of tutorials that focuses on multiple aspects of the game including openings, mating patterns, tactics, and theory)

https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR (the most popular chess channel on youtube. Agadmator usually uploads 1 video per day covering a recent game between top level players. It's often hard to incorporate these ideas into your own play but he breaks down the game to a basic level and it's exciting to see how top level players play)

Another good thing to do is practice tactics/puzzles, so you can start to see some common patterns that might occur in your games. This is my favorite website to do that: https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics/

The biggest thing I would say for newer players to improve is just to make sure you don't leave any pieces hanging (directly attacked by your opponent's pieces with no protection). As you continue to improve and blunder full pieces less often, your rating will probably skyrocket by a couple hundred points.

---

The Artist Formerly Known as Hannyabal