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submitted 2 weeks ago by confuser@lemmy.zip to c/chess@lemmy.ml

What was it like for you when you started to get past beginner elo ranges like 800 and higher?

Was it very gradual improvements or did anything help you jump up some notches or a mix of both?

Currently I'm just palying puzzles and chess.com bots until I can't go no more, presently I am able to sometimes beat 800+ elo bots but I can never seem to break 200 elo games against people

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[-] sniggleboots@europe.pub 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In my personal experience, playing the chess.com lower elo bots to improve is complete ass. They make mistakes players of the same rating very rarely make, just nonsensical moves. They also rarely punish blunders you make, so you're not learning much at all. The same goes for the game analysis tool. Sometimes it will flag you for an inaccuracy or mistake, and will feed you a 10 move line where you lose a pawn in the end. Useless for beginners and even intermediate players.

I improved the most by watching Aman Hambleton's habits series, followed by one of his many "speedruns" in a particular opening. Habits will teach you great fundamentals, and an opening (especially a "system") will show you more specific examples of where the pieces should go (in that opening).

Paired with daily puzzle solving, progress is quick. I recommend Lichess' puzzles, because they're unlimited and free. You can choose a specific topic to practice each day, for example, so you know what to look for, and then once or twice a week mix it all together to test whether you can recognize the patterns.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
14 points (100.0% liked)

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