My 4-Part Study Plan to Become a Chess Master!

In this video I give you my 4 step long-term plan to become a chess master! These are the four areas of improvement (in order of importance) that I need to work on to reach a rating of 2200. Specifically, I need to study:

1) Middlegame Strategy
2) Tactics/Calculation
3) Endgames
4) Openings

For middlegame strategy, I plan to study more master games and read book focused on middlegame strategic ideas. For tactics and calculation, I plan to continue using survival puzzle rush and start to study compositions. For endgames, I plan to master basic theoretical endgames and also focus my attention on practical rook endgames and practical pawn endgames. For openings, I plan to memorize the first few moves of each opening I play and also understand the middlegame plan that follows.

Video Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:35 - Part 1: Middlegame Strategy
04:23 - Part 2: Tactics/Calculation
07:45 - Part 3: Endgames
10:04 - Part 4: Openings

[ememade]

Amazing video, I am currently 1271 FIDE, but my problem is I get +1 or +2 winning positions in the middlegames against 1600/1700 FIDE players, but I fail to convert those winning positions into wins. Hope I can improve, and I hope for the best for you too

[ursfrischherz]

If you want to increase your playing strength as quickly as possible, I would recommend a different prioritization: 50% tactics, 25% endgame and 25% opening.

[rubiksky]

(If ur fine with it) u could maybe add links to the books in future videos, would be nice! But great video overall!

[johnnyirish]

IMHO: Calculation could be more tangible than strategy. Endgame studies help with that as well. Capablanca stated in his book that Endgames help you to learn more about the pieces and their movements, hence he found it super relevant to start to study that.
But I am lower rated as you, and I only play online.

I have so far read only read one book on tactics. That helped me at least a lot with puzzles. The Capablanca book I started but then switched to the tactics book, I have to give it a try again at some time. Although endgames are interesting, at my level, I lose or win games latest in the middle game and rarely get there. So I guess Capablanca was writing about more advanced players than me ;)

I also struggle with middle game strategy, and I am too lazy for openings (or I hate memorizing things). I would like to improve my calculation and after that positional understanding and strategy.

On another note how important do you think is mapping coordinates to positions on the board. It helps definitely for reading the books, but would you train it?

[eudesgeoffroy]

1697 Uscf so far, and no FIDE rating at all. Something wrong with the plan?

[chessforfunonly]

1700 USCF is like 1550 Elo. You have a long way to go.

[KeepChessSimple]

Have you read Perpetual Chess Improvement by Ben Johnson? Very insightful