My Plan To Reach 1800 Elo

Introduction

Hello, Lichess community! I'm @Monnt, a young chess enthusiast who desires to reach 1800 elo, in online rapid. In this blog, I've created a study plan that I'm already implementing and I was wondering if anyone could help me improve it, for not only me but hopefully many more chess improvers to come. I believe that having a well-structured study plan is crucial for anyone who wants to improve their chess skills.

After reading ChessMood's Chess Improvement Roadmap it became clear to me that this is how I should allocate my time:

• 45% Studying
• 45% Practicing
• 10% Fixing

A major point the article had was that "I'll need to "eat" information by studying the "digest" it by practising", otherwise I will forget what I'd learnt. They also had a blog about their Bold-Unbold Technique which is a method I'm going to implement to help remember the concepts I'll learn.
Also please note that I'm lucky to be able to spend 2-6 hours a day on chess so I can hopefully consume material faster than others.

Studying

Studying is essential if you want to deepen your chess knowledge and improve your skills. My study plan is divided into 5 categories, being:

• 20% Openings
• 40% Tactics
• 25% Middlegame
• 15% Endgames

Openings

The opening is crucial because it sets the tone for the rest of the game. I'm working through ChessMoods Opening Fundamentals course, to develop a strong foundation to build off. I'm planning to play the Scotch Game and the Accelerated Dragon variation of the Sicilian Defense. I'm currently unsure what to play against 1.d4 so please let me know if you have any recommendations. Below are the resources I'll use to create my repertoire.

• The Scotch Game by St Louis Chess Club
• GM Ben Finegolds The Scotch video
• Sicilian Defense Accelerated Dragon by Remote Chess Academy
• Daniel Naroditsky's fantastic Accelerated Dragon speedrun videos

Tactics

Many proclaim that "chess is 99% tactics" which I agree with to some extent. After glancing over ChessMoods Grandmaster Guide to Learning Tactics I believe that learning tactics is more than just solving puzzles. Each week I'm going to dive into a tactical concept (e.g. pin) and tear it apart so I can try to understand everything about it. This will only take up a minor portion of my time devoted to tactics and the rest will be dedicated to improving my tactical vision with puzzles. I might also get my hands on a tactics book like the Woodpecker Method, so let me know if you have any recommendations.

Middlegame

I find the middlegame to be the most challenging phase of the game and they're difficult to study because they're quite sophisticated. I'm currently tearing through The Soviet Chess Primer alongside Jeremy Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess which covers all positional ideas and I'll likely go through many classical master games to improve my calculation and understanding of the middle game. Also, let me know if it's worth it to go through Hanging Pawn's Middlegame Strategy playlist because I want to dominate the middlegame

Endgame

I somewhat enjoy the endgame because I like the simplified positions. To expand on my endgame theory I'm working through GM Ben Fingold's Endgame Series which covers all of the positions in Jeremy Silman's Complete Endgame Course. I'm also trying to implement this Endgame Roadmap by ChessMood:

Practicing

Practice is crucial if I want to apply and reinforce my knowledge, as well as helping me to identify weaknesses. My practice sessions will be comprised of 2-3 rapid games, in one of these time controls:

• 10+5
• 15+10

I'll try my best to complete a blunder check on as many moves as I can because currently I do blunder quiet a bit. :(

Fixing

Analyzing games is a field of chess learning that I severely underestimated. Currently, I'm still learning about the most optimised ways I can analyse my games and I'm trying out. I'm trying out resources like Decode Chess and I'm going to test various other methods so please suggest any ideas that you have.

Conclusion

Thank you, you very much for reading until the end. If you could give any advice to me through the blog forum or by mailing me in Lichess that would be greatly appreciated.