Answers.Body: <p>I can only speculate about what &quot;various things&quot; you did, but I suppose you concentrated on openings (&quot;yeah, play some odd variation and you can overwhelm your opponent instantly&quot;), because that is what many suggest. You lose one game after the other? Study this new book about the improved accelerated dontknow-variation ....</p>
  <p>Here are some un-flashy, boring, old-fashioned suggestions to improve your games (no, the list is not complete):</p>
  <ul>
  <li><p>the biggest weakness of players your strength is <strong>tactics</strong>. Games are lost or won not because of better opening, superior endgame technique or middle game understanding. Your games are won because the opponent blundered first or lost because you did so. Therefore: train your tactics muscle! At least 5-10 minutes of &quot;Puzzle Rush&quot; (or &quot;Puzzle Storm&quot; or whatever they call it onLichess, Chess.com, ....) EVERY DAY!</p>
  </li>
  <li><p><strong>Training is like brushing your teeth</strong>: be constant! Training every day for 5-10 minutes is better than to practice once every two weeks for two hours.</p>
  </li>
  <li><p><strong>Learn endgames</strong>. Not only does that help your endgame skill themselves, it also helps you practice your &quot;tactics muscle&quot;. (Basic) endgames have much reduced material and lend themselves easily to calculation. As a bonus it helps to know by heart typical endgame positions (like: K+R vs. K+R+pawn, K+pawn vs. K, K+R vs. K, ...) because frequently calculation an endgame position boils down to reducing it to one of these basic endgames and if you can stop the calculation early because you know the position to be won or a draw you can saave a lot of calculation time (which you can spend on calculating other variations).</p>
  </li>
  <li><p>Tactics and <strong>recognizing tactical motifs</strong> is based on the recognition of patterns: fork, pin, etc., regularly occur and the faster and the more reliably you spot them the better your calculation will work. Learning new patterns is like learning new words in a foreign language. You won't speak the language better, but you will be able to express more as you know terms and how to call them.</p>
  </li>
  <li><p>Learn the &quot;general trades&quot; of chess: you don't need to study opening variations but you need to have internalized what to achieve in the opening. Being able to come up with the second- or third-best move consistently on your own will be sufficient until you reach 1800-2000 Elo. You don't need to be able to solve tricky endgame studies, but some basic endgames (see above) are good to know (and the more, the better). Learn how to calculate efficiently and reliably. The list here goes on and is beyond the scope of this answer.</p>
  </li>
  </ul>
  <p>Finally: have fun playing the game. The best a (any) trainer can do for you is to preserve your enthusiasm for the game.</p>
  <p>PP: no, this is not the ceiling for adults. Michail Chigorin was a late convert to the game and still was one of the best players of his time.</p>
  <p><strong>Addendum</strong>: it has come up in the comments, the dreaded word &quot;talent&quot;.</p>
  <p>THERE IS NO TALENT!</p>
  <p>There is only the willingness to undergo the effort. I coach children in my chess club as a volunteer and some get better than others. The difference is commonly not any magical &quot;talent&quot; but: you work with one kid for 20 minutes (their span of attention) and it does so, then goes off to do something else. You work with another one and the kid asks you for another lesson, another puzzle to solve, etc.. <em>This</em> is the &quot;talent&quot;, nothing else. You get better by practicing 10 hours than you get by practicing 5 hours. It is really that simple.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-18T12:01:56.057Z
Answers.Text: Upvote for Chigorin, among others also Winaver started quite late by modern standards (https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/43624/33999). I believe this myth that you have to start with chess as a little child is a delusion of modern origin. I disagree a bit with your tactics suggestion - in my opinion these timed tactics solutions make begineers rush too much in their solving, which results in shody calculation.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Matija Sirk
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-19T05:59:39.377Z
Answers.Text: @MatijaSirk: I didn't mean *timed* tactics - there are these puzzles where just an endless stream of tactical positions is presented and one has to solve them. The point is to develop *automatic* and *reflexlike* recognition of patterns, like you learn to, say, drive a car: first you learn the different actions: accelerator, brake, winker, clutch, switch gears, etc.. Over time, though, these actions become automated and at some point you don't think "i have to switch gears now", but "do I take the highway or go through the city", the rest is automatically done.
Answers.UserDisplayName: bakunin
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-19T06:33:43.113Z
Answers.Text: Lichess storm is timed and so is puzzle rush (by default?) I believe.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Matija Sirk
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T01:20:33.020Z
Answers.Text: Chigorin must have been born with talent
Answers.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T01:24:03.043Z
Answers.Text: I appreciate your advice. However, it is not true that if you do xx or yy, you will definitely get 1000+ on chesscom. If that were true, the average rating of the site would be much higher. There are people whose brains obviously don't work well and it is absolutely impossible. It's not the mindset that's bad, it's the brain.
Answers.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T06:54:38.410Z
Answers.Text: @denzo__yamada: I have nowhere mentioned any rating at all, so "not true that ..." is something you made up. Most poeple don't get higher, because they are *not* putting themselves behind the task of practicing as they should. They are doing the wrong things, do it the wrong way or simply lack the dedication while doing it. Regarding "talent": read the addition to my answer.
Answers.UserDisplayName: bakunin
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T07:13:37.253Z
Answers.Text: But you know what? lol Even if I play a long game, even if I spend 30 seconds on one move, I still miss one checkmate move. I was in a winning position and I just lose because of it.  I can't do anything,　and my brain doesn't work properly.
Answers.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T07:22:48.853Z
Answers.Text: Not being able to do something well or improve is frustrating and hardly enjoyable.
  
  For some of us, improvement is clearly impossible.
  
  After several years, it's hard to accept and frustrating that I haven't improved much.
  
  Maybe I've just wasted my time, which makes me even more frustrated.
  
  If I have to give up on improving, where should I find the fun in it?
Answers.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T07:26:59.733Z
Answers.Text: @denzo__yamada: you know what? Keep telling yourself that and you will never get better for sure! It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Yes, there are limits to what you can achieve: I will never become a grandmaster because, one, I don't have the time it would take and second, I lack the dedication to do so. But those limits are a lot higher than reaching 1000 on a chess server.
Answers.UserDisplayName: bakunin
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T07:37:22.417Z
Answers.Text: God, I wish I could replace my brain.
  
  Modern medicine doesn't allow that.
  
  I hope that medicine will improve and make it possible in my lifetime.
  
  Ok, I might have to seriously consider hiring a coach.
  
  Maybe even that would be a waste of money, but at least chesscom's analysis features were useless to me, and solving puzzles was completely meaningless because you can't see the tactics in real games.
Answers.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T08:04:40.010Z
Answers.Text: If my brain is too stupid, it might take me 10 million hours to reach 1000+. I have a full-time job, so I can't study even an hour on work days (5 days a week). I could probably spend 4-5 hours max on my days off. But then, by the time I reach 10 million hours, I might not be around anymore.
  
  If I could drastically reduce the time it takes to improve by hiring a coach, I would. What do you think?
Answers.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T12:57:50.337Z
Answers.Text: @denzo__yamada: it is always a good idea to have a coach! From a video or a book you only can take away so much, because there is no feedback. A video can tell you what to do, a coach will first tell you what to do and then tell you if you did it right or wrongly.
Answers.UserDisplayName: bakunin
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-22T10:28:22.523Z
Answers.Text: Talent is definitely a thing and there's no point in pretending it's not (in fact it's hurting your case). It's not as important as most people think, but it still makes a big difference. The average person won't be a Grandmaster no matter how hard they try, but absolutely nobody will become a GM without putting in the work.
Answers.UserDisplayName: David
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-22T10:43:15.943Z
Answers.Text: @David: I think I have explained what I meant by "there is no talent" and I don't see why that "hurts my case". Some people are willing/able to put in the proper effort (and also do that in the proper way - there are ineffectual ways where much effort spent leads you nowhere) and there some who don't: they lack the opportunity, the resources - or simply the will to undergo the effort.
Answers.UserDisplayName: bakunin
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-18T11:40:55.963Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-09-20T07:44:16.047Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2024-09-20T07:44:16.047Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: bakunin
Answers.Body: <p>You say that you have tried various things, puzzles, and stuff. I would ask what books you have read?</p>
  <p>What it sounds like is that you know how the pieces move, and have a vague idea of the purpose of the game and how to get there, but are missing a lot of the basic theory behind the game.</p>
  <p>I would start with a beginner chess book. Learn about tempo, oddities such as en passant, what tempo and zugzwang are, forks, skewers, pins, etc. Have a solid grasp of that first.</p>
  <p>Once you have that, pick one or two common openings as White and Black to learn. You don't have to know 15 variations in 20 move depth, but knowing the first 5 or 6 moves of the main lines of each will help you at least get started. London system, Scotch, Ruy Lopez, French, Sicilian are all ones that I used when I was first starting.</p>
  <p>After that, going through books on middle game play, and end game play will help round out your playing skills. Chess is not an easy game, and even casual play of a level you want to get to will take some planned effort. It sounds like you don't really know how to get started on what to study and are just trying different things.</p>
  <p>Puzzles and stuff are fine, but they are static and give no indication of how you arrived at that position in the first place. If by some chance you get that setup in a game, AND you can remember that you saw it in a puzzle AND remember the solution, great.</p>
  <p>The chess.com app is pretty good, it has leveled opponents and will give you analysis and options upon request. Give it a try.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-18T14:21:45.837Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-09-18T14:21:45.837Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: JohnP
Answers.Body: <p>Work your way through <a href="https://www.chesstactics.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.chesstactics.org/</a> first - I think this is the best tactic primer available for free.</p>
  <p>Then spend a few hours each week doing lichess puzzles. Don't impulsively make moves in them though, force yourself to really think them through before making the first move. Don't do timed puzzles (storms etc.), really take as much time as you need for each - don't worry if some of them will need 20 minutes at first - that's good calculation practice!</p>
  <p>Don't play too fast time controls. Play smaller number of longer games. At least 10+5 and force yourself to really spend the time. Consider each minute of your time left at the end of the game as a sign of playing too fast.</p>
  <p>There's no reason at all for your progress to stall at 800 for future, if you just focus now on tactics and spending your time during your games actually calculating.</p>
  <p>Anecdotally, I started at 18, my first lichess rapid rating was around 1000. Now, after 7 years, I am at 2200 and still slowly improving. Learning chess is truly a bit harder for adults, but I would argue that this is due to lack of time and obligations, that children simply don't have. It's hard to train chess for 8 hours per day if you have a job... So don't expect too progress as fast as some kids do, but also do not lose hope.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-09-18T11:46:31.493Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-09-18T11:46:31.493Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Matija Sirk
Body: <p>I started when I was 31, and for two years I've tried various things hoping to improve, but I'm still only rated 700-800 Elo at rapid on chess.com.</p>
  <p>Is this the actual ceiling for adults?</p>
  <p>It's not fun because I haven't improved as much as I hoped.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-09-18T10:46:03.220Z
Comments.Text: What various things have you tried ? Is there any specific part of the game, you seek to improve ? openings/endgame/tactics ?
Comments.UserDisplayName: KristianMedK
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-09-18T11:15:56.693Z
Comments.Text: It's a lot of stuff, literally. Analysis, puzzles, video lessons.
Comments.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-09-18T13:21:13.550Z
Comments.Text: What are those "various things" you're talking about? Time and effort are much bigger limits to skill than talent or brain plasticity. Only at the top levels where everyone dedicates maximum time and effort to the other factors start to play a role
Comments.UserDisplayName: David
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T05:25:23.257Z
Comments.Text: No matter how much I analyze it, the number of mistakes I make doesn't seem to decrease, so there's clearly something wrong with my brain.
Comments.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T05:26:33.100Z
Comments.Text: "Various things" are reading, analyzing, watching videos, puzzles, games. Literally.
Comments.UserDisplayName: denzo__yamada
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T15:35:06.877Z
Comments.Text: I'm voting to reopen because while the question does need some editing, this is an answerable question. The is ample objective evidence surrounding adult improvement to answer the root question with facts, citations, etc.
Comments.UserDisplayName: SecretAgentMan
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-09-20T15:37:17.133Z
Comments.Text: Until we can get this question edited and reopened, I encourage the OP to consider the vast volume of evidence available from [The Adult Improver Series](https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/adultimprover) from the Perpetual Chess Podcast.
Comments.UserDisplayName: SecretAgentMan
Tags: <training>
Title: Is improving possible if you start later in life?
ThreadText: # Is improving possible if you start later in life?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2024-09-18)
  
  I started when I was 31, and for two years I've tried various things hoping to improve, but I'm still only rated 700-800 Elo at rapid on chess.com.
  
  Is this the actual ceiling for adults?
  
  It's not fun because I haven't improved as much as I hoped.
  
  **Tags:** training
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: What various things have you tried ? Is there any specific part of the game, you seek to improve ? openings/endgame/tactics ?  
  > **username_0**: It's a lot of stuff, literally. Analysis, puzzles, video lessons.  
  > **username_2**: What are those "various things" you're talking about? Time and effort are much bigger limits to skill than talent or brain plasticity. Only at the top levels where everyone dedicates maximum time and effort to the other factors start to play a role  
  > **username_0**: No matter how much I analyze it, the number of mistakes I make doesn't seem to decrease, so there's clearly something wrong with my brain.  
  > **username_0**: "Various things" are reading, analyzing, watching videos, puzzles, games. Literally.  
  > **username_3**: I'm voting to reopen because while the question does need some editing, this is an answerable question. The is ample objective evidence surrounding adult improvement to answer the root question with facts, citations, etc.  
  > **username_3**: Until we can get this question edited and reopened, I encourage the OP to consider the vast volume of evidence available from [The Adult Improver Series](https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/adultimprover) from the Perpetual Chess Podcast.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 3 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_4 on 2024-09-18. Score: 2
  
  I can only speculate about what "various things" you did, but I suppose you concentrated on openings ("yeah, play some odd variation and you can overwhelm your opponent instantly"), because that is what many suggest. You lose one game after the other? Study this new book about the improved accelerated dontknow-variation ....
  
  Here are some un-flashy, boring, old-fashioned suggestions to improve your games (no, the list is not complete):
  
  * the biggest weakness of players your strength is **tactics**. Games are lost or won not because of better opening, superior endgame technique or middle game understanding. Your games are won because the opponent blundered first or lost because you did so. Therefore: train your tactics muscle! At least 5-10 minutes of "Puzzle Rush" (or "Puzzle Storm" or whatever they call it onLichess, Chess.com, ....) EVERY DAY!
  * **Training is like brushing your teeth**: be constant! Training every day for 5-10 minutes is better than to practice once every two weeks for two hours.
  * **Learn endgames**. Not only does that help your endgame skill themselves, it also helps you practice your "tactics muscle". (Basic) endgames have much reduced material and lend themselves easily to calculation. As a bonus it helps to know by heart typical endgame positions (like: K+R vs. K+R+pawn, K+pawn vs. K, K+R vs. K, ...) because frequently calculation an endgame position boils down to reducing it to one of these basic endgames and if you can stop the calculation early because you know the position to be won or a draw you can saave a lot of calculation time (which you can spend on calculating other variations).
  * Tactics and **recognizing tactical motifs** is based on the recognition of patterns: fork, pin, etc., regularly occur and the faster and the more reliably you spot them the better your calculation will work. Learning new patterns is like learning new words in a foreign language. You won't speak the language better, but you will be able to express more as you know terms and how to call them.
  * Learn the "general trades" of chess: you don't need to study opening variations but you need to have internalized what to achieve in the opening. Being able to come up with the second- or third-best move consistently on your own will be sufficient until you reach 1800-2000 Elo. You don't need to be able to solve tricky endgame studies, but some basic endgames (see above) are good to know (and the more, the better). Learn how to calculate efficiently and reliably. The list here goes on and is beyond the scope of this answer.
  
  Finally: have fun playing the game. The best a (any) trainer can do for you is to preserve your enthusiasm for the game.
  
  PP: no, this is not the ceiling for adults. Michail Chigorin was a late convert to the game and still was one of the best players of his time.
  
  **Addendum**: it has come up in the comments, the dreaded word "talent".
  
  THERE IS NO TALENT!
  
  There is only the willingness to undergo the effort. I coach children in my chess club as a volunteer and some get better than others. The difference is commonly not any magical "talent" but: you work with one kid for 20 minutes (their span of attention) and it does so, then goes off to do something else. You work with another one and the kid asks you for another lesson, another puzzle to solve, etc.. *This* is the "talent", nothing else. You get better by practicing 10 hours than you get by practicing 5 hours. It is really that simple.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_5**: Upvote for Chigorin, among others also Winaver started quite late by modern standards (https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/43624/33999). I believe this myth that you have to start with chess as a little child is a delusion of modern origin. I disagree a bit with your tactics suggestion - in my opinion these timed tactics solutions make begineers rush too much in their solving, which results in shody calculation.  
  > **username_4**: @MatijaSirk: I didn't mean *timed* tactics - there are these puzzles where just an endless stream of tactical positions is presented and one has to solve them. The point is to develop *automatic* and *reflexlike* recognition of patterns, like you learn to, say, drive a car: first you learn the different actions: accelerator, brake, winker, clutch, switch gears, etc.. Over time, though, these actions become automated and at some point you don't think "i have to switch gears now", but "do I take the highway or go through the city", the rest is automatically done.  
  > **username_5**: Lichess storm is timed and so is puzzle rush (by default?) I believe.  
  > **username_0**: Chigorin must have been born with talent  
  > **username_0**: I appreciate your advice. However, it is not true that if you do xx or yy, you will definitely get 1000+ on chesscom. If that were true, the average rating of the site would be much higher. There are people whose brains obviously don't work well and it is absolutely impossible. It's not the mindset that's bad, it's the brain.  
  > **username_4**: @username_0: I have nowhere mentioned any rating at all, so "not true that ..." is something you made up. Most poeple don't get higher, because they are *not* putting themselves behind the task of practicing as they should. They are doing the wrong things, do it the wrong way or simply lack the dedication while doing it. Regarding "talent": read the addition to my answer.  
  > **username_0**: But you know what? lol Even if I play a long game, even if I spend 30 seconds on one move, I still miss one checkmate move. I was in a winning position and I just lose because of it.  I can't do anything,　and my brain doesn't work properly.  
  > **username_0**: Not being able to do something well or improve is frustrating and hardly enjoyable.  For some of us, improvement is clearly impossible.  After several years, it's hard to accept and frustrating that I haven't improved much.  Maybe I've just wasted my time, which makes me even more frustrated.  If I have to give up on improving, where should I find the fun in it?  
  > **username_4**: @username_0: you know what? Keep telling yourself that and you will never get better for sure! It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Yes, there are limits to what you can achieve: I will never become a grandmaster because, one, I don't have the time it would take and second, I lack the dedication to do so. But those limits are a lot higher than reaching 1000 on a chess server.  
  > **username_0**: God, I wish I could replace my brain.  Modern medicine doesn't allow that.  I hope that medicine will improve and make it possible in my lifetime.  Ok, I might have to seriously consider hiring a coach.  Maybe even that would be a waste of money, but at least chesscom's analysis features were useless to me, and solving puzzles was completely meaningless because you can't see the tactics in real games.  
  > **username_0**: If my brain is too stupid, it might take me 10 million hours to reach 1000+. I have a full-time job, so I can't study even an hour on work days (5 days a week). I could probably spend 4-5 hours max on my days off. But then, by the time I reach 10 million hours, I might not be around anymore.  If I could drastically reduce the time it takes to improve by hiring a coach, I would. What do you think?  
  > **username_4**: @username_0: it is always a good idea to have a coach! From a video or a book you only can take away so much, because there is no feedback. A video can tell you what to do, a coach will first tell you what to do and then tell you if you did it right or wrongly.  
  > **username_2**: Talent is definitely a thing and there's no point in pretending it's not (in fact it's hurting your case). It's not as important as most people think, but it still makes a big difference. The average person won't be a Grandmaster no matter how hard they try, but absolutely nobody will become a GM without putting in the work.  
  > **username_4**: @username_2: I think I have explained what I meant by "there is no talent" and I don't see why that "hurts my case". Some people are willing/able to put in the proper effort (and also do that in the proper way - there are ineffectual ways where much effort spent leads you nowhere) and there some who don't: they lack the opportunity, the resources - or simply the will to undergo the effort.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2024-09-18. Score: 0
  
  You say that you have tried various things, puzzles, and stuff. I would ask what books you have read?
  
  What it sounds like is that you know how the pieces move, and have a vague idea of the purpose of the game and how to get there, but are missing a lot of the basic theory behind the game.
  
  I would start with a beginner chess book. Learn about tempo, oddities such as en passant, what tempo and zugzwang are, forks, skewers, pins, etc. Have a solid grasp of that first.
  
  Once you have that, pick one or two common openings as White and Black to learn. You don't have to know 15 variations in 20 move depth, but knowing the first 5 or 6 moves of the main lines of each will help you at least get started. London system, Scotch, Ruy Lopez, French, Sicilian are all ones that I used when I was first starting.
  
  After that, going through books on middle game play, and end game play will help round out your playing skills. Chess is not an easy game, and even casual play of a level you want to get to will take some planned effort. It sounds like you don't really know how to get started on what to study and are just trying different things.
  
  Puzzles and stuff are fine, but they are static and give no indication of how you arrived at that position in the first place. If by some chance you get that setup in a game, AND you can remember that you saw it in a puzzle AND remember the solution, great.
  
  The chess.com app is pretty good, it has leveled opponents and will give you analysis and options upon request. Give it a try.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2024-09-18. Score: 0
  
  Work your way through <https://www.chesstactics.org/> first - I think this is the best tactic primer available for free.
  
  Then spend a few hours each week doing lichess puzzles. Don't impulsively make moves in them though, force yourself to really think them through before making the first move. Don't do timed puzzles (storms etc.), really take as much time as you need for each - don't worry if some of them will need 20 minutes at first - that's good calculation practice!
  
  Don't play too fast time controls. Play smaller number of longer games. At least 10+5 and force yourself to really spend the time. Consider each minute of your time left at the end of the game as a sign of playing too fast.
  
  There's no reason at all for your progress to stall at 800 for future, if you just focus now on tactics and spending your time during your games actually calculating.
  
  Anecdotally, I started at 18, my first lichess rapid rating was around 1000. Now, after 7 years, I am at 2200 and still slowly improving. Learning chess is truly a bit harder for adults, but I would argue that this is due to lack of time and obligations, that children simply don't have. It's hard to train chess for 8 hours per day if you have a job... So don't expect too progress as fast as some kids do, but also do not lose hope.
  
  
  ---
  
  