Answers.Body: <p>Disclaimer: USCF B-player here.</p>
  
  <p>My advice would be to play marginally higher-rated players and ask them for help in determining what one could do better.  Most people will fall over themselves to help someone who puts forth an honest effort (hence, web sites like this one.)  At tournaments, I've never had an opponent unwilling to go over a game.</p>
  
  <p>I have had some surprises by entering my games into Crafty and letting it analyze every move.  You can see pretty quickly where things go sideways.  At my level the reason I lose is always tactical.  That is, after my move, Crafty shows how I'm losing a piece ;-)  It is encouraging that my opponents don't always make the best move, either, so I am not wholly doomed.</p>
  
  <p>Back in the day I had an instructor (USCF Master) who advised A and B players: tactics, tactics, tactics.  That is, we could win all our games just by concentrating on the next 4 moves or so.  When that quit working, we'd be much better players.</p>
  
  <p>I'd advise:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>get an instructor who can beat you every time (+400 rating points, or so.)</li>
  <li>learn a few openings pretty well.  It's hard to stay motivated when every game is a mess by move 7.</li>
  <li>study problems</li>
  <li>focus on having good games, not on winning per se.</li>
  <li>don't be afraid to lose.</li>
  <li>play a lot, record your moves, then run them through the computer.</li>
  </ul>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2012-05-09T13:29:34.953Z
Answers.Text: I never thought abut asking stronger players how to improve after a game. This a great suggestion. Thanks.
Answers.UserDisplayName: xaisoft
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2012-05-16T11:08:40.410Z
Answers.Text: great suggestions!
Answers.UserDisplayName: garik
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2012-05-05T15:32:44.177Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2012-05-09T13:18:06.060Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2012-05-09T13:18:06.060Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tony Ennis
Body: <p>There's a lot of advice out there about how to improve your chess skills, some say, study openings, others say practice is more important that theoretical knowledge.</p>
  
  <p>I'm aware that the advice depends on the current skills of the player asking, so feel free to share your knowledge by skill level.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2012-05-05T15:47:21.353Z
Comments.Text: I see votes to close here, and I get it, but if we hold ourselves to the explicit question-and-answer format (that is, no 'opinion' questions) I'm afraid the site will not exist.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Tony Ennis
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2012-05-05T16:53:47.857Z
Comments.Text: I agree with Tony, these are the types of questions that will drive people to the site, especially beginners.  You want all levels of players.
Comments.UserDisplayName: xaisoft
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2012-05-07T17:00:41.430Z
Comments.Text: But this isn't Q&A. This is just an interesting topic-of-the-hour conversation starter where anyone and everyone listening in can start piling in their favorite lesson learned. This might make a good topic for a chat event, but it's not Q&A. Please read the description of the close reason.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Robert Cartaino
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2012-05-07T19:22:43.737Z
Comments.Text: @RobertCartaino: This is Chess, many questions will have a definite answer, I'm aware of the rules, but, you can't really apply SO rules to chess.SE, I'm wondering if it's possible to have somewhat "loose" rules for chess.SE,  this is beta, why not experiment a bit?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Soufiane Hassou
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2012-05-07T21:52:54.593Z
Comments.Text: Discounting this as some "Stack Overflow rule" is sort of old school. We have 80 other sites with questions that don't always have one definite answer. SE doesn't generally host these polls to see what *everyone* thinks about the topic of the day. At least read http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/ before you write this thing off as some way to drive users away. On the contrary, mainstay of SE Q&A is that it *doesn't* ask the same old questions asked hundreds of times on every other forum on the subject. Real questions have answers, but this is just a poll.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Robert Cartaino
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2012-05-07T22:45:17.653Z
Comments.Text: I'm used SO as an example because  that's where I'm mostly active, I'm well aware that SE is 80 sites. And I still fail to see how this is a Poll, there are no choices, in fact, there's no definite answer, some players things theory first, practice later, others thing the contrary. Opinion matters in chess.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Soufiane Hassou
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2012-05-09T13:21:28.787Z
Comments.Text: This is a great question and should not be closed.  This is the exact thing that someone will search in google and it will bring them to the site.
Comments.UserDisplayName: xaisoft
Tags: <learning>
Title: What is most important for improving chess skills?
ThreadText: # What is most important for improving chess skills?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2012-05-05)
  
  There's a lot of advice out there about how to improve your chess skills, some say, study openings, others say practice is more important that theoretical knowledge.
  
  I'm aware that the advice depends on the current skills of the player asking, so feel free to share your knowledge by skill level.
  
  **Tags:** learning
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: I see votes to close here, and I get it, but if we hold ourselves to the explicit question-and-answer format (that is, no 'opinion' questions) I'm afraid the site will not exist.  
  > **username_2**: I agree with Tony, these are the types of questions that will drive people to the site, especially beginners.  You want all levels of players.  
  > **username_3**: But this isn't Q&A. This is just an interesting topic-of-the-hour conversation starter where anyone and everyone listening in can start piling in their favorite lesson learned. This might make a good topic for a chat event, but it's not Q&A. Please read the description of the close reason.  
  > **username_0**: @RobertCartaino: This is Chess, many questions will have a definite answer, I'm aware of the rules, but, you can't really apply SO rules to chess.SE, I'm wondering if it's possible to have somewhat "loose" rules for chess.SE,  this is beta, why not experiment a bit?  
  > **username_3**: Discounting this as some "Stack Overflow rule" is sort of old school. We have 80 other sites with questions that don't always have one definite answer. SE doesn't generally host these polls to see what *everyone* thinks about the topic of the day. At least read http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/ before you write this thing off as some way to drive users away. On the contrary, mainstay of SE Q&A is that it *doesn't* ask the same old questions asked hundreds of times on every other forum on the subject. Real questions have answers, but this is just a poll.  
  > **username_0**: I'm used SO as an example because  that's where I'm mostly active, I'm well aware that SE is 80 sites. And I still fail to see how this is a Poll, there are no choices, in fact, there's no definite answer, some players things theory first, practice later, others thing the contrary. Opinion matters in chess.  
  > **username_2**: This is a great question and should not be closed.  This is the exact thing that someone will search in google and it will bring them to the site.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2012-05-05. Score: 11 | Accepted answer
  
  Disclaimer: USCF B-player here.
  
  My advice would be to play marginally higher-rated players and ask them for help in determining what one could do better. Most people will fall over themselves to help someone who puts forth an honest effort (hence, web sites like this one.) At tournaments, I've never had an opponent unwilling to go over a game.
  
  I have had some surprises by entering my games into Crafty and letting it analyze every move. You can see pretty quickly where things go sideways. At my level the reason I lose is always tactical. That is, after my move, Crafty shows how I'm losing a piece ;-) It is encouraging that my opponents don't always make the best move, either, so I am not wholly doomed.
  
  Back in the day I had an instructor (USCF Master) who advised A and B players: tactics, tactics, tactics. That is, we could win all our games just by concentrating on the next 4 moves or so. When that quit working, we'd be much better players.
  
  I'd advise:
  
  * get an instructor who can beat you every time (+400 rating points, or so.)
  * learn a few openings pretty well. It's hard to stay motivated when every game is a mess by move 7.
  * study problems
  * focus on having good games, not on winning per se.
  * don't be afraid to lose.
  * play a lot, record your moves, then run them through the computer.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: I never thought abut asking stronger players how to improve after a game. This a great suggestion. Thanks.  
  > **username_4**: great suggestions!  
  
  ---
  
  