How did you improve beyond 1500?

For awhile i was a pretty strong player. The key was studying chess, not just playing. Getting a book of tactical puzzles and solving them Reading games in the magazine with analysis and learning middlegame plans. Learning how to play various endings. Playing, you learn to untilize these lessons, but you need those lessons!

Win your first game after creating your account, then never play again.

To answer the question, I improved my rating by playing hyperbullet (30 sec games). I would agree that this isn't necessarily a good way to improve at chess in the classical sense, although I have noticed some improvement in my play (I win a few more games by checkmate now, rather than winning on time).

I guess for me it's about pattern recognition - seeing how pieces interact and work together, rather than having to analyse every move - although you could say this is being lazy :)

I guess my OTB play just made me better at chess

-Weekly on a club
-Every 3 weeks on another adult club
- In summer and Chrismas vacation a week long tournament of long games
-Monthly long game in regional comp.
- and the bullet and blitz online.

I started to improving when I started to read about rules of thumbs, principles and methods. I now try to read the chessboard. In the same way I search for a particular word in a word search puzzle.

It basically becomes a skimming and scanning chess technique to search for yinyang possibilites from both sides of the chessboard.

What pieces are still not mobile and which are now actively attacking a square?

I search for my tactical forces and threats. Pressures that can be maintained to restrict mobility from either side. I try to imagine where a particular chess piece could go and what positions make me think of a particular mating pattern or tactical position.

Skimming positional strategies: Detailed overview of the chessboard (Controls and usability of a square)

Scannning positional strategies: General overview of the chess pieces. (Developement, Quality, Quantity)

I now try to aim just about all my chessmen towards a particular sector of the chessboard before attacking. Some pieces will be ready to attack while the others ready to defend.

Now my pawn chains point where I want to attack. Example: Fianchetto king side, attack queen side, by queen side pawns.

Now that I am aware (Thanks to chess Insights) my middle games is where I lack training. To fix that I now look at videos that explain middle game principles. I still analyse my games and with the feature on this site, I click on the word blunder and it brings me to my blunder in that game.

@Jinjo:

I started with around 1400-1500 elo (otb-rating, not lichess rating) and struggled for a long time to becoma a better player.

I remember that I often played pointless 1 move attacks (moving a pawn forward just to attack a piece) and so I lost most of my games due to bad strategical play and also missing simple stuff as well (overlooking hanging pieces and so on...).

It changed since I started to work on my chess- understanding. I read a book with well commented games and so I started to understand what you should think and pay attention before making a move. I also started to play much more with pieces and tried to stop making stupid and weakening pawn moves all the time.

At this time I played at least 15-30 minute games (no blitz) to have a chance of thinking before moving. I gained allot of rating in short time after this change.

My performance the year before that was around 1400 elo and one year later I made a performance of 1800 elo (otb-elo not lichess rating). A huge improvement I would say!

Best wishes
Nada

You need to have talent to improve beyond that, most people are around 1450 - 1500, its like IQ.

you do not need talent to succeed 1500 if you have no talent you could still work for it and reach it

1500 is an average chess player.

Correspondence - it seems a little slow in the opening if you are both playing mainlines, but mid-game, if you are playing it properly, spend the 2 or 3 days thinking about each move. Play out a bunch of alternate lines. Most will never happen, but it's a way to study chess.