I live in a small city, there are no masters here, even though I'm only 2000 here on lichess I might consider myself one of the bests in my city.
I'm looking for a way to improve, but every book I'm reading isn't helping me too much, I'm still making mistakes, I still find some positions confusing without knowing what to do.
I'm thinking to improve by figuring out my mistakes and figuring out my fields of ignorance through them, and since I don't making any mistake with easy players I'm thinking to target strong players here on Lichess.
What do you think about my idea? Is it a good plan of improvement or am I missing anything else more important than this?
well yeah, you need some stronger players to provoke you into making mistakes that you can learn from
Try to play open tournaments. There you will get players around your strength (and sometimes stronger), it's a great way to improve.
Where are you from ? Albania, Kosovo ?
I've never played in a tourney. Will playing in classical U2000 tank my 1705 rating? Sucks there only seems to be u1600, then jumps to 2000.
@IMPLAYING4FUN Albania, you?
Of course it's a good idea to play stronger players. People get better only if they lose and only if they study why they lost. This is easy here because we have stockfish which is totally free. I have learned quite a bit from analyzing my games using stockfish. I'm improving my endgame skills and my middle game. I can learn stuff even from studying the games I won because I usually make mistakes in those games too.
@GentjanLici Im from Kosovo but same anyway.. I live in Gjilan, chess is played here but not in rated level.. people mostly elders play it as a time waste :d.. id love to go in a tourmanent in my city..
My school was in the chess tourmanent and i managed to bring my school team as captian all the way to semi finals with perfect score, no losses or draws, but my team let me down..
As for online chess.. i just dont feel it.. it doesnt give me the same feeling as if i play over the board you know that buzz..
Agreed, playing online is not the same as OTB. If you want to improve, don't play in U2000, play in open tournament. ;)
Not having tournaments near you is a problem, and playing computer is not the same (since you will start bad habits, e.g. avoiding tactics). What you can do is play against strong lichess humans at slow time control and then set up the moves on an actual board. That's not as good as real OTB chess, but still pretty nice IMO.
IMO u should play against people at your level (online or OTB). If too easy, u don't learn. If too hard, u get discouraged and frustrated.