Realistic goals for adults？

You don't necessarily have to quit, but you need to accept the reality that you probably won't reach 1000+ in your lifetime. The rest is about whether you can accept staying in the triple digits, be satisfied, and enjoy it.

You can progress significantly from your level, that is for sure. Your cap is lower than it would have been 30-40 years ago, but it is still probably higher than you would expect. How much exactly, I have no idea. But, the only sure thing is that it will take hours upon hours of work, and years of it to achieve it.

If people can start with marathons when they retire, which is a physical activity where older people have a disadvantage, and get relatively far with hard work, they can get better in chess too.

If you enjoy it, it doesn't matter if you end up being 1000 in the end or 2 000+.

Only win

Don't get discouraged, like any skill, chess takes focus and practice. I'm 57, so not meaningfully younger than you are, and while I played chess when I was a kid, and got into it a lot in my 20s, I stopped playing entirely for about 20 or more years, so much of what I knew is gone, putting us in a similar, if not identical, boat.

To get good enough that you can play a decent game, you do have to learn a couple things. Learn how to force checkmate with a Queen and King, and with a Rook and King. Also, learn how to force a pawn to promotion when you have P+K against a lone King (it's not always possible mind you, but learn how to do it when it is; if it isn't, it just won't work if your opponent knows the right defence). Best way to do that is to play "chase the king" with your kids and grand kids, where you each take turns with either side and play to checkmate. While you can force mate with two bishops, or bishop and knight, don't bother with those for now. Those are projects for later - you'll know when you need to look at those.

Then, find a few lessons on basic tactics like pins, forks, skewers, and deflections. They usually come with a few "puzzles" to solve too. But look for them before you make a move - and I mean look for where you can do the pin, fork, etc, and also where your opponent could do the nasty to you! Chess is like crossing the street, you always need to look both ways!

Finally, learn the first 3 or 4 moves of an opening for White, and learn a few moves for Black as well. Don't waste time learning "openings' 7, or 8, or more moves deep as it's unlikely your opponents will play those anyway. Just don't do weird stuff like move a rook pawn on move one, but move either your king or queen pawn, get your a knight out, get a bishop out, get castled, bring your rooks towards the centre, and don't put your queen out into the frey until the rest of your pieces are ready to join in. Mostly, the opening is about grabbing some space in the centre (so your pieces can eventually move forward), getting your pieces off their starting squares without moving them multiple times, get your king safe in his castle, get your rooks talking to each other, and work out where your queen needs to be so she's ready to take care of business once the fur starts flying.

Your pawns form walls. Build your walls on the squares of the colour of your missing Bishop (meaning, as the game progresses, if you lose your light squared bishop, put your pawns on light squares to compensate - and to free up movement for your remaining dark squared bishop). Along those lines, if your pawns are all on light squares, then your light squared Bishop isn't great, so if you can trade it off, do so, but it also means your dark squared Bishop is probably pretty good, so you might be better off holding on to it! Not all trades are truly equal!).

Those are enough "ideas", but seriously, learn the basic forced mates, learn to force a pawn through, look at a few basic tactics (and then look for them in your games), and last (yes learn the game back to front) learn a couple moves to open with. The "pawns on missing bishop colour" is a positional idea (rather than tactical), and I think one that most people learning chess can benefit from by being told it as it takes a very long time for that penny to drop otherwise!

Work on those types of things, and seriously, you will be amazed at how much better you get. It's learning to not overlook pieces that is the most frustrating thing. Somehow, there's always a Bishop or Knight, hidden in plain sight, that ruins my otherwise most brilliant wins.

???

hey all; I only do the ten minute games pvp, and I'm 40; I bounce around in the 800s and I can't tell - is that a fairly accurate read on how I'm doing? or is there a better pvp on this app I should do?

Rating on chess.com is not accurate in general and is far from FIDE ratings. And for every time control your rating would be different. There's no single best control like some people try to find. Still for each category I'd suggest next controls:

3|2 Blitz. Played officially in FIDE and often informally on streets. Increments can extend the endgame if you need. Much better than a hard stop. And still quick enough to be able to play a lot of games per day.

15|10 Rapid. Also played officially in FIDE, although Rapid in general is a more time consuming control and for online play I find it excessively long. Still 15|10 is much better than just 10|0, allows for more relaxed play and less mistakes, maybe that's what you need to advance further.

Daily. Might not look too serious but if you struggle with limited time or need to interrupt from your device often, this is just best for learning to play as accurately as you can. You can start many games at once. Similar to correspondence chess. I suggest printing out screenshots of your games and take with you for the whole day to think about moves when you have some spare time

2|1 Bullet. Here it's just the slowest and the least crazy bullet, that's why I'm suggesting it. But if you want to really try your speed, join some 30 sec hyper-bullet tournaments.

Tournaments in general is a great way to increase your rating quickly if you think you're underrated because in tournaments you get paired with higher rated opponents and you gain more points when you win against them, at the same time your risk isn't big: you lose proportionally less if you are rated less. Anyway that's a great experience that can show you how strong higher rated players actually are compared to you.

Learning anything requires both cognitive and behavioral steps—learning what to do and then learning how to put it into practice. In chess, we can divide this into studying theory (general principles, etc.) and playing practice games.

Everyone—at every age and skill level—learns through a combination of these. However, the best balance between them varies between people as a function of age, skill level, and other factors.

as an adult, you should be able to benefit from reading and studying books more than a child can. Instead of ruling out books, you should emphasize them. A few hours working through classic instructional books will be better for you than 30 hours of speed chess. As a beginner playing speed chess against other beginners, your learning is basically trial and error. It will be very slow and frustrating.

you are correct when you say that the review function is not very helpful. The game review is best for showing 1-move errors in the openings or in tactical sequences. It does not explain the reasons why one plan is better or worse than another. For this type of explanation, you may want to find a chess club in which stronger players are willing to review their games with you.

play a lot, go over your games with an engine and understand what went wrong and what things you and your opponent could have done better. Do lots of puzzles.

you do not need books or a coach to get out of 1000 rating lol. you do not even need it for 1500 either

@basketstorm, thanks. I guess I still don't know a lot about those other formats. Does this app have a "blitz"? And what does the | signify? (i.e., what's blitz 3|2 mean or rapid 15|10.) And I hear talk of bullet. What's that? Thanks for the help!

The number after the bar (eg: the 10 in 15|10) indicates the increment. If no increment is specified then there is none.

15|10 means that you start the game with 15 minutes on your clock, and every time you make a move you receive an additional ten seconds added to your time. So as long as you move fairly quickly, averaging ten seconds or so for each move, then you cannot run out of time.

Bullet is a format where each player has one minute for the entire game ( 1|0 ).

Thank you for the tips. Some of your suggestions are new and I will put them into practice. I just started working through the book Logical Chess that was recommended as well. I played my first over the board game with my boyfriend the other night and found it challenging to get a good view of all the possible moves at that angle vs. the computer. Unfortunately, he is the only person in my life day to day as my kids and grandkids live in another state, but I do think playing over the board is going to be more helpful preparing me to play against actual people. I searched for chess clubs near me and the closest is nearly an hour away. Anyway, I am not one to give up and I am not chasing numbers anyway.

You can also play over the board online

That sounds perfect! Over the board chess is, at least in my opinion, so much more enjoyable than playing on a computer. And yes, the board does look different, but you'll get used to that. As you start out, you will learn best playing slow games as it takes a lot of time to just recheck all the pieces and keep track of things. Board blindness, things like "Oh, I didn't notice your Bishop could take my rook after I moved that pawn", will diminish but that comes with practicing by rechecking what's changed (or what will change) for each move - both yours and your opponents. Also, when you play over the board, write down the moves and keep a record of the game. Going back over a game and discussing it with your opponent is a great way to learn.

Anyway, enjoy the journey. As you get more familiar with the game it just gets better and more enjoyable. Try and develop the mindset of thinking a game is good because you played well relative to yourself. For example, maybe you spotted something you would have overlooked before. If avoid getting trapped in the notion that a game is only good if you won that will make it even better.

Hello friends

Can I reach 2000 rating in 1 years please tell me

Very unlikely... It took me 3 years to go from your current elo to 2000 elo.

Chess is mainly about pattern recognition, so play more games maybe?