1600 to 2000: strong club player

Who this is for: you rarely lose to simple tactics. Your games are decided by plans, endings and the clock.

Goals

• A full, tested repertoire: lines you know to move 15 to 20, with the typical plans and pawn structures.
• Strong endings: Philidor, Lucena, the opposition, rook against pawn, bishop and knight endings.
• Calculate deeply and verify before you move.
• Manage the clock: use time on critical moves, play the quiet moves fast.

Weekly plan (7 to 10 hours)

• Courses: Endgame 7: The Philidor defence and rook endings, Endgame 8: Pawn endings for experts, Middlegame 7: Calculation and defence, Middlegame 8: Deep combinations, Tactics: Mating patterns II.
• Puzzles (30 a day): hard rated puzzles, 15 minutes of Puzzle Rush in survival mode twice a week. Look at the hardest solved in your results.
• Games (6 a week): at least three rapid 15 | 10 or slower, one long game of 30 minutes or more each week. Review every long game deeply.
• Deep review: run a deep review (depth 18) on your best and worst game each week.
• Openings: extend lines, review due positions daily, study the model games in the explorer and add traps for your repertoire.
• Endgames: one ending a week, played against the coach until you can win or hold it with the clock running.
• Opponent prep: use prep before every important game.
• Ladder: the chess.com bots from 1600 to 2000.

How to measure progress

• Rapid rating 1800 to 2000.
• Puzzle rating 1900 or more.
• Review accuracy 82 to 88 percent in slow games.
• You reach the endgame with more time than your opponent.

Common mistakes at this level

• Playing “safe” and passive: no plan, drifting into a worse position.
• Misjudging a pawn structure and trading into a bad ending.
• Spending 10 minutes on move 12 and then blitzing the endgame.
• Studying only tactics. The next rating gain comes from endings, structure and time.

Tip: keep a mistake list: one line per game (“missed a fork on move 23”, “no plan in a Carlsbad structure”). Before each session, read the last ten lines and train what repeats.

Previous: 1200 to 1600. Next: 2000 to 2400.

Open in the app: https://chessgm.net/train/openings