How To Increase Your Chess Rating – Braden Laughlin + Ben Johnson

Episode 3 – How to Increase Your Chess Rating

Braden Laughlin brought his rating from 0 to 2200 in online blitz in less than 2 years – how did he do it? Ben sits down with Braden in this week’s episode of How To Chess to find out, and impart some advice on any player looking to increase their rating.

Particular topics include breaking through plateaus, finding weak spots in your game to fix, and maintaining good mental health.

Of course, one of the keys is to study your chess! Chessable offers hundreds of courses, covering all aspects of the game – many of them free! Be sure to check it out after the episode.

Check in every Thursday for more great chess advice in the How To Chess podcast, and connect with us at howtochess.com.

7 Comments

  1. I'm a huge chess fan and never worry about my rating, so I dread nothing about it. Chess stays pure as a mental amusement. I have improved over the years, mostly with puzzles, but my rating doesn't haunt me.

  2. It was interesting that Braden mentioned 1751. … I was 1751 after the 4th Annual SF Amateur Championship back in 1996. Had a 3 year break, then played in the 1999 US Armed Forces Championship — at the end of that tournament, my new rating was (wait for it) — 1751.

    Frankly, though, it is hard for me to consider myself as having "plateaued" so much as just having rarely played in tournaments thru the years.

    I am a bit older than both of you, BTW — I just turned 61 in January. I am still determined to improve my chess skill.

    Good short, podcast, gentlemen.

  3. Please make a series of Chess books review with Indian Im V. Saravanan

  4. This video is titled "How to Increase Your Chess Rating" and I don't think we got very much content related to the title; unless the way to increase your rating is to take long breaks from chess, play a lot of blitz chess and do not study difficult chess books. I kept waiting for you to ask Braden how he went from 0 to 1750 in four years. That would be interesting to know. What was his training plan?; how did he go about breaking through when he reached a plateau? Did he do something different when he returned to chess after his breaks? Maybe you could have him back and delve into those questions. Thank you for posting the video.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.