Stuck at 800 Elo

You know the rules. You play every week. Your rating will not move. Stuck at 800 Elo is the adult improver's field manual for breaking the single most common plateau in amateur chess - not with talent, not with opening memorization, and not with hundreds of blitz games, but with the specific three skills that actually raise rating: tactics, endgames, and blunder-proofing. Written for the thirty- to sixty-minute-a-day player on Chess.com or Lichess, it walks through what 800 Elo actually means, why adults plateau and why the plateau is fixable, how to study tactics with spaced repetition and the woodpecker method, how to play openings without memorizing them, middlegame principles and planning checklists, the endgames that turn losses into draws and draws into wins, the pre-move routine that prevents most blunders, time management, self-analysis without engines, master-game study, rating anxiety and tilt, and two concrete training plans - 800 to 1200 and 1200 to 1600 - plus a master checklist. Filled with worked examples, honest diagnostics, and no shortcuts, it is the book for the player who wants to climb out of the beginner zone and finally see the number move.

Imad Muratspahic is an independent author of practical how-to guides, technical handbooks, history and fiction. The books aim to be clear, honest and useful from the first page.