How to improve at chess at 1500 Elo
At 1500 the winning move starts costing you something first. Nearly half the answers in this band give material away before they get anything back.
- 16 of 140 answers are a sacrifice
- 45% need three moves from you
- 9 are a defensive move
- mate answers: 22%
The band where you have to give something up
Across the 140 rating-drawn positions between 1500 and 1800, 16 are tagged as a sacrifice. That is the second most common motif in the band, behind only the fork at 20. At 800 the same tag appeared 1 time in 67 positions.
That has a direct consequence for how you think. A sacrifice cannot be checked by counting material after one move, because after one move you are down. It has to be calculated to a position you can judge. Which is why 63 of the 140 answers here -- 45% -- run the full three moves.
The other new arrival is defence. 9 positions in this band have a defensive move as the answer, against 1 in the 112 positions below 1000. Opponents at this level generate real threats, and the best move is sometimes the one that survives.
Where these numbers come from. The trainer holds 10,440 positions from the Lichess puzzle database. Most were chosen by theme, so counting themes across all of them would only measure what we picked. Six of the 87 skills were drawn on rating alone and nothing else -- 720 positions in total -- and every band figure here is counted out of the 140 of them rated in this band.
Two limits worth knowing. No position in the trainer needs more than 3 moves from you, which is a rule we applied when selecting them and not a fact about chess. And Lichess tags one label per idea, so a move that is a fork and a deflection at once is counted once, under whichever tag it carries.
How to calculate a sacrifice without hoping
- Find the forced part first. If your opponent has one legal reply, that branch costs you nothing to check and it is usually the main line.
- Calculate to a position you can evaluate, not to a fixed depth. Three moves is not the target. A position where you can count material and say who is better is the target.
- Check the quiet refutation. The move that kills most unsound sacrifices is not a capture and not a check. If you have only looked at your opponent's forcing replies, you have not checked anything.
- If you cannot finish the line, do not play it. At this level a sacrifice you cannot see the end of is a sacrifice, and at every level above it that stays true.
What to train at 1500
- Strong ClubRating-drawn, motif not named -- 120 positions rated 1400 to 1800
- SacrificesMaterial for something you can see -- 29 positions rated 1400 to 1800
- DefendingThe best move is sometimes survival -- 29 positions rated 1400 to 1800
- Quiet MovesThe winning move that takes nothing -- 29 positions rated 1400 to 1800
- In-Between MovesThe move that goes in between -- 29 positions rated 1400 to 1800
- Rook EndgamesStill most of what you will reach -- 29 positions rated 1400 to 1800
How do I get from 1500 to 1800?
The measurable change between those two bands is in what the winning move looks like. Quiet moves go from 5 of 140 positions to 13 of 149, and answers that end in mate fall from 22% to 7%. The wins get less forcing.
Is 1500 above average?
On the major sites it is a solid club standard, and it is the point where the tactics stop being spottable and start being calculable. This page does not have a figure for the site-wide distribution and will not invent one.
Should I be studying openings at 1500?
This is the first band where the opening pools in this trainer are genuinely on your level -- they hold real material rated 1400 to 1800. Worth some time. Not worth more than sacrifices and endgames.