I too started learning chess at the beginning of this pandemic when I turned 29. While I knew how the pieces moved as a kid, I was unaware of rules such as promotion, pawns moving two squares in the beginning, en passant etc. When I started I was 900 blitz on chess.com. I moved to ~1750 on Chess.com blitz and ~2000 on lichess blitz. I assume I would be higher in rapid if I played it as much, probably due to less competition in it online. I learned a single opening with white (and probably the most hated - London system), and one with black (Sicilian hyperaccelerated dragon). I guess most of my improvement came from observing tactics in games and in puzzles. Watching a lot of agadmator kind of videos also helped in figuring out what is a better move out of multiple candidate moves (I guess this is what is positional chess is about.) I have reduced playing it these days since it is quite addictive and takes up a lot of my free time. Also, it is quite demotivating to hear that no matter how much effort I put in as an adult, a 5 yo kid will be much better than me with the same amount of effort.
jbjbjbjb|3 years ago