Chess: want to get better fast

[bugstud]

interesting thread...here's my path, you can decide how much you want to emulate it.

#1 - book learning.
I read and reread MCO-13, Both improve your chess (?) and amateur's mind by silman, and Seirwan's winning tactics.

Once I did that and had a rough idea of the nature of opening theory and tactics I played a lot of chess. FICS, www.freechess.org, is a really good place to start.

On these games you should try playing all these different openings and getting an idea where your strengths lie and what openings cater to these strengths. These also should be quick, 3 0 or 5 0 imo. Volume will help more than depth at this point.

Then, reread silman's books and start learning your intended openings more deeply. Another helpful thing to do now, and before I guess, is to get books that are annotated by grandmasters. Books like the Sorcerer's Apprectice and Yermolinsky's book are pretty good for this.

Now I suggest playing 15 0 or longer games online and playing small tournaments in person and seeing how much different your play and results are.