Chess: want to get better fast

[The Yugoslavian]

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Thanks a lot for answering. I guess I'll just analyze my games as far as I can, and have my computer do the rest. As far as rating, I live in a remote town, where there really isn't any chess, so unless I travel a minimum of 2 hours by car a day, I won't be able to regularly play in real clubs. I was wondering if there was any gaming community online, like ICC, that had a rating system close to what your real rating would be.

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There is no such thing as a 'real' rating. ICC rating is fine but is only good for comparison to other ICC ratings. Similarly USCF ratings are good for comparing with other USCF ratings (same for FIDE, etc). FIDE ratings I suppose are the most meaningful and indicative (since they're used throughout the world). I don't have one and don't really care (and don't care to play vs. the international competition and/or events necesary to get one, although I don't even know if I'm good enough to really get one anyway).

Do you play on ICC? The ratings on there are generally inflated but are somewhat indicative of what one's USCF rating could be. I haven't played on ICC in so long I don't know what a reasonable conversion would be. The other problem with ICC ratings is that almost everyone plays fast games (and almost no games approaching the length of actual tournament play) so that also makes the ratings not so comparable to USCF or FIDE ratings.

Yugoslav