user1130: I currently play at around a 1600 level, and have stagnated in terms of rating improvements for quite some time. 
I have always played chess recreationally, occasionally doing tactics puzzles here and there, but I've never done any professional studying.
I was wondering what the most effective way of improving my rating to 2000+ would be.  If there are links to scientific research on the topic, I would appreciate it.  Book recommendations would also be great.   I'm mostly looking for a discussion about what exercises maximize your return on rating-- opening, tactics, positional understanding, end games, analyzing grand-master games, analyzing your own games, etc.

user1090: Study as if you were taking a university course.
Choose a lecture series. I recommend Naroditsky's (first) speedrun! 1
Apply various learning techniques while watching the "lecture" videos:

Watch one lecture video each day.
Pause and guess what move the instructor will play (especially in critical sections), and try to explain your reasons for the move.
Rewatch a video after some time interval (e.g. a week) and see if you can predict the moves the instructor will play, and with what reasoning. Bonus points if you apply the principle of spaced repetition and repeat the video after a longer time interval (e.g. a month).
Practice the concepts you learn from each video with a few games of your own, either against a human, or a (difficulty adjusted) computer from a particular type of position. Only watch the next video after you have successfully applied a concept.
Take notes. Perhaps create a lichess study and create a chapter for each important example/concept that you think would improve your chess.

Don't stop practicing your tactics, reviewing your basic opening repertoire (listudy), analyzing your games (with your own annotations!), and creating your own opening studies on your favorite openings/repertoire.
In total, you should be "studying" chess for an hour or two every day. Try not to "waste" too much time doing what you know doesn't work (e.g. playing a bunch of bullet games with no learning purpose in mind). It's OK to do that if it keeps you motivated and interested, but know that it does not really contribute to your learning.

1 That's how I went 1500->1900 on lichess within a few months.  The specific choice of learning material can be different, but I recommend these videos since they are a great format and cover a wide breadth of practical real-time decision making concepts.

user1879: 400 Points in a year is pretty tough. I don’t think you should put yourself under unnecessary stress of achieving this goal within one year. Unlike others I don’t think it’s unrealistic to reach a 2000+ rating with a less stringent dead-line. 
A good coach would of course be great. I don’t know how easy it is to find a suitable coach though. I would recommend studying Nimzovich’s Chess Praxis, and reading some of Silman’s books especially “How to reassess your chess”. 
Signing up at chess.com and watching instructional videos combined with using their chessmentor and tactics trainer should also be helpful.   
Also aim to play a reasonable number of games and analyze them. Ideally with a stronger player from your club. 

user7020: Well first off, if you have a lot of money to invest in a GM instructor you can surely go above 1600, but if you don't: don't let rating and score interfere. Starting a game and thinking about victory is not smart at all. Focus on your game-play instead.My friend (IM 2470) always says chess is 50% skill and 50% psychology. I see people here saying tactics, I'm going to tell you right away that is incorrect. For a decent 2000+ player you should work on all of your components:
-Have 2 openings with white and two with black - why? Because when you reach a certain level it's great to have a backup opening because your opponents will obviously prepare against you, and it's quite bad if you don't use the fact that you're white, just because your opponent has prepared for your always-the-same repertoire.
-Tactics-obviously an extremely important component, but, the point of working on your tactics is to remember different motives: you obviously won't have exact copies of the problems in your games, so motives are the ones who can help you greatly. That's why you need to use good tactics books with realistic problems, the ones that actually came from games.
-Work on what you're good at: many people say analyzing your games and looking for mistakes is smart, but, my short timed chess instructor taught me that you have to excel at a point in chess. E.g. if you're a positional player work on that! Make it even stronger!
-Discipline - every.single.day. if you just once say "I will skip today, but tomorrow I'll do double" it's all over, cause you're going to keep saying that again and again.
-Don't be picky with books- essentially any good recommended books will work, don't be like "I don't like this one so I won't do it."
-Work on all points of chess- for openings learn the plans and the moves (you won't figure them out by playing a lot, you have to learn them and then see if you can remember in-game), for endgames get a good books (I'd recommend Reuben Fine) and for middlegame- find a grandmaster who plays similarly to you(same openings, same style of play)- and analyze his/her games, I don't mean as in just go through them, but analyze them, figure out what each and every move is there for. :)

user7657: In spite of the literature that claims anyone can become a Master, I seriously doubt it.  There are natural limitations.  Not everyone is Capablanca, and no amount of studying/playing will change that.  I can attest to that from my own situation.  My initial rating in the late 1960's was 1759. I would periodically give up chess from lack of progress but start in again later.  In the early 1980's through concerted effort/ study, I did approach 1900 (at 1891) but again stopped due to several life crises (divorce, loss of job and home, death of parents). When my life had stabilized I started in again in the early '90's, but my rating started to slowly sink.  Old age and fatigue began to take their toll, and I found I could no longer calculate in depth after several hours of exhausting play, so I gave up the chase in 1995.  My final rating - 1759, the same one I started with.  Perhaps with expensive training I could have gotten to 2000, but I somehow doubt it. I suppose doubting it would have in and of itself prevented it, since supreme self-confidence is also a requisite, but I'll never know now.

user17: First, understand what the levels mean. A 1600 level means that a player can "get by" at the club level. A 2000 rating refers to an expert, or what I call a "near master." Those are two different worlds.
Study master games and learn how masters play, and especially how they think. Get an instructor to help you. You want to get out of the "club" rut and leave your current (1600) "peers" behind. So try not to play like them, but like the master players you are "associating" with (vicariously). You will take some beatings, but you will learn a lot.
One thing that separates top players from the merely good is the end game. As people go higher and higher, the differences in skill become less and less, and the endgame is where the small differences show up. A good grasp of the endgame will help your middle games to, because you will learn what kinds of positions to "aim for," instead of blindly trying to master the game move by move, and opponent by opponent, like some of the other posters advocate.
When you have "arrived" at 2000, you will not be a master, because you won't know all the details. But you should be able to do a pretty good simulation of one, that is someone who will overawe the 1900s and lower.

user11178: My IM instructor once told me that reading and mastering the single book "Modern Chess Strategy" by Pachmann was enough to raise my level to 2000. I was rated around 1700 and reached 1996 (FIDE) in a year or so. Obviously I needed help with my ending and he used the excellent endgame book by Shereshevsky. 

user10664: I've never had a coach. A loose record of my progress over 6 years can be found on my chess.com link below.
Here's my answer:
At 1600 you still blunder tactically. What's the use of knowing how to mate with two bishops when you are missing the knight fork 2 moves ahead? chesstempo.com offers free tactics training. It did quite a bit for me. The main difference between a 1600 and an 1800 player is that 1800 players blunder less tactically. Try to hit 1700-1800 tactical ranking at chesstempo.com 
By 1700 one should know the opening basic principles and be able to play 6-7 opening moves without getting a bad position. A paid chess.com membership ($7/month) comes with video lectures, many of which go over openings (you can also do this with the chesstempo.com gold membership) I have both, but the chess.com video lectures work much better for me. At this stage you just need to know enough so you don't get killed right out of the opening - so that you get a chance to play chess in the middlegame.
Once you get to 1800, repost here, I'll try to offer useful further insight.
https://www.chess.com/members/view/ak87
2010 - 2012
1100-1400 - that just happened by itself...
1400-1500 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer
1500-1600 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer
1600-1700 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer
2012-2014
1700-1800 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer and being more careful
2014-2015
1800-1900 playing better in the opening, paying more attention to positional considerations and some improvement in tactics. 
2016
1900-2000
playing even better in the opening - every move counts, paying more attention to positional considerations and some more improvement in tactics. 

user7010: YES YOU CAN!
Here is a guy, an adult in his 30's, with a full time job, who gained 700 rating points in 1 year, and will very likely go from a rating of 1000 to 2000 within 18 months. He is not anyone exceptionally talented, and he is not doing anything that anyone else cannot do at home with a few books and cheap computer software. He outlines his training methods in more than enough detail for you to replicate his success. Start with his old blog posts and read them in order if you are interested in replicating his method.
Pawn to Rook 4 Blog:
http://p-r4.blogspot.com/2015/01/year-1-recap-700-points-in-365-days.html
Here is another guy, a chess master, who outlines the training plan he used to become a master, in 12 videos for free. He says that anyone can do what he did, and after watching his videos, I agree.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDghkp2J0_kr3zoHS3ZNIFzcrAtAhmAfk
Hiring a good coach can accelerate your success if you use him the right way. If your goal is rapid improvement, use the coach in ways that accelerate your training plan. For instance, have the coach analyze your games and provide feedback and recommendations of tasks that will directly result in you eliminating mistakes from your game. If the coach is interested in imposing his own study plan, it's probably too slow for your goal. Find the people who have done this and repeat what they did. Use a coach to accelerate your success, but do not rely on a coach. You have to do the work. You will need to be highly motivated and disciplined. There will be many days when you do not feel like studying or do not have time. Do it anyway.
And don't forget The Plan:

Decide what it is you want
Write that down
Make a plan
And...
Work on it.
Every.
Single.
Day.

You can do it.

user1676: OK, you can try with the best chess trainer, and the best chess trainer's name is Rybka. This is a software engine, of course, although other engine will be OK as well, their Elo in a normal computer is much more than 3000 points so any of them will be OK. But Rybka is the best one.
The method is as follows:
You have to use this as an arcade game, not only for solving questions, I'll try to explain it. When you are in a position, a chess engine can give you a quantitative information about all best possible movements, a very good method is trying to identify every of them, (or at least the best one) before passing to next step.
When a person plays a normal game makes a lot of mistakes and doesn't learn about them.
An example...  maybe you are in a position and the engine say to you the seven best moves
+4.5  .....
+1.2  .....
+1.1  .....
+0.9  .....
+0.8  ....
-0.2  ..
-1.7  .

That's important that you have to find the +4.5 without more help of engine, it gives you the information that you have a move to win +4.5 but your work is to find it. Maybe you try and find +0.9, ok, you go back and try again, like a video game, when you solve a level you can pass to the next one. (Well, after two hours working the position if the movement is impossible to find you're allowed to pass.) ;)
A much more nice method is mixing this one with a real game in live and working the position in real time with Rybka's help.

user1540: I think you best shot is to play 200 rated games of G/60 or longer this year and seriously analyzed each game (like imagine if you analyzed each game for 1 hour plus, tried to find similar high level games, tried to find as many different plans in the position, etc) in addition to doing regular tactical exercises on chess.com trainer or some other good site (making sure to have figured out the "twists" before you get to them).
For most people playing / analyzing (not all one, not all the other) is the only practical way to improve.  If you don't analyze you cannot really learn, but if you never play you get into a mode where you misjudge how hard positions are to really play.
Source: I improved my rating from 1600 to 2000 between October 2003 and January 2005 while being a full-time college student at a top 10 (the year I joined #1) university.
Caveat:
I had never stagnated up until that point and didn't begin playing tournaments until I was already 18 years old.  Doing a quick count I played "only" ~150 rated games in that period of time.  I did start taking lessons from a strong IM (soon got his GM title) around when I broke 1850.  I also had a club at school with a few masters I could regularly look at my games with.

user70: Gaining 400 points in a single year is not a reasonable goal for an adult playing at 1600. To do this, you will need to be +25 against your peers, where a peer is someone with the rating you have at the time the game is played.
That being said, if you're going to try it, the first step is to get an instructor. Your instructor will be able to identify the weakest parts of your game and help you shore those up.  Since you want to end up at 2000, I'd recommend an instructor rated no less than 2200.
The maximum return will likely be on tactics.  You'll need to be decent at two openings as white and two as black.  Know the philosophy behind the openings - don't just memorize the moves.

1130: <p>I currently play at around a 1600 level, and have stagnated in terms of rating improvements for quite some time. </p>

<p>I have always played chess recreationally, occasionally doing tactics puzzles here and there, but I've never done any professional studying.</p>

<p>I was wondering what the most effective way of improving my rating to 2000+ would be.  If there are links to scientific research on the topic, I would appreciate it.  Book recommendations would also be great.   I'm mostly looking for a discussion about what exercises maximize your return on rating-- opening, tactics, positional understanding, end games, analyzing grand-master games, analyzing your own games, etc.</p>
 1090: <h4>Study as if you were taking a university course.</h4>
<p>Choose a <strong>lecture series</strong>. I recommend <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT1F2nOxLHOcmi_qi1BbY6axf5xLFEcit" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Naroditsky's (first) speedrun</a>! <sup>1</sup></p>
<p>Apply various learning techniques while watching the &quot;lecture&quot; videos:</p>
<ul>
<li>Watch one lecture video each day.</li>
<li><strong>Pause and guess</strong> what move the instructor will play (especially in critical sections), and try to explain your reasons for the move.</li>
<li><strong>Rewatch</strong> a video after some time interval (e.g. a week) and see if you can predict the moves the instructor will play, and with what reasoning. Bonus points if you apply the principle of <strong>spaced repetition</strong> and repeat the video after a longer time interval (e.g. a month).</li>
<li><strong>Practice the concepts</strong> you learn from each video with a few games of your own, either against a human, or a (difficulty adjusted) computer from a particular type of position. Only watch the next video after you have successfully applied a concept.</li>
<li><strong>Take notes.</strong> Perhaps create a lichess study and create a chapter for each important example/concept that you think would improve your chess.</li>
</ul>
<p>Don't stop practicing your tactics, reviewing your basic opening repertoire (<a href="https://listudy.org/en/studies/search" rel="nofollow noreferrer">listudy</a>), analyzing your games (<a href="https://lichess.org/study/mtJu5UqK" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>with <em>your own</em> annotations!</strong></a>), and creating <a href="https://lichess.org/study/QfxqcT4q" rel="nofollow noreferrer">your own opening studies</a> on your favorite openings/repertoire.</p>
<p>In total, you should be &quot;studying&quot; chess for an hour or two every day. Try not to &quot;waste&quot; too much time doing what you know doesn't work (e.g. playing a bunch of bullet games with no <em>learning</em> purpose in mind). It's OK to do that if it keeps you motivated and interested, but know that it does not really contribute to your learning.</p>
<hr />
<p><sup><sup>1</sup> That's how I went 1500-&gt;1900 on lichess within a few months.  The specific choice of learning material can be different, but I recommend these videos since they are a great format and cover a wide breadth of practical real-time decision making concepts.</sup></p>
 1879: <p>400 Points in a year is pretty tough. I don’t think you should put yourself under unnecessary stress of achieving this goal within one year. Unlike others I don’t think it’s unrealistic to reach a 2000+ rating with a less stringent dead-line. 
A good coach would of course be great. I don’t know how easy it is to find a suitable coach though. I would recommend studying Nimzovich’s Chess Praxis, and reading some of Silman’s books especially “How to reassess your chess”. </p>

<p>Signing up at chess.com and watching instructional videos combined with using their chessmentor and tactics trainer should also be helpful.   </p>

<p>Also aim to play a reasonable number of games and analyze them. Ideally with a stronger player from your club. </p>
 7020: <p>Well first off, if you have a lot of money to invest in a GM instructor you can surely go above 1600, but if you don't: don't let rating and score interfere. Starting a game and thinking about victory is not smart at all. Focus on your game-play instead.My friend (IM 2470) always says chess is 50% skill and 50% psychology. I see people here saying tactics, I'm going to tell you right away that is incorrect. For a decent 2000+ player you should work on all of your components:</p>

<p>-<strong>Have 2 openings with white and two with black</strong> - why? Because when you reach a certain level it's great to have a backup opening because your opponents will obviously prepare against you, and it's quite bad if you don't use the fact that you're white, just because your opponent has prepared for your always-the-same repertoire.</p>

<p>-<strong>Tactics</strong>-obviously an extremely important component, but, the point of working on your tactics is to <strong>remember different motives</strong>: you obviously won't have exact copies of the problems in your games, so motives are the ones who can help you greatly. That's why you need to use good tactics books with realistic problems, the ones that actually came from games.</p>

<p>-Work on what you're <strong>good</strong> at: many people say analyzing your games and looking for mistakes is smart, but, my short timed chess instructor taught me that you have to excel at a point in chess. E.g. if you're a positional player work on that! Make it even stronger!</p>

<p>-<strong>Discipline</strong> - every.single.day. if you just once say "I will skip today, but tomorrow I'll do double" it's all over, cause you're going to keep saying that again and again.</p>

<p>-<strong>Don't be picky with books</strong>- essentially any good recommended books will work, don't be like "I don't like this one so I won't do it."</p>

<p>-<strong>Work on all points of chess</strong>- for openings learn the plans and the <strong>moves</strong> (you won't figure them out by playing a lot, you have to learn them and then see if you can remember in-game), for endgames get a good books (I'd recommend Reuben Fine) and for middlegame- find a grandmaster who plays similarly to you(same openings, same style of play)- and <strong>analyze</strong> his/her games, I don't mean as in just go through them, but analyze them, figure out what each and every move is there for. :)</p>
 7657: <p>In spite of the literature that claims anyone can become a Master, I seriously doubt it.  There are natural limitations.  Not everyone is Capablanca, and no amount of studying/playing will change that.  I can attest to that from my own situation.  My initial rating in the late 1960's was 1759. I would periodically give up chess from lack of progress but start in again later.  In the early 1980's through concerted effort/ study, I did approach 1900 (at 1891) but again stopped due to several life crises (divorce, loss of job and home, death of parents). When my life had stabilized I started in again in the early '90's, but my rating started to slowly sink.  Old age and fatigue began to take their toll, and I found I could no longer calculate in depth after several hours of exhausting play, so I gave up the chase in 1995.  My final rating - 1759, the same one I started with.  Perhaps with expensive training I could have gotten to 2000, but I somehow doubt it. I suppose doubting it would have in and of itself prevented it, since supreme self-confidence is also a requisite, but I'll never know now.</p>
 17: <p>First, understand what the levels mean. A 1600 level means that a player can "get by" at the club level. A 2000 rating refers to an expert, or what I call a "near master." Those are two different worlds.</p>

<p>Study master games and learn how masters play, and especially how they think. Get an instructor to help you. You want to get out of the "club" rut and leave your current (1600) "peers" behind. So try not to play like them, but like the master players you are "associating" with (vicariously). You will take some beatings, but you will learn a lot.</p>

<p>One thing that separates top players from the merely good is the end game. As people go higher and higher, the differences in skill become less and less, and the endgame is where the small differences show up. A good grasp of the endgame will help your middle games to, because you will learn what kinds of positions to "aim for," instead of blindly trying to master the game move by move, and opponent by opponent, like some of the other posters advocate.</p>

<p>When you have "arrived" at 2000, you will not be a master, because you won't know all the details. But you should be able to do a pretty good simulation of one, that is someone who will overawe the 1900s and lower.</p>
 11178: <p>My IM instructor once told me that reading and mastering the single book "Modern Chess Strategy" by Pachmann was enough to raise my level to 2000. I was rated around 1700 and reached 1996 (FIDE) in a year or so. Obviously I needed help with my ending and he used the excellent endgame book by Shereshevsky. </p>
 10664: <p>I've never had a coach. A loose record of my progress over 6 years can be found on my chess.com link below.</p>

<p>Here's my answer:
At 1600 you still blunder tactically. What's the use of knowing how to mate with two bishops when you are missing the knight fork 2 moves ahead? chesstempo.com offers free tactics training. It did quite a bit for me. The main difference between a 1600 and an 1800 player is that 1800 players blunder less tactically. Try to hit 1700-1800 tactical ranking at chesstempo.com </p>

<p>By 1700 one should know the opening basic principles and be able to play 6-7 opening moves without getting a bad position. A paid chess.com membership ($7/month) comes with video lectures, many of which go over openings (you can also do this with the chesstempo.com gold membership) I have both, but the chess.com video lectures work much better for me. At this stage you just need to know enough so you don't get killed right out of the opening - so that you get a chance to play chess in the middlegame.
Once you get to 1800, repost here, I'll try to offer useful further insight.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.chess.com/members/view/ak87" rel="nofollow">https://www.chess.com/members/view/ak87</a></p>

<p>2010 - 2012
1100-1400 - that just happened by itself...
1400-1500 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer
1500-1600 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer
1600-1700 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer</p>

<p>2012-2014
1700-1800 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer and being more careful</p>

<p>2014-2015
1800-1900 playing better in the opening, paying more attention to positional considerations and some improvement in tactics. 
2016
1900-2000
playing even better in the opening - every move counts, paying more attention to positional considerations and some more improvement in tactics. </p>
 7010: <p><strong><em>YES YOU CAN!</em></strong></p>

<p>Here is a guy, an adult in his 30's, with a full time job, who gained 700 rating points in 1 year, and will very likely go from a rating of 1000 to 2000 within 18 months. He is not anyone exceptionally talented, and he is not doing anything that anyone else cannot do at home with a few books and cheap computer software. He outlines his training methods in more than enough detail for you to replicate his success. Start with his old blog posts and read them in order if you are interested in replicating his method.</p>

<p>Pawn to Rook 4 Blog:</p>

<p><a href="http://p-r4.blogspot.com/2015/01/year-1-recap-700-points-in-365-days.html" rel="noreferrer">http://p-r4.blogspot.com/2015/01/year-1-recap-700-points-in-365-days.html</a></p>

<p>Here is another guy, a chess master, who outlines the training plan he used to become a master, in 12 videos for free. He says that anyone can do what he did, and after watching his videos, I agree.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDghkp2J0_kr3zoHS3ZNIFzcrAtAhmAfk" rel="noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDghkp2J0_kr3zoHS3ZNIFzcrAtAhmAfk</a></p>

<p>Hiring a good coach can accelerate your success if you use him the right way. If your goal is rapid improvement, use the coach in ways that accelerate your training plan. For instance, have the coach analyze your games and provide feedback and recommendations of tasks that will directly result in you eliminating mistakes from your game. If the coach is interested in imposing his own study plan, it's probably too slow for your goal. Find the people who have done this and repeat what they did. Use a coach to accelerate your success, but do not rely on a coach. You have to do the work. You will need to be highly motivated and disciplined. There will be many days when you do not feel like studying or do not have time. Do it anyway.</p>

<p>And don't forget <strong>The Plan</strong>:</p>

<ul>
<li>Decide what it is you want</li>
<li>Write that down</li>
<li>Make a plan</li>
<li>And...</li>
<li>Work on it.</li>
<li>Every.</li>
<li>Single.</li>
<li>Day.</li>
</ul>

<p>You can do it.</p>
 1676: <p>OK, you can try with the best chess trainer, and the best chess trainer's name is Rybka. This is a software engine, of course, although other engine will be OK as well, their Elo in a normal computer is much more than 3000 points so any of them will be OK. But Rybka is the best one.</p>
<p>The method is as follows:</p>
<p>You have to use this as an arcade game, not only for solving questions, I'll try to explain it. When you are in a position, a chess engine can give you a quantitative information about all best possible movements, a very good method is trying to identify every of them, (or at least the best one) before passing to next step.
When a person plays a normal game makes a lot of mistakes and doesn't learn about them.</p>
<p>An example...  maybe you are in a position and the engine say to you the seven best moves</p>
<pre><code>+4.5  .....
+1.2  .....
+1.1  .....
+0.9  .....
+0.8  ....
-0.2  ..
-1.7  .
</code></pre>
<p>That's important that you have to find the +4.5 without more help of engine, it gives you the information that you have a move to win +4.5 but your work is to find it. Maybe you try and find +0.9, ok, you go back and try again, like a video game, when you solve a level you can pass to the next one. (Well, after two hours working the position if the movement is impossible to find you're allowed to pass.) ;)</p>
<p>A much more nice method is mixing this one with a real game in live and working the position in real time with Rybka's help.</p>
 1540: <p>I think you best shot is to play 200 rated games of G/60 or longer this year and seriously analyzed each game (like imagine if you analyzed each game for 1 hour plus, tried to find similar high level games, tried to find as many different plans in the position, etc) in addition to doing regular tactical exercises on chess.com trainer or some other good site (making sure to have figured out the "twists" before you get to them).</p>

<p>For most people playing / analyzing (not all one, not all the other) is the only practical way to improve.  If you don't analyze you cannot really learn, but if you never play you get into a mode where you misjudge how hard positions are to really play.</p>

<p>Source: I improved my rating from 1600 to 2000 between October 2003 and January 2005 while being a full-time college student at a top 10 (the year I joined #1) university.</p>

<p>Caveat:
I had never stagnated up until that point and didn't begin playing tournaments until I was already 18 years old.  Doing a quick count I played "only" ~150 rated games in that period of time.  I did start taking lessons from a strong IM (soon got his GM title) around when I broke 1850.  I also had a club at school with a few masters I could regularly look at my games with.</p>
 70: <p>Gaining 400 points in a single year is not a reasonable goal for an adult playing at 1600. To do this, you will need to be +25 against your peers, where a peer is someone with the rating you have at the time the game is played.</p>

<p>That being said, if you're going to try it, the first step is to get an instructor. Your instructor will be able to identify the weakest parts of your game and help you shore those up.  Since you want to end up at 2000, I'd recommend an instructor rated no less than 2200.</p>

<p>The maximum return will likely be on tactics.  You'll need to be decent at two openings as white and two as black.  Know the philosophy behind the openings - don't just memorize the moves.</p>
