There are so many rules about stress in Russian that they are useless. You'll never memorize them all. What you can do to improve your pronunciation is to listen as much as possible - any online broadcasting, podcasts, audiobooks etc. Let your ear remember. Here is a couple of links that I think you might find helpful: http://www.forvo.com/ - online pronunciation dictionary http://echo.msk.ru/ - Echo Moscvy, almost all the programs are available online for free

I don't think anyone will be able to give you a tip or two which will solve the problem. Whole textbooks and treatises have been written about the difficulty of stress in Russian. Here's a book I have used which has helped me. However, it's a whole book that must be studied. http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Handbook-Stress-Russian-Klepko/dp/141020541X

no tricks or rules here pure memorization

i would advice you to watch a lot of russian movies but not modern ones, but soviets movies, they are very good for language, soul and mind! good luck!

The best way is learning some Russian songs, maybe Soviet ones)). When you listen Russian radio (like echo moskvy or stuff like that or even Voice of Russia) you can worsen your pronounciation - they are speaking to fast and sometimes with grammatical mistakes))