I don't mind getting outplayed (I hope I can learn why and improve). What really frustrates me are the stupid errors I make - where I miss the obvious. I have become better at not giving pieces away, but still miss some fairly obvious moves by my opponent.

I am the recipient of these gifts as well, so I know it is a fairly common problem among the non-elite player.

Has anyone have any tips for improving this aspect of play?

Are you using the analyze feature to play through a few moves? Helps me to avoid the ??? most of the time, occasionally the ??, but we poorer players never eliminate the ?

 navguru join the club wish i had an answer, pushwood how do you use the analyze feature? i will look around & find out?

I use analyze, but sometimes just miss it.