Consistency

Hello,

Looking for any tips to becoming a more consistent player. There are string of games that I play that I feel I play really well without any blunders, using tactics etc. I then follow up those games with nothing but mistakes and can't seem to narrow down the reasoning. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

I suggest you use game review, but if you can't you can do some lessons, puzzles, you can also play more games. longer time controls gives you better experience, rapid chess is known for helping people improve giving them time to think. Also every move think to yourself, why did my opponent make the last move? also think what changed in the position, take advantage of your opponent's mistakes, checks, captures attack are your best friend. good luck!

I got to level 800 then lost 10 in a row, just couldn't find anything that worked. Believe it or not, I resorted to the Cow to break out of it. Sometimes, you maybe get too over-confident and push too easy. Keep the these three points in mind.
Control the center
Get your minor pieces out, knights before bishops
While I don't always agree with castle early, you should be in a position to castle if you need to.
Don't advance your pawns unless you're ready to attack, once they move forward, they leave weak squares behind
Look for checks, captures, and attacking moves. Find ways to move forward
I try to keep all these points in mind.

level 800 is crazy

Crazy good or crazy bad? lol

Bad, Lmao. 800 is a weird spot to come in on because its where new players start. That said. being not too much better than you my opinion is you are moving way too fast and playing too much in time controls that will only generate bad habits.

If you want to be more consistent my advice is three fold.

1. play only slower games for a while (I recommend 15|10) and USE your time. I looked at your last 5 games played and you did not even use half of your time in any of them. and in only one of them did you have less time than your opponent. You are clearly spending less time thinking than your opponents are. its one thing to try to maintain time pressure whenever you have a lead but especially when you are pushed back you should take your time and think out the moves.

2. As with every other piece of advice on getting better at chess an obligatory "tactics and puzzles" is called for. BUT don't just do them quick. Strive to make no mistakes and spend AS Much time as you need to get it right. doing them quick and wrong will solidify those mistakes in your brain and make you more likely to play them over the board.

3. Analyze your losses (without a cpu first). Go over your losses one at a time and mark the moves that you played that you think were good and if you can spare the time write out why you think they are good. and try to mark mistakes your opponent made. Then Take it to a computer and see if an engine agrees with your analysis of your own position and when something disagrees look down the lines and keeping feeding your thoughts into the cpu until you are satisfied that you think you know why a certain move is better or worse than your move.

Even though all of this seems slow and tedious it will greatly increase how you see the chess board and over time the speed will come. Also maybe consider getting used to a blunder checking routine. If you don't feel you have enough analysis with chesscom I am happy to help you set up a free resource like scid vs pc. its not as pretty or quite as functional as chesscoms but if money is the problem itll work.

Also, I know the playing slow stuff is funny coming from me because right now I play mostly blitz but its just because the nature of my work is boom and bust and I don't have long enough to play longer games. I am contemplating quitting blitz for a little while just so I can focus on improving. I also attend a chess club and that seems to help immensely.

Streaks happen to everyone. I wouldn't get to worried, just don't play when your tilted. This has led me to lose many games in a row if I am not careful.

You blundered a pawn on move 4, missed a check on b4 that would have won their queen, and instead fell to a mate in 1 on move 9. That happened today!! You did this in less than a minute. You need to change your narrative.

You've played over 1000 games since january and can't see when you opponent has taken a poisoned pawn in the center! All these responses... Did anyone look at how fast he moves and the moves he's playing?

f6 is never a good move if you've not moved your knight out. Now it's blocked in or has to go to the side, which is also not a good idea. Then pushing e5 to start an exchange you're not going to win. Gaining a pawn and a bishop for two pawns and a knight.

Honestly, I have improved from 490-1100 in a little over a hundred days. My strategy the following: 1. Attempt to review a game that has a real endgame in it so that you can learn the endgame. 2. Do not blunder pieces. Look out for common forking patterns and, whenever your oponent moves, ask yourself, if it challenges your pieces or what your opponent may be planning, or if you can continue the plan that you orginally have. 3. Do not play too many games in a sitting. I find that if you play more than 5 games in a sitting, you will often just start blundering, blundering, blundering--especially if you resign the game often. Take breaks to get your mind back. 4. Finally, although many players may condemn this idea, I would really advise learning a opening that you often play for black and a opening you play for white, just so that you can learn opening ideas. I started out with Silician Defense and Queen's Gambit for a bit, it really helped me learn opening principles. Hopefully this helps! Happy Chess Playing.

@rodilihp

Yes, someone has mentioned that I was playing too fast. I appreciate the insight I am still learning and just started playing chess. I'm trying to improve or I wouldn't have made this post, so there is no need to act like I'm dumb for not noticing a poisoned pawn. I didn't see any advice besides bashing me for one of my games.

Ignore the jerks who think they know everything.

Let me lay it out:

Disclaimer, I'm not the best, perfect chess player, but I have experience with improving in chess, having gone from 1100 to 1400 in rapid, and know what it takes to move up the ladder.

First of all, why do you want to improve? Figuring this out can help you make a good motive to fuel you. For me, I disliked being stuck in my range, playing against Scholars Maters and such, and knew I could be better. I knew that I would enjoy playing chess against higher-level opponents. 

If you really want to improve, form a motivation, because improving at chess requires some extent of time, patience, and work.

Firstly, I would like to recommend setting short term, realistic goals. This youtuber has much more experience with improving at chess than me, and has great videos about setting chess goals and improving such as this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaEN95mA_bU As far as learning chess goes, there are many ways to do it nowadays. Be wary that while some methods might be less hard to do, they might not work as well. I found that playing slower time formats (10 min., 15 min.), slowing my thinking process down (not rushing), and analyzing my games to see where I went wrong or what stronger moves I could have gone worked well for me. Also, watching chess masters that play while explaining their moves and thinking process, such as Daniel Naroditsky and Eric Rosen, had a huge impact on my chess game.

Remember: Don't expect to win every game, find every good move, and meet all of your goals right away. Improvement takes patience and a strong perseverance. The people who don't give up, even after failure, and continue working are the ones who will succeed. 

I will have you know its the wayward queen attack/s

It's fine, just think about your moves a little more, and also try to work on your tactics because those are very common on your level.

By a quick look at your games I see that you struggle with calculation.

If you want to work on that with a coach, feel free to leave me a message