This Website Sucks For Beginners

I've been playing for a bit and following all the opening principles, reading the guides, doing lessons and puzzles, and even analyzing my games when I get a chance to use a free analysis. Even still I couldn't break 500. It really doesn't help when so much of the community then turns around and says "well if you're under 1000 you're clearly blundering all the time." Like that doesn't help me at all.

I also have pretty even and well done games with people of higher scores and also tend to get knocked down by people of lower score as well. It's like I literally can't progress. And when I ask for help all I get is the same responses with a link to some blog or the opening principles or the "Analyze every game and see where you missed." 

For One thing, I can't afford the analysis after every game. I don't have the money to pay for premium and I'm playing to enjoy myself and not be reminded of my financial situation. Second off It'd be nice to actually have somebody to at least guide me or try to give me some advice for where i'm falling and not just be brushed off as a "blunderfest" just because my rank is so low. And when you do get advice it always boils down to "stop Blundering" and "think 2 moves ahead of your opponent".

Like how? If I knew how to stop blundering, I wouldn't be asking you how to stop blundering. And I wish I had the psychic power to know what my opponent is going to do 2 moves ahead. I guess that's just something Chess players can do that I haven't picked up yet or something. 

And the worst response is "Keep playing, you'll learn from playing." That's what I've been trying to do but the more I play, the more I lose. I find I'll go on, have a good couple games, then start dropping in quality and getting my butt kicked shortly after out of nowhere. The only thing I've learned from this is that people like to taunt you into resigning when you start losing, and nobody is actually willing to help you unless you pay them or subscribe to their youtube channel.

Haha, yeah, sometimes I'm playing against a French or Sicilian, and thinking to myself (jokingly) "look at this garbage player, I'm so far ahead in development I should just sac a piece"

Typically we're in some main line though, so I don't do that

Don’t mess with the French. The French Foreign Legion was the model for the Navy SEALS.

Just lock up their dark bishop. One of the first positions in Pachman, Modern Chess Strategy highlights what can go wrong in the French.

I play the French, which sometimes transposes into the Kan when White spurns 2.d4.

It sounds like some nonsense from Franklin K Young's nutty grand ouvre.

Absolutely not. George Walker, A New Treatise on Chess (1841). Unlike Young, who is rightly ignored, Walker is referenced by today’s authors. This position and analysis appears in many books. Alas, White can win and Walker did not know that. On move 5 White should play K. to Q. second. Allegedly, Joseph Kling pointed out the win a few years later, but I have not found the position in Kling and Horwitz (1851).

I may have directed a Franklin K Young Memorial tournament at the old Boylston Club in the early 80s. I certainly played in a few. Years later, I came across a book of his in the University of Kansas library (of all places) that had his signature on the blank front page before the title. The book was on Austro-Hungarian artillery strategy in the Great War.

I never could understand all his chess gibberish about "enfilade lefts" and all sorts of kooky nomenclature to describe simple things.

Young has the reputation as by far the worst chess writer in history. Worse than the serial plagiarists, like Raymond Keene; the data dumpers, like Eric Schiller.

That there are memorial tournaments in his name shocks me.

Chess is not my life. Yes, I’ve played it for more than 50 years. I’ve played it almost every day since the mid-1990s. I’ve been an online blitz junkie since 1998. I have something over 400 chess books and I’ve spent a lot of time reading them. I’ve been coaching children for 22 years. I’ve written some chess books. I’ve spent more time on chess than most people. More time has been spent playing than teaching. More time has been spent teaching than learning. I learned the game before the age of 10, but improved my game substantially in my 40s. Now in my 60s, I’m still learning, but my skill overall is not improving much, if at all. My blitz ability suffers even more. In my 40s, I could play 120 moves in a one minute game using the touch pad on my laptop computer. I struggle to play half that many today.

As for my life: this is a chess site, so that’s the side you see. I prefer the river, the lake, the woods. I fish. I hunt. I shoot targets for fun. I bought an old gun just because it would be fun to work on it and to shoot it. I rebuilt some parts that were missing. It was manufactured as a military rifle, then drastically modified as a sporting arm. Might be getting a lead furnace so I can cast bullets for this antique, but in the meantime, Montana Bullet Works can sell me what I need.

I’m a history teacher. That’s my life.

If my life had been devoted to reaching a 2000 blitz rating on a chess site, I would have done it.

@CooloutAC said I was 1700 in blitz. Over the past 90 days, I was almost there. Hadn’t been paying attention until he mentioned it.