A Request From on Newbie on Improving When Playing Black

I've been playing chess for about 7 months now, and have a Rapid rating of about 1000. As white I've been playing pretty well for my rating, winning about 60% of my games but when playing black I tend to lose the majority of the time. I've been doing my tactics puzzles, studying basic strategic concepts, studying a little bit of opening theory, playing slower games and trying to take my time between moves, but my play as black seems to be getting worse not better, which makes me think that maybe there is something else I'm missing. Is there something I've overlooked? Am I just being impatient in regards to my rate of improvement? Any advice would be very appreciated!

(I tend to play the Pirc Defense as black if that is at all relevant)

I took a look at your stats.

55.2% wr on Black in Daily, 40.9% wr on Black in rapid.

Seems about right. Win rates on Black pieces are usually lower.

It looks like you're improving, but it might be unrealistic to expect quicker improvement given the small number of games you've played.

I looked at a couple of games, and it seems like one thing you're struggling with is pawn moves in the middle game. I've never played the Pirc so I don't have any specific suggestions, but maybe you can watch some Youtube videos on the Pirc and pay particular attention to the suggested pawn breaks. Don't be timid with your pawns - when the time is right, they have to attack.

National Master Robert Ramirez has several videos on the Pirc including the middle game and rating climbs with full games to show middle game plans and execution. It has helped me, but you are rated a lot higher than I am so his channel may or may not help you as much. I enjoy his teaching style.  FYI he is from Cuba, so English is not his first language. He pronounced Pirc as "Perk" not “Peertz” for several videos until a youtuber corrected him.  Best of luck!  https://www.youtube.com/c/nmrobertramirez

That's something I had honestly never thought of before I'll look into that, thanks so much!

I'll check him out thanks for the recommendation. Good luck with your chess endeavors as well!

Looking at a number of your games you played as black there is a few things I noticed. The first thing I noticed in your opening is that you play the exact same thing against e4 and d4. That is not usually a good idea. There are a few opening systems that may be playable against both e4 and d4, but even in those systems it may be good against one, and so so against the other. It looks like you are trying to play the Kings Indian Defense (KID). That opening is an opening used against d4, but not e4. You could try to look up videos that will help you learn that opening if you want (I noticed that you are diamond member on the site; there are videos on this opening, and a bunch other on here also). The indian defenses may be a little hard to learn because of the type of opening they are for your skill level, but they are good openings to play against as d4. I personally play the Queen's Indian Defense against d4. I would recommend that you pick one to respond to each. When learning it I would recommend learning the first 3 moves, and the ideas behind the opening, and striving for those goals in addition to the opening fundamentals (which a good opening system will be able to achieve all of them). The reason behind learning only the first three moves is that at your level your opponents won't probably know more than that against your opening, and will then go out of book. Which then you will have to rely on the opening principles, and tactics to guide you. When you get to 1100 learn the 4 moves, and at 1200 to 1300 learn the 5 moves. This way it also won't be as overwhelming to learn opening systems.

The second thing I noticed when it came to your opening as black is that you don't develop all the way, and you don't castle. These two things are more important than learning a specific opening (although you will do this if you learn an opening system in your games). You consistently don't develop one of you minor pieces, which is kind of like trying to fight with one hand tied behind your back. You want to fight with your entire army, and that will help you win games. When it comes to castling you have to protect you king. King safety is king (pun intended) . You try to open up the board with your king in the center. Your king becomes a liability, and gets in the way of your pieces coordinating together. 

The third thing I noticed is that you blundered away those games. Your opening was not the main reason you lost the games. You lost them because you did not see a tactic that your opponent could play, you did not calculate the exchange fully (thus resulting in losing material), or you moved a piece to a square that it could just be taken (or failed to move a piece that was attacked, and could just be taken if not moved). The way to avoid most of these is to do some sort of blunder check. Also continue to do puzzles as this helps with everything. 

I will add that since you are at the 1000 level you will need to learn the basics of king and pawn endgames also. This will be something that you will encounter soon in games if you have not already. 

Here are some articles that will help you out also:

Opening principles: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

Tactics definitions: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics

Endgame principles: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-endgames

Some articles on the basics of strategy:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/good-and-bad-pieces

https://www.chess.com/article/view/strong-and-weak-pawns

https://www.chess.com/article/view/try-your-hands-at-planning https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-evaluate-a-position 

Hope this helps 

Playing 1. d6 is completely fine vs d4 and e4 alike and commonly just transposes into the same position anyway after 1. d4 d6 2. e4 nf6 with a Pirc transposition. It's completely fine if white wants to remain in Queen's pawn form with 2. c4 instead of 2. e4 because then black plays 2. e5 and is fine as well. Nothing wrong with this particular move being played against d4 and e4

I'd say it's a problem if he plays d6 vs stuff like 1. nf3 but even then it's still playable for black

You clearly have no idea how to play the Pirc then

Pirc is good, but hard to play correctly. 

The Pirc defence is risky to play as a beginner, as White can set up very aggressively and attack you right away. Defending is a skill, and I definitely had trouble with it when I was your rating. So I'd recommend switching to 1...e5 and 1...d5 as your openings if you find yourself in unpleasent positions out of the opening.

Yeah, it's definitely possible I bit off more than I could chew using the Pirc Defence this early, I think I will try switching to e5 and d5 responses for a while and see how that goes.

You need to decide what positions you want to play. Flank/modern  openings like pirc delay the challenge of the centre 4 squares d4,d5, e4 and e5. Which is fine but subtle and you give up a lot of space to white. I would leave pirc for a while. You need an opening against d4 and one against e4. Then only one white needed.  If you like solid closed positions or wild all out sport.  Great videos on here to help whichever way you go.  Some openings are sisters, like Caro Kann and Slav/ semi Slav. You get alot of similar pawn structures. But I would suggest play something that challenges earlier than pirc (pronunciation peerts ) , come back to pirc later, a great opening but a subtle one than needs care by black.