am I just cooked at chess?

I practice playing bots and doing puzzles every day, as well as study openings (although I primarily use kings fianchetto) but I seem to only get worse at chess. I was doing well back in fall last year after a few months but since then nothing helps. I know the typical advice: study openings, review your games, study tactics and in a surprising twist….I DO study those things but it feels like it almost never works and I still make an idiotic blunder or lose in the endgame. The thing is I felt like I was learning a lot, now it seems that as I learn, I just get worse. Things that were working months ago have completely backfired lately and sometimes I feel like I’m playing a great game to find out I’m playing at 50% accuracy and at 400 elo.

I really don’t know why the sudden change in my playing even as I learn more things. Am I just cooked and should only play OTB chess with friends? I enjoy online chess but I’m also very competitive. I don’t mind losing but the discouragement comes more from getting worse than improving 🤷🏻‍♂️

And actively still blundering queens in dumb situations. I think I am just cooked 🫡😭

No

I have some thoughts after looking at your games and game history.

1. I think you should stop playing blitz and bullet - they don't help your chess at this stage in your journey.

2. Focus on your time management. There are lots of games I found where even though you are playing rapid, you are blitzing out your moves. It's great that you are reviewing your games, but we need to make sure you are using as much time as possible during the games to work on your calculation skills.

3. You say you study openings, but then what is this? https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/141634342238. You're pushing pawns like crazy and falling behind in development. This is breaking almost every opening principle. So maybe you do study, but if that study goes out the window while you are playing, it doesn't do much good.

I think you should focus on basic chess principles - developing your minor pieces and castling before move 10, making an escape hatch for your king. Connecting the rooks. Making sure all your pieces are participating. You don't need fancy openings or advanced tactics at this rating level. You just need develop your pieces. I'm not saying to stop doing puzzles, only that the best way to level up right now is to stop blundering pieces and capture your opponent's blundered pieces. Once you are up in material, trade down into a winning end game.

Ultimately whatever you do or don't do, you gotta be patient with yourself. Being in a good headspace and avoiding any negative self talk will go a long way towards chess improvement.

Good luck!

If your last game is any indicator of how you play? Its the usual.

All you play is speed chess.

You move way to fast.

Here are some tips that I frequently gave to newcomers to chess.

1. Do not play bullet or blitz. You need to think to improve. Playing blitz and bullet will just teach you poor chess habits that you will have to unlearn as you improve.

2. You need to learn what to think about. Instead of playing others at your level, take a few weeks to read some instructional books that cover basic opening principles: develop quickly, occupy/control the center, castle quickly.

3. Learn some basic middlegame principles: avoid weakening the pawn structure in front of your king, avoid creating weak (isolated, doubled) pawns, do not make exchanges without having a good reason, when unsure what to do, improve the position of your weakest piece.

4. Find an OTB club. Find a stronger player who will go over your games. Listen to the stronger players discussed their games.

5. Do not try to memorize opening sequences of moves. Concentrate instead on understanding the purpose of each move.

you say that you study chess. You should play slower time controls so that you are able to put what you have studied into practice.

!???!О БОЖЕ!:scream :blunder :blunder :blunder :blunder 

This is an incredibly common, and deeply frustrating, feeling that almost every improving player goes through. It might sound strange, but I often tell my students that to get better, you sometimes have to be willing to get a little worse first.
When you actively study new concepts, you are trying to replace old, ingrained habits with new, more complex ideas, and this process can be messy. Your brain is working hard to integrate the new knowledge, which can lead to hesitation, confusion, and uncharacteristic blunders in the short term. The key is to stick with it; this temporary dip is often a sign that you are on the verge of breaking through to a whole new level of understanding.

 :timeout :timeout :timeout :timeout :1_2 :0_1 :1_0 :hype :hype :hype :good_game :good_game :good_game :stockfish :stockfish :stockfish :blunder :komodo :komodo :brilliant :chess_960 :crazyhouse :3_check :king_of_the_hill :tilt :platinum :gold :diamond :titled_tuesday :speed_chess_championship :arena_kings :messages :settings :computer :leaderboard :club :friend :chesskid :four_player :watch :daily :bughouse :puzzle_rush :battle :trophy :fish :pin :fork :skewer :castle :live :blitz :bullet :bk :bq :br :bb :bn :bp :clock :cmate :mate :medal :wk :wq :wr :wb :wn :wp :board :resign :draw :play :flag_ukraine

There main thing you’re missing is calculation.
Think, after you play your move, think of a few good moves your opponent could play, and what your responses could be to them.
If you can, calculate further. Go down a few chains of moves to see if it out it opponent can force a tactic.

If you stop for a minute and think, you can stop blundering your queen, and stop blundering tactics too.

Yes, you are cooked.

Edit: in difficult positions, you might need more than one minute.

Here’s an example.

In your second-to-most-recent rapid game, you had over 15 minutes on the clock. You spent 7 seconds, and blundered checkmate.

You had over 15 minutes, why didn’t you use them?
Even if you had used them but still blundered, you would have learned something: be careful when your opponent moves their queen.