Dont let elo bother you.

Dont let your ELO rank bother you, if your struggling. This 180 today wrecked me today and the match felt about as hard as a 1200 bot i been struggling with beating. So there are many more factors to skill and im not sure the ELO system is accurate at all anymore. Like maybe it was only meant for 1v1 full normal chess matches, does it account for situations like bullet, or puzzle solving? All thats well above my head of course. But dang, that guy did not make a single mistake, it was a truely hard match to me, im going of the mistakes i made now. Alot of my blunders felt forced, like i had to put a peice in danger, so i could learn alot here. https://www.chess.com/game/live/58159240643

One, why were you playing a 180 when you are so good, two, he is probably cheating if he s that low. so maybe you should report him.

And it also looks like you have been elo sandbagging, which is against the rules.

Ive been losing alot lately to randoms, at one point i said screw it and just wanted to see how badly low elo players play, and i still struggle to get above 300 for long. At the time i had no idea that these random games where taken that seriously or that rank even mattered. But trust me, im not that good of a player. I blunder ALOT, and still struggle to take on queen rushes. But trust me, play against me, youll see my current rank is deserved. I was already in the 300's when the sandbagging started. Honestly at the time i did not think anyone took these random online matches seriously. Sorry for breaking the rules but honestly i never had any negative intentions. Reset my account if must, but ill end up a 300 again eventually. That is about right for my level.

okay, well I trust you. But it does matter if you are like 1200 for a year and then you crash super fast down to 280 or something, that is called sandbagging and it is against the rules. it is okay if it is a gradual crash, but if the crash in rating is fast, your account can get restricted. So be careful.

My account is old because i played a few games with a friend back in 2014 then never again till recently getting heavily involved in chess.com and discovering the forums and gothems channel after googling openings, till about a month ago i did not even know this site had such a serious chess playing community.

Not that you are in trouble with me, but a restricted account means you cannot do a lot of the things you could usually do for a while. for example, you couldn't play in tournaments, and other stuff.

But it is good you are highly involved in chess.com now! I hope you get back up to your original rating!

honestly i think 300 is accurate, i never really was that great at chess, i do think im above average but only slightly, and after playing 300 games i dont think 1200 is the true player average, maybe for very involved chess players in general, but over all among everyone that plays on this site even as just a time waster, around 300 is what i think the true average of players. But thats my opinion and from what ive read not the general opinion of the involved chess community. I do agree that 1200 is a good start during preliminary ranking matches thou. The only possibility that can make this not true is if there are ALOT of bot users. Which im not sure how to even tell, i thought i did at first but i dont wanna make any more reports unless im absolutely sure.

well anyway, I am gonna unfollow this forum now, but feel free to follow my account so you can see my blog at chess.com/blog/skbmc! have fun!

You wouldn't say that if you'd heard Mr. Blue Sky as many times as I have.

What is mr blue sky?

yea who is mr blue sky?

?

(1497) Castling | How to Play Chess - YouTube

You should get back up to at least 300 after watching this video.  Not trying to be rude or anything, but it seems like you don't know what castling is.  That's fine, it's easy.  Just watch the video and problem solved.

 I do know what castling is, just don't always do it 

Did this guy who beat you cheat possibly?

I highly doubt it.

The game wasn't all bad - at least you're on the attack.
Now you have to learn to look at checks first, attacks second. Focus on the king at all times, piece safety and material gains are secondary.

But it's a good point about elo - we have to keep emphasizing this.
In order to make great leaps in your learning, it's often necessary to pivot your entire style of playing - and at first that will also mean going down in elo. So you come out at a new level. It's like going down just to learn to hold your breath longer.

https://youtu.be/wuJIqmha2Hk