ELO 200-ish at Chess.com is a strange place

Most people at low ratings are under the delusion that they often dont lose due to hanging a piece or missing the fact that their opponent left a piece hanging they often forget about most of the games where those things happen and just remember that they often play epic games and lose yet they fail to see all the tactics they missed and all the tactics their opponent missed so they think they played and epic game but little did they know they lost due to tactics or they won because their opponent kept missing tactical shots. If you ask me missing tactical shots is just as bad as hanging a piece, though it's still in a category of its own.

I used to be 200 ish rated on another account I made, and this forum title I could say is the perfect explanation of the 200 rated players range

I'm hanging around 200. At least a few reasons:

I was fed up with Scholars Mate so I spent a few days just learning and practicing different counters. I'd just quit if I failed a counter or blundered. If I counter successfully I start the next scholars mate game to get more repetitions and not spend all that time in a full game.

Then I've been practicing seeing how many moves I get get before I blunder badly and then resign.

I feel I'm improving. When I do win my game rating is somewhere around 600-800 on a good one so by luck it could appear as though I'm playing well. But I'm still in blunder prevention learning mode.

The game rating is very inflated

your elo shouldn’t be lower than your weight. This is your brain on twinkies

What do you mean by "counters"? I'm really curious. How does a counter fail?

I mean "counter moves" or "counter attacks" as in how to counter (as in defend against or repel) the attack. Basically the content of videos titled things like "how to punish scholars mate".

Sometimes I still get it wrong or blunder or miss my chance to take their early queen.

The best things to do:

1. Pay attention to the game. Don't play random moves that look good. If your opponent threatens mate, do something about it.

2. Practice tactics (by solving puzzles). The more puzzles you solve, the less free queens and checkmates you'll miss in your games.

Watching videos about how to counter Scholars mate is less useful in my opinion.

"pay attention" is like telling somebody who wants to win a marathon to "run faster"

I don't think so.

The overwhelming majority of low rated players play too fast, and play random moves. If you are not in this group, that's great. My second advice is still relevant.

I'm 764

The best advice, and most common, from players much better than I'll ever be is to study with the time ur wasting on speed chess. If ur spending 2 hours each day on blitz then replace that time with a good book (or online equivalent) and a chessboard and get better at endings or pawn structures, etc. By the way, learning pawn structures (the strategies that go with them) WILL automatically make u better in the openings.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/144401607052

This game was an interesting one. You played very very very well, knowing to attack the uncastled king and excecuting it very well. You played Nd2 in the beginning which is not a good move and the opening you played says to go Nc3. You resigned at the end which is bad because you were winning. You can excecute things very well, but sometimes you can’t do it consistently because you confuse some concepts. After a game you should analyze to not only see what you did wrong, but to see the positions where you didn’t know what to do and look at it for a while. It will help you get used to more positions.

See what positions where your advantage lowered and try to find out why. You traded queens and the advantage, though still high, is not as high as before. Since you traded the attack power goes down by alot. You may ask “But the defense of black is lowered too.”. That is not correct because the queen is much better at attack than defense which means your queen is equal to more points than black’s queen.

What seems like random moves come when you just make a move short of calculating instead of calculating the next move when the position requires calculation you just make the first move that comes to mind.

I raised u 60 points in two games

omg yes I swear I am so underated I once beat someone who was 400 and another who was 600 yet somehow I still get my butt whooped by other 200s

My advice on how to get out of the +- 400 ELO hell

1. Learn to counter the common attacks like Fried Liver and Scholars Mate. You can find plenty of good videos on those and just practice them until you know them by heart. Get to the point where if you see such an attack, you actually feel good knowing you’ve basically already won.

2. Never play bullet and preferably stay out of blitz as well. Focus on rapid games like 15+10 or 30+0 and use the time to execute points 3 and 4 properly. Playing fast makes you good at making blunders quickly. Once you can play quality moves consistently, then you can start to learn how to do it faster.

3. Learn how to play boring chess and avoid going into crazy tactical games that turn upside down every other move. Your goal is to win, not to look cool. You can easily reach 1000+ ELO just by playing solid and punishing your opponent when they make stupid blunders as they will do 99,9% of the games at that level.

4. Make CCTO your bible on every move. Go through checks, captures and threats for yourself and quickly for your opponent as well. If you don’t find a good attacking tactic, don’t try to force one. Just play a simple, solid developing move and keep the position under control. Your opponent will provide you with the attacking chance sooner or later.

Following this will take you 1000+ ELO here for sure. Then you need to add more depth to your game, but that is another story.

Test

I know right