help

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong anymore. I have looked up tactics and it’s still just… not coming together. I’m extremely frustrated and feel like I’m stupid and this game just isn’t for me. I want to get better, but i don’t know where to go from here and just feel like chess isn’t clicking. I’m missing moves all over the place or throwing away advantages. I know a couple of openings, but obviously at the low elo I’m at they feel just useless to know. I just want to know what I can do from here to improve. Play more puzzles instead of games? Watch more chess videos?

Im not looking to become a GM or anything, I just want to be decent enough that I can play in a tournament and not get destroyed every single game.

1)
After your opponent moves find all the checks, captures, and 1 move threats (like attacking an undefended piece).

2)
Then you can do whatever you normally do and find a move you want to play, but it helps to look for all of the checks, captures, and threats you can play. That way if there is a way to immediately win you'll find it.

3)
But after you've decided on a move, before you play it, imagine it as if it's been made, and from that new imaginary position, again find all of your opponent's checks captures and threats. This is to make sure your intended move doesn't immediately lose.

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All together this is what I call good calculation habits. Many years ago it's what Dan Heisman called eliminating "hope chess," and some popular youtube people bring it up from time to time too.

Anyway, even beginners do those steps sometimes... but your goal is to do them for 100% of your moves and in 100% of your games, and that's very hard. It takes a lot of practice to build up that habit.

It's also important to understand that you should do your best to not lose any material. Not even a single pawn (-1 point). Not even rook for a knight (-2 points). Sometimes people get stuck at lower ratings because they don't think pawns or knights are important... the reason even a single pawn is important is because if you continue to make equal trades all the way down to a king and pawn endgame, you'll eventually get something like this

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And this position is so winning that after 5 minutes of practice you could beat the world champion 100% of the time.

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Play time controls that are long enough that you can develop these good habits, and do your best to not lose any material... as long as you've learned other basics like opening development and forks, that's basically all you need.

Another thing is you have to be hard on yourself. For example in your most recent game on move 5 below...

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Your opponent didn't capture the knight, but they could have.

This kind of move is simply not allowed. If you want to improve you can't look at this move and shrug it off. You need to be, well, somewhat horrified. You have to think about why it happened, and come up with a strategy for how not to do it again in the future.

The reason you have to do this (and not a coach or a book or video) is you're the only one who knows what was going on in your head. For example maybe you often miss diagonal moves, so you come up with a strategy to look at the square you're about to move to, and trace all 4 of the diagonal lines moving away from that square with your eyes. If you trace it back to an enemy piece then you'll be able to avoid losing it for nothing.

But you can't shrug it off. It has to be a big deal. You have to think about why it happened and make a plan for what you'll do differently.

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

Play a lot, analyze your games, and primarily study tactics. Your knowledge of openings, endgame, middlegame, etc. will come from analyzing your games and going over grandmaster games. Only study one of those specific topics if it is clear you are specifically losing because of that topic.

Source: https://www.gautamnarula.com/how-to-get-good-at-chess-fast/

As a coach, I can help you with any part of that process, as well as teach you EXACTLY how to think at every stage of the game. Good luck!

Hi! You should try to improve little by little your chess skills, and then the results will come sooner or later. All the activities mentioned by you and in the above replies are important, of course, but it is more important to have a goal and a well balanced plan to achieve it.

For more suggestions, check out my post on my blog:

https://www.chess.com/blog/maafernan/chess-skills-development

I´m a Chess.com coach. For customized advice or lessons, contact me.

Good luck!

My elo is pretty low too but I feel I'm improving every day. These are the things I do. Watch YouTube vids (I like ChessBrah, he has some great vids and explains mid game tactics really well at lower elo lvls). Download matein1, matein2, and or matein3-4 apps (lots of puzzles and great to do in spare time). I play practice games on lichess and do puzzles there as well (it's nice to have a place where you don't care so much about your elo as you do on chess.com.) Lastly have fun.. for a while I wasn't having fun, I was losing a LOT of games and making stupid mistakes. Since I started doing all of these things, I've actually enjoyed playing the game again and have felt real improvement.