At your level maybe..
No, at the level I was then, aka 1500-1700.
Of course, YouTube beyond some intermediate level will not give you too much, but it is a good way for a player rated 400 to learn some basic stuff, and to decide does he want to take chess more seriously and maybe even put some money in learning material or not.
Playing against yourself, again and again, find out who stands better after that opening line of the Owen Defense:
Yeah, I know, people these days want to watch a video instead of working on a board 4 hours in a row, then hide behind good excuses to explain their so slow progresses. Bah. Actually, it's not my problem.
This thread blew up.. I hope the OP takes advice from all of us, or at least is able to find something that will help raise his rating. It takes time and commitment learning chess, and as the OP can see, doesn't involve just playing games. It really does take study via media, books, articles, learning from other players, chess clubs, what have you, to get good at this game. OP my suggestion is, take the advice that best works for you, the lessons on chess.com are great, the lessons on chessable are great.. YouTube has some good content.. books are great.. spend time and have fun learning. You can only go up in rating from where you are at.
Yeah, I know, people these days want to watch a video instead of working on a board 4 hours in a row, then hide behind good excuses to explain their so slow progresses. Bah. Actually, it's not my problem.
Well, nobody is forcing anyone to choose between those two, they are not mutually exclusive. The first one is passive learning, the second one is practice. Just like seeing an idea in a book or a course is not enough, if you don't play games and try to implement it yourself.
Believe what you want.
If you think your brain knows it must store something in the permanent memory area without any signal that says so (pain, work, stuff...) , well, good luck if you're not super gifted then. Some are. Good for them. I'm not. You're probably are not. So...
Anyhow, and this will be my final word on it all: I observed people don't want to hear the bad news "you must work" and resist the advices that are really good and helpfull. Instead, they keep asking for "tips" and seek the truth in commercial videos, and believe every lie that flatter them.
That's how it is. Now goodbye and good luck.
This will be my final word on it all: nobody said that you shouldn't work OP. I think this thread took a turn for the worse early on. There are plenty of learning tools for free on this site and other sites. If you really want to raise your rating, as most of us do, you can use these tools to your advantage. There is much truth in "everyone's" opinions that posted here for you even though some opinions may be opposing. For the original poster, you can always ask people for advice reviewing your games to see what you need work on. That would probably be most beneficial.
Look for patterns in your play and try to learn from your errors.
I honestly don't know! I think just improve and look back at your losing games and improve like that?
Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond.....
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond
I'm in the same place as OP and I found this "argument" instructive, thanks.
Thank you all
Hypermodern treatment of a French Defense structure by transposition.
I might try that sometime.
Soviet scholar game:
You'll learn pawn endgames, a lot. A whole lot.