I Actually Think I am Not Improving At All!

I am doing the lessons and playing more games but i am not sure i am actually improving lol.  Anyone else get this?  Winder if some form of coaching would help as i am definitely lost more than not. 

I agree i need to play more daily games but if people make a move fast and i think my response is sound then it may end on the same day.  More advice please lol

10 minutes per side is probably too fast for an improving player. You need to play longer live games - for instance 30 minutes per side, or 60 minutes per side.

Here are all the tips I have for you:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

I agree with him.

I had the same feeling until I started playing 30min per side.

Still have to put a lot of hardwork but I'm managing to raise my points;

I use a 15|10 time control

I checked out ur last games and was going to point out this issue.
I know I'm no master at all, but I see in ur games a lot of mistakes I used to, so here are some tips that other member gave me, and I'm passing to you:

- study more openings, and in general, try to move the minor pieces to open way for rocking. In ur games there's a lot of pawn action and one single minor piece advancing. Then when u get stuck with this one minor piece, only then u bring another piece to the game, pratically giving up the minor piece u advanced alone.

- Connect ur pieces and study tactics. In the games I saw, u went too quickly for exchanges or attacks, in which u traded pieces but gave up controle of the center.

- Study about "weak" squares, (f7 for example). That will help u to decide how and which square to attack during the midgame, either leading to a checkmate or winning endgame.

Show us examples of this in your games. That said, this is probably not a big deal. All players have positions they aren't entirely sure what to do in. That's absolutely fine. It's what you use your time thinking about. Before making a move double check they can't use any checks or captures to foil you. But at long as your move doesn't straight up throw things away, you'll be ok at this rating range. 

Studying tactics is probably the best way to improve, I don't believe that learning openings is a good idea when your lower rated because your opponents usually won't play the best moves.

If you can't take advantage of your opponents bad moves in the opening, learning openings is almost useless. Learning opening fundamentals should be enough until you are at least 1000.

Have you played any differently than before the lessons?

Memorizing openings and patterns is helpful, but I found that learning to play a positional game, wherein you mentally zoom in and out to assess what is happening overall before executing a tactic has made a big difference. I don't want to play like a robot, wherein memory is everything: developing intuition by playing positionally helps me make faster plies.  Since adopting this approach, Stockfish 12 no longer disposes of me in a dozen moves: I can now reach the end game, sometimes with only one major piece down, albeit in a hopeless situation.

"Memorizing openings and patterns is helpful..."

Yes and No.

Memorizing openings does not help.  If you dont understand the "why" behind the moves, just memorizing them means nothing.

Memorizing positions is what chess is about.

I just looked at one of your recent games.  You lost ypur queen because your opponent attacked it with his knight, but you simply did not do anything about it.

Obviously you did not see that your queen had been attacked because you could have taken that knight or moved your queen.

Board vision!

I agree with @Djard007. Learn some basic positional play. Tactics are very important and you should continue to study these regularly by doing puzzles are learning new motifs, but some positional knowledge will help you form a plan, often around a target such as a weak pawn or square. Try watching John Bartholomew's Chess Fundamentals series on you tube. One of his videos is on pawn structures. I learned a lot playing through Logical Chess by Chernev which is a collection of annotated GM games.

That is normal for a new player. Making a plan is not that easy. But by studying chess you will get the hang of it on some level. It revolves a lot around active squares for your pieces and creating weaknesses in your opponent's position. But for now, blundering as less as possible is the key.

I have no clue how to make a general plan.  It is a nebulous term nobody seems to be able to explain.

There are many forms of a plan, but some are more sophisticated than others. For instance, doubling rooks on an open file is a plan. Or maneuvering your knight to be able to go to an outpost is a plan, and before occupying the square - exchanging opponents pieces that can challenge that square. 

Of course, someone lower rated as myself has a lot to learn about creating plans in the middlegame.

Your game plan starts once youre out of the opening.  Or when you have completed the opening principles.  A game plan will change anytime any of the following 2 things happens:

Piece exchange.

Pawn structure changes.

Middlegame Planning

1. Expand your position:
a. Gain more space.
b. Improve the position of your pieces.

2. Decide on what side of the board to play.
a. Queenside: a-c files.
b. Center: d-e files.
c. Kingside: f-h files.
Compare, space, material, and weakness(es)

3. DO NOT HURRY. Regroup your pieces, and be patient.

A guy once told me to simply count the number of squares my pieces are attacking. This is the area of the board that I should play..

2. Decide on what side of the board to play.
a. Queenside: a-c files.
b. Center: d-e files.
c. Kingside: f-h files.
Compare, space, material, and weakness(es)