I can beat the bots - it's the humans I have problems with!

I'm playing consistently well against the computer (1100 bots) - but as soon as I start playing regular games I'm only able to win about 40% of the time - anyone else have that issue?  I'm very new - rated 550 now (though it keeps going down!!!)

Well, try to get better at chess and the results will follow

The number one thing is to stop making 1-move blunders. Take this game:

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/7940656735

Move 5: your opponent attacks your knight with a pawn, and instead of moving away, you let

him take it.

Move 10:  you hang your queen. Nothing complicated is going on, you simply move the queen to a square that is attacked.

Try and stop doing this.

I reckon between 500 and 600 it can get a bit chaotic with human players. Bots can be difficult to deal with but they’re usually somewhat predictable. The moments of “oh I didn’t see that coming” happen a lot more often when I play against human opponents. Then I lose a lot of games because it gets so messy.

Yes, it’s pretty normal.

There are several reasons:
1) Low level bots don’t play “bad” the same way a human plays bad. For example they tend to “gift” you with a piece in situations where a human won’t likely do it. Their errors are easier to read than a human’s in most cases.
2) with humans you play with time control, which add pressure (maybe try to play with longer time control at first and avoid bullet at all)
3) There is a psychological factor: loosing to a human is usually perceived worse than loosing to a bot

There are people more qualified than me to give you advices, but I can tell you that what you said is normal.
Play more humans and less bots (an advice I need to follow more myself!!), and play more with time controls, only don’t play with very short time controls. I’d suggest 10 minutes or more at first... at least that helped me a bit

Oh and welcome to Chess, fellow canadian:)

I'm new and found exactly the same.  The bots all seem to play pretty passive, setting up nice openings and have relatively obvious attacks, where as human players are regularly way more aggressive in ways you aren't expecting.

wow

Yeah same situation