Man, I don't like you calling us nerds...
It can be a friendly appellation. I think being a nerd means that you enjoy technical hobbies, and being a geek means that you're intensely interested in them. I am willing to own being a nerd and a geek. :-) Certainly having started playing D&D circa 1980 means something quite different these days than it did back in 1990.
The only way to improve at such a level is to get a better board vision; that's where you fail most of the time. You can analyze the strategic schemes of a position like a grandmaster but if you hang all of your pieces – your rating remains the same. All people who say that you should just handle your queen better and tuck it away are silly because in tactical positions your queen will also get attacked and you need your queen in tactical positions, don't you? So simply playing safer will not help you. You also play opening traps. And then, if your opponents defend correctly, you hang your queen and lose in 3 moves. Terrible... The truth is opening traps don't help you. I can tell you something about positional play now, but that won't help you because you're throwing your pieces away anyway. I have several students. Most of them look blankly at the board for a few seconds, make a random move and then scream out and say "Hey, I hung my queen". Well, that's not how you get better. And it's not as if they don't understand their mistake, they just don't stop doing it. The reason for this is that they simply never see the winning move. They don't look for their opponent's move because they think about their own. The only way to stop making mistakes is to see the mistake, understand it and stop playing like that. Another reason why beginners don't get better is because they constantly look at the engine and are too preoccupied with openings. The reason for this is because they cannot assess positions themselves. And when I talk to beginners and ask them why they played a move, especially in the opening, they often say " Yeah, but the move is +1 (or something) with Stockfish.". Using the engine is like asking a grandmaster how he feels about the position. But the grandmaster will also tell you that the pawns are weak and that this is a backwards pawn, your pieces are all loose, Black has much more dynamic play with all the open lines and diagonals. But if you don't understand all the strategic and positional advantages and disadvantages, that won't help you. What I also often see is that beginners just give up when they lose a pawn. What you need to understand, however, is that any position in the hands of beginners up to a +9 material advantage can still go either way.
but he can't because the queen is checking
So what? White's Knight on g4 is guarded by his Queen.
Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a respected chess coach and chess YouTuber who helps beginners out :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP5SPSG_sWSYPjqJYMNwL_Q
Send me one of your games and I'll be happy to analyze the game for free on my YouTube channel on Sunday livestream from 1-2PM PST. Ask me questions in real time!
This is a great way to improve!
Here’s more ideas to help you get better.
-I recommend two books for you: “50 Poison Pieces” and “Queen For A Day: The Girl’s Guide To Chess Mastery.” Both books are available on Amazon.com. Both books are endorsed by chess masters!
-If you are serious about chess, I highly recommend you hiring a chess coach to help you.
-Also consider all checks and captures on your side and also your opponent’s side. Always as, “If I move here, where is my opponent going to move?”. Do this for every single move!
-Play with a slow time control, such as G/30 so you have plenty of time to think before every move.
in here, Black sacrificed to win. Look at conbinations okay?
the best so I'll give you one.
A good example to make the opening principles point:
In short, practice opening principles and drill tactics and you won't have games like that.