In need of some guidance

Hello, I started playing back in December of 2020 and fell deeply in love, and have since read several level appropriate chess books, chessable courses, etc. I think for the most part I'm comfortable with the game itself, but am finding it very hard to improve, and currently feel that I'm declining. I mainly play correspondence or daily games, or some 3+2 blitz or bullet as I'm married with two kids and a full-time job, but I want to play as seriously as my life will permit. I am having a much harder time spotting tactics lately and will just hang pieces (usually in blitz or bullet, but occasionally in correspondence), or miss very obvious tactics. More than I feel I used to. Does anyone else experience these slumps? if so, what do you do to recover? Would also love to play some instructional games (preferably correspondence) with anyone who's willing. thanks!

Good to see you have read books, just want to know you have done enough puzzles, solving puzzle not only makes you find tactics but it also insert ideas in your mind when you see similiar positions. If you get hang of puzzles, you will learn to set traps, making right pawn sacrifices and other things.

I suggest if you play blit, try playing 5 min blitz if you are busy, I suggest learners to play rapid, it is very important to stop playing on intutions everytime, as you do in blitz. Once you are strong in rapid your mind will know the positions, pawn structure better and thus improving your intution based moves. Analysing games, to see why it was a mistake is very important. Why it is a blunder what if this happens then this until the point you are satisfied by engine evaluation. 

I hope i covered mostly everything also feel free to leave comment.

https://support.chess.com/article/437-how-do-i-get-better-at-chess

Good luck 9

Avii, I do puzzles pretty frequently and find that I'm struggling more with those lately too. I unfortunately don't normally have time to play rapid, but I enjoy it when I do have time. I know slower time controls help you more, and I wish I had the time to sit down for 20 minutes uninterrupted, but my life right now just can't accommodate that. I have an entire folder of analyzed and annotated rapid/correspondence games. I'm doing everything I think I can do to improve, but I'm just getting worse it seems haha

Oh  i see then you can try at least playing 5 min blitz and i guess analysing games solve most of your problems.

#1
"I mainly play correspondence or daily games, or some 3+2 blitz or bullet" ++ Play 15|10 rapid
Correspondence is not homogeneous: some play 1 game at a time, some 100. Some analyse for hours, some for seconds.
Blitz and bullet are more about intuition and dexterity.

Help. I need you to help me with some checker games

 

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

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

Just play more and before playing a move think what your opponents move does and what your move does to counter it and always look for checks captures and attacks

 I can play a few games tommorow if you want to

This video by nelson lopez helped me a lot, its short and excellent :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXyJdetptXg

Hope that helps bro.

For getting better at tactics, after you have done many of them, go to https://www.chess.com/puzzles/learning and choose "puzzles I have failed" and do those ones again.

Blitz games especially are won and lost by missing elementary tactics because there is very little time to look for them and if your pattern recognition is not as good as your opponent then most of the time you will lose.

Even in daily games simple tactics are often overlooked and can decide the game.

As long as your king is safe you want to play aggressively and attack. Always look to see if you can make a check or a capture, even in the worst looking positions there is.

Don't resign any blitz games, even if you have lost or are about to lose your Queen, fight on and make your opponent prove that his checkmate skills are spot on. Sometimes you will find they don't know how to checkmate and will stalemate you, or blunder a piece and give you the initiative again.

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

 

-Feel free to ask any questions that you may have on my live chess livestream Youtube channel, every Sunday from 1-2pm PST.  Also, I'll be happy to play you an instructional chess game with you on my YouTube channel.  

Dude I tell you what, I started at exactly the same time as you did. Im over 30. I got to 800 by just knowing how peaces move and its important to develope and playing in like a month or whatever. Then, I must have been doing a 1000 puzzles a month for 6 months and watching all sorts of yt. Then I read some books and rly like type of puzzles memorized types of strategies. Now obviously I know all this, but I must build the skills. So as much as i liked reading it started to become repetitive, u must play and play i did. And instead of puzzles i simply moved to puzzle rush. Just spot everything instantly. So, i got to like 1200 and i figured my next problem. Were all too weak, sooner or later one of US will break. Pressure is a tool. Through sheer number of games i've memorized the things i do to them in every single opening and use them as weapons. You dont give me this, i've got that, and so forth, pressure more more more, open it up and get in there. Now, perfecting thid alone will bring me up to 14-15 hundred. And then theres the thing, the more rating you have, the more moves it takes for your oponenet to break down. I presume endgames will start to matter. Its crazy that 1 in 10 or 20 games someone tries to push a pawn to promotion. If he is passed, push it its a lot nore trouble for him to stop it than for you to keep it alive. Also, you must learn to play indifferently when you have huge advantage. If your olonent blundered and gave peace or peaces, keep playing as if he didnt. Keep going for checkmate or pawn promotion, no waiting is allowed. You can be even more forceful and sacrafice no going back. There i hope it helps.

I don't know hat I can set a rochade with my android handy. Please tell me what I have to do.

Schade, dass keiner antwortet Ich bekomme keine Rochade hin mit dem handy. Ich weiß, was eine Rochade ist, und wann man sie machen darf . aber ich weiß nicht , was ich tun muss um sie auf dem Handy zu realisieren. Sag mir bitte wie das geht.

 

 

The best you can do in the situations that you blundered is to forget that you did and take a breath.. then look at the new position with a fresh outlook.. as if the previous moves weren't played and the position was just set up like it is

Okay, vielen Dank. Ich habe es verstanden. Ich bin zuversichtlich, dass es jetzt klappen wird. :blush