looking for help

I thought I was getting good at chess. I'm trying the 10 minute games and I get smoked every single time. I've take lots of lessons, read some books and for whatever reason I just straight up suck. looking for help.

Sometimes books have info that's too advanced. I made a topic about what I think is the most important thing. I might help you.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/for-beginners/the-most-important-concept-for-all-beginners

Dear PoorMailbox,

I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.

You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.

So, the question you asked is not so easy to answer, but I can tell you one thing for sure. In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.

I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!

I started with openings when I was a beginner. Openings is the most neglected aspect these days. 

Check for piece safety before moving. Every time. All the rest is irrelevant if you give pieces away for no compensation.

Tactics will hep

10|0 is too fast to improve, if that is your goal. Everything below 1 000 rating, people will hang their pieces regularly, so you need to keep straight up blunders in check. Play longer games, at least 15|10, or better yet even longer than that, and make sure to really take your time. It is better to lose on time than to lose with more than half of your time on the clock (even stronger people struggle with this concept from time to time).  

Apart from that, here are some guidelines that might help you out:

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

Play 30 minute games. When you're worried about the clock, you'll inevitably make blunders.

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

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

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell