New player and many questions.

Play longer time formats.... 10 minutes or even 15|10... maybe even longer if you have the time. with practice it'll come quicker, but you gotta learn how to do it slow first.

Study the opening principles. Develop, control the center, castling to get your king to safety, etc. Don't waste too much time memorizing openings. Pick one with white and stick to it: I recommend 1.e4 as white (Ruy Lopes or italian) and as black maybe a response to e4 and d4, but don't spend too much time on it and especially don't memorize it. It's honestly a waste of your time memorizing. Just try to learn and understand the principles I mentioned early

Make sure you know how to perform basic checkmates.

King and two rooks (or King and 2 queens - or King rook and queen) - they are very similar

King and Queen

King and Rook

If you don't know how to do that, there's not much point in learning everything else and playing well during the whole game and then when it's time to win you don't know how... these are a must!

Checkmating patterns will do you wonders as well. Also look for ways of trading down pieces when you have a material advantage so you can take the game into a winning endgame and convert it into a victory. Also avoid trading when you're down in material.

Analizing your games (especially the ones you lost) will help you a long way, but not much if you're memorizing. Having a more experienced player go through your games with you would be best if possible. Also, don't just play and do puzzles, study. There are plenty of helpful content here on chess.com and youtube. Maybe check out agadmator's channel on youtube if you feel like it...then play attention to how masters plays. He covers classic chess games as well as contemporary games and gives some tips for beginners. There are also other channels with educational material for beginners. The learning content here on chess.com is good as well

Lastly but not least, do some puzzles and especially stop hanging pieces. 

If you learn opening principles, do some puzzles/tactics, basic checkmate patterns, and most importantly stop hanging pieces, then learn how to trade down when you have material advantage you can relatively easily get to at least 1000 elo rather quickly...  

Most importantly, keep making sure you're having fun, as that is the best way to get good at something. Good Luck

Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a chess coach based and chess book author based in California. 

I have tips to help you improve your chess skills so you can win more games.  

-I recommend playing with a slow time control, such as game in 30 minutes.  You need time to think.  Beginners tend to make a lot of silly moves with very little time.  This makes sense since there’s a lot of pieces on the board.  

 - Before each move, I highly encourage you ask questions before every move such as, “If I move here, is it safe?”, “Can I safely capture a piece?”, and more.  Also consider all checks and captures on your side and also your opponent’s side. If you are past this stage, then find a forcing winning line.  

-I also offer a  free beginner’s free eBook on my website, www.ChessByLauren.com in case you are interested. The book is about asking questions before each move.  

-Learn basic tactics such as the fork, discovered attack, pin, and more.  I offer interactive puzzles on my website: https://www.chessbylauren.com/two-choice-puzzles.php  

-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.  

I hope that this helps.  

Thank you again to everyone that has reached out and even offered to play games with me.  i would love to get some games in with anyone that would like to play with me.  I am not worried about winning or losing just learning.  I am greatly impressed with how helpful everyone is. My discord is ClaPps84#9358 if anyone would like to be able to play and chat at the same time.  Thanks again to all of you.

I  couldn't figure out how to print just one screen. but the engine says I missed checkmate and i do not see it.  what did I miss?

Engine suggests these lines

22. Qc1 Nh6 23. Qf4+ Kg8 24. Bxh6 Rc8 25. Qf6 d5 26. Qg7# {+M5}) (btw, it shows +M4 as evaluation after you played Qc1)

22. Qd2 Kg6 23. Qf4 Rf8 24. Nxf8+ Kg7 25. Ne6+ Kg6 26. Be8# {+M5}

You can just follow best moves

Normally you can. I'm at my work computer tonight and it is very restricted.  but that is my point.  I don't believe I am missing anything. I'm new so I am trying to confirm I didn't miss anything and the engine is wrong.

I did and I didn't see a checkmate. It was just confusing to me weather not it was there. 

Two others things. You need to select showlines

Edit

I've added the mating positions

Also, at your level, you can trust the engine never to be wrong

I went back through the game.  I see now,  it was atleast 2 moves away. queen was on light squared D1. she would of needed atleast on D2 to protect the dark squared bishop, and light squared Bishop needed to be on E8. my whole thought process was I'm up on pieces and he kept blundering so I wanted to keep as many pieces as I could and I was afraid he would take my knight on E6. so I moved the pawn to D5 to protect my knight.  Thank you for your time.  I thought it wasn't an immediate mate I missed.

Out of interest does "missed win" *always* mean that you were within a few moves of mate? Sometimes it seems to indicate that I missed a chance to do something significant like remove the opponent's queen but not necessary have a guaranteed mate just yet...

Yeah that's what I thought, thanks!

Your last game:

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/12212861457

White plays 5. g5, and you take it with the queen, losing the queen (the pawn was protected on g5). What the hell was that move? Until you stop making 1-move blunders like that, nothing else matters. Pay attention to the game, don't just blunder your queen after "thinking" for 5 seconds.

Also, your opponent later blundered 3 pieces, a rook and a queen... but in the end you stalemated him while being up one hundred pieces. The stalemate move you made in less than 5 seconds (again), with more than 8 minutes on the clock.

KIA?????  and KID??????????

The chosen opening means very little at this level. Far more urgent is the need to improve situational awareness and tactical alertness.

Complete lessons and play with pros.

     Yes, play with longer time controls so you an take the time to think about tour moves. Once you think you have a good move, STOP, imagine your piece is on the new square, and look at all the moves your opponent might make. You'll be amazed at how many errors you can avoid this way.

     Get a book or two aimed at beginners. Many have been suggested in  "Beginners" forums here. A couple of classics are Tarrasch's "The Game of Chess" and "A Primer of Chess" by Capablanca. Both these great players advise the student to start by learning endings--"If you can't properly handle a few pieces on an empty board, how can you hope to manage 32 pieces?"

     Many of the players here, especially blitz and bullet players, rely on traps and tricks, almost invariably unsound, to win. Trying to memorize them all (and the counters) will not help your development. Play carefully and you can neutralize them.

Yes, learn endgame tactics first and you'll possess tools that'll last a lifetime in your chess playing career.

The KID is an insanely theoretical opening so beginners(like me) shouldn’t really play it.