No Improvement, what should I do?

So I've been reading Silman's Reassess Your Chess and Complete Book of Chess Strategy, Paul van der Sterrens Fundamental chess openings, Bobby Fischer's 60 Memorable Games, and Clive Ke's How to Improve at Chess. I do puzzles 30 minutes a day and watch educational streams on twitch and youtube but I haven't seen any improvement and I've been doing this for a year. Should I just accept that I'm not good at chess and just give up?

 

Edit: I'm 25 and have been playing chess on and off for 15 years, and a clear cut yes or no would be incredibly helpful in making this decision.

The biggest reason lower rated players lose is blundering, not knowledge of chess. Puzzles don’t help with blundering and neither does chess theory. The only thing that helps with blundering is playing a lot and tuning your spidey sense. 🤷‍♀️

How do you even know? It doesn’t look like you’ve played any games.

I play on other sites

Be patient, first and foremost....improvement is more then often a slow process. Try watching videos on youtube, and you can get free and helpful advice in the comments section. Remember, when your are looking at your ELO, its not just how high you can go, but how low you go. If you're only dipping down to a certain point and not falling lower then that, consider that an improvement. Good luck. 

Give us your rating on the other sites and we may be able to help you

Hovers around 1100 on a good stint

when i was 1100 i remember my thinking was different. it was more on trying to figure my next move instead of analyzing my opponents moves. try thinking about your opponent moves more than your own and try to punish them. look for weak squares, outposts for your knight, chance to gain bishop pair, double their pawns etc. every small advantage you can get will pay dividends in the end game

You may not be talented but you do have that Passion for chess. Forget about competing with strong players and just have fun with similar low rated players.

See the thing is in my mind, I'd rather play against people who are good. But if I don't stand a chance against them, what's the point in playing? Because there's no point staying at a low level just because they're the only people I can beat. And passion can only get you so far if you don't have any talent.

You better start viewing the games of strong players. Masters games are still beyond your comprehension. You can view games from Post your Best Miniatures for start.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/post-your-best-miniatures-here

just get get down the basic opening principles and make a conscious effort to always be aware of hanging pieces, and play longer games so you will have time to do this. always do some puzzles before you start playing a game. eventually the puzzles should lead to instinctual awareness of hanging pieces and vulnerabilities. once i started focusing all my concentration on activating all my minor pieces in theopening and then just never leaving any hanging pieces i started winning a lot more at the lower levels. as long as you just don't don't blunder away your pieces and keep everything activated on the board a lot of the time its just a matter of waiting for your opponent to throw the game away, at the lower level anyway.

I think we're digressing from the original question here.

definitely time to get the tiddlywinks out. 

Finally, an honest answer. Can we get a few more like this please.

Play a dozen games in chess.com at 15/10 time control. After that you can bump this thread. Those who joined a few hours ago rarely get serious answers.

Dear TGBM85,

I can help you with improving all of your skills (openings, strategies, tactics, endgames and analysing your own games) at chess. I am an official, full-time chess coach. Let me introduce myself.

My name is Gabor Balazs. I am a Hungarian FM, fighting for the IM title. My top ELO is 2435. I have been playing chess for 21 years. I won the Hungarian Rapid Championship twice (U16 and U18).

I love teaching chess and it is very important for me that both of us enjoy the lessons beside the hard work. I have pupils almost all the levels from beginners to advanced players (1100-2200 ELO).

You can see a lot of feedbacks from my coaching services here: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-lessons/feedbacks-from-my-services

Why should you choose me?

- I have a widespread opening repertoire (a lot of openings are analysed by strong Grand Masters).

- I have a lot of chess books in PDF and Chessbase format, so I can teach you the main middlegame plans, the art of calculations, famous chess games and the endgame theory.

- I have elaborated, personalized training plans, which help you to improve your skills effectively.

- I help you analyse your games deeply, so you can realise your mistakes and learn from them.

- I am really flexible and hard-working person, the quality of my work is really important for me.

- My lessons are on Skype or Zoom with webcam and screensharing. (Skype ID: balazs.gabor91 ; Zoom ID: balazsgabor1991@gmail.com)

- I give homeworks, so you can also practice alone and I check your solutions in my free time.

- I answer your messages within 1 day, I am not the type of coach who disappears for a week after the lesson.

Please, contact me (balazsgabor1991@gmail.com), if you are interested in working with me, I am looking forward to your message. 

I appreciate the post, but I was looking for an answer to the question "am I just not good at chess" rather than shameless self advertisement for a service I can't afford/don't have time to use.

i would play against the computer on a strong level (2600 or something like that).When i started this, i was 1200. After 3 months(of course i lost every game), i was 2000 in Rapid! You can learn a lot from basic moves the machi e will do over and over again.

so i think you shouldn't give up👍