Noob looking for Advice!

I am new to the website and playing chess with others in general, I've been looking at some of the GM lessons but they are far above me right now. Besides the lessons and puzzles on this website are there any great and simple resources you could recommend to me? Right now I struggle with opening counters and usually end up on the retreat for moves 3~4 to 6~7 in quite a few of my matches so far.

Big thanks in advanced!

Lots of instructive resources here on the opening...

Chess Openings Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

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

more good stuff to check out...

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

Good luck!

First of all, welcome to the site. I hope you'll have a great time here.

For general tips on how to improve your game, check this out if you wish:

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

You can use it as a guide which can help you if you feel overwhelmed and don't know what to do to improve.

As for the openings, I've written an article that can help you survive opening stage as a beginner. Here you go:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/surviving-the-opening-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

In short, don't memorize openings, follow opening principles and you will be fine once you get the hang of it. 

Woah these are amazing! Great work on the blogs,  jumping on them like a sponge!

I'd start looking at the You-tube videos by John Bartholomew,called "Climbing The Ratings Ladder"......These are fantastic and easy to follow....If you'd like a first book,I highly recommend 

"The Complete Idiot's Guide To Chess".....It is an easy and enjoyable read...You'll come out a much better player....but....If you just want to veg out and follow something easy,the J.B. videos can't be beat!....Best to go over them as time goes on....Good Luck!

Btw,I'd LOVE to visit your country some day!

I am in much the same situation as yourself, for me I found IM Levy Rozman (a member here) videos and teaching style very informative.

You can find him on Youtube and here under the name "GothamChess" - highly recommended, he offers paid courses but he always provides a huge amount of free content on Youtube.

All of these resources are greatly appreciated! I'll definitely be doing the dive on John and GothamChess and have already been finding some new ideas to take into account with the written and interact resources provided.

Super hyped to apply some of this already!

As a beginner myself, the thing I am most concerned about is making bad moves become a habit because lack of experience and tactical awareness. At the moment I'm just playing computer so that I review every game I play to try and correct my tunnel vision, and at the moment focus on trying to progress pieces while not leaving them hanging. I've managed to get checkmate down to <20 moves after struggling to find it just by analysing my own mistakes. Playing computer means I don't have to worry so much about being punished while I try and get patterns of attack into my head but am aware that this could also reinforce bad habits in itself, but didn't see point in getting owned every game

Playing computer is not ideal for training. That is because engine can't really emulate human opposition, especially lower rated players.

This site saves games vs actual players and not games vs the computer, so it would seem reviewing your games vs other players is actually easier to do than vs bots. 

If you want to get patterns of attack down without punishment, focus on playing endgames so that the opponent doesn't have the material to punish you with. It's far more important to avoid basic punishments from hanging pieces than it is to be able to execute some kind of attack, as if you do not fix this you will give away more material than your attack will ever take. Just know basic checkmate patterns like queen and king vs king, king and rook vs king, how to checkmate using two rooks vs a king, etc. Then take all of their material and finish them off with these. While obviously you will need to know how to take advantage of attacks eventually, these can be done after you master the previous things I mentioned.

thanks all for tips and apologies to OP for butting in! Also, thanks catmaster that is the kind of thinking that makes a lot more sense that I need to be approaching first

I'd take advantage of the forums, post your games, mainly the ones where you lost or it was close, but games with areas you felt you made many blunders or weren't sure what to do work too. There is an "insert game or diagram" option as the top left of posting options. If you copy paste PGNs into those diagrams you can show games, and it offers the ability to comment on moves. This allows players to see games and give advice that is based on the situations they see. I find the most frequent thing that comes up in the lower levels is basic blunders where a piece is clearly open to be taken on either side of the board and the player either missed taking the free piece or failed to protect/avoid losing it. 

Always ask yourself in every move : am I getting checkmated in next move? 

Don't fret my friend, we all get to learn from this experience and that is what I am aiming for!

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Thanks for all the continued advise everyone! Been feeling a lot more confident with my matches, definitely starting to get a firmer grasp of this game! There is a lot more to chess than I had ever thought.

Chess.com opening explorer is excellent to learning openings, and to save the analysis you have done!

One more thing.....It's easy to get overloaded with too many tools.Keep it simple!

Play,analyze,read a good chess book,for your level and definitely watch and re-watch the John Bartholomew videos.

Good luck

If you can sit through 20-30 minute videos HangingPawns is a really good channel to check out especially his middle and endgame videos.

I am a beginner at chess though I used to play chess as a kid but I was terrible at it. I am learning from chess lessons available on this site and they are great but sometimes they ask questions like dora the explorer which can be a bit frustating. Any recommendations for resources to learn chess from

Shrevy, you don't have to finish all the basic lessons. Last time I checked, you can take any of the the lessons.