Positive progress not happening

I don’t know what is going on. I feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill only to have it tumble back down. I made progress recently, only to be followed by 9 of 11 losses. I can’t even break 400. This is getting old. I practice, do puzzles, watch videos, and still can’t make even slow steady positive gains. I don’t have high expectations - just looking to improve. Is this normal?

You play 10 minute per side games which is still speed chess.

You lose many games on time, or blunder under time pressure as well. The conclusion is pretty clear. Play longer games and use your time. As long as you blunder pieces and lose on time, it is pretty difficult to improve. 15|10 should be the minimum time control you play. One longer game per day is better than to play 3-4 faster games where you will lose many of those on time and where you will hang pieces left and right. 

As a novice player you have 2 main goals: to follow opening principles n order to get a reasonable position from the opening (which you seem to do most of the time, which positively surprises me from a 300 something rapid player) and to avoid blunders (you are making multiple game losing mistakes per game).

If you keep making that many mistakes, you will not be able to get better. It is as if you are running 100 meters a second faster than your opponents, but then you shoot yourself in a foot before the finish line. 

Longer games will help you to not lose this many games on time, and they should help you to make less mistakes per game.

Try to make less blunders. How? Try to have less mental pressure. Such as? Try playing with more time. Try 15|10, or maybe 20|0. Those are still considered rapid chess. You'll be surprised on how much clearer you can think with no rush :)

15/10 is a good idea. I'd focus on opening principles and simple tactics. Look at this recent game of yours which I picked randomly: https://www.chess.com/game/live/26092199003?username=caffeineed. Why 3.d3 and not 3.d4? Then you played 4.d4, moving the d Pawn twice. In this case, there is a tactical justification, because you are threatening d5 with a fork. But then you did not play d5, though it was possible, so that was not the reason why you played d4. But if you played d4 for positional reasons, then play it in one move!

Work on opening principles.

Also, try to look at every position as if you solved a puzzle. Would you have missed 5.d5 in a puzzle? Probably not!

You would have had a winning position on move 5!

Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it. This little mental discpline alone is enough to get to 1500.

No, it's not normal to stay at 300 ELO after playing 1000+ rapid games. The fact that you're still on such a low level says that there's something wrong in your approach to chess improvement.

All youre playing is speed chess.  It wont matter how much you study and how much you try to learn.  You will never be able ti implement that knowledge int your games if all youre doing is moving fast.

Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a respected  chess coach and chess YouTuber based in California: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP5SPSG_sWSYPjqJYMNwL_Q 

 

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

 

-If you are serious about chess, I highly recommend you hiring a chess coach to help you.  

-Also consider all checks and captures on your side and also your opponent’s side. Always as, “If I move here, where is my opponent going to move?"

-Also, play with a slow time control, such as G/30 so you have time to think . 

I hope that this helps.  

I experience the same ups and downs, I think it's just part of the learning process, if you are stuck at 400 I might be able to share a few little things that helped me to improve if you want to send a challenge. 

Play longer games not under time pressure and think about each move.  Use each blunder (you'll make a lot, everyone does for a while) as a learning opportunity.  What did you do wrong.  Did you hang a piece?  Did you not not anticipate a fork?  Did you weaken your king?  Not see the skewer. . . etc. etc.  And then really just like, think about what went wrong each time.  

Almost all games at this level or lost on mistakes.  And not subtle ones either.  Big, glaring, obvious mistakes.  Once you stop making them and start seeing your opponents mistakes (they're making them too!) and can take advantage of those mistakes, then you'll make a lot of progress fast.  

Tactics is totally besides the point when you're hanging rooks and queens (and missing your opponents blunders).  You don't need to study openings or even tactics for a bit - just get a hold of mistakes.  And play longer games.  You have to learn this stuff first before you try to do it fast. 

Be nice to yourself and slow down. Remember to have some fun with it.

Firstly, you are doing puzzles in a suboptimal manner.

Many of them you spend under a minute on and get them wrong.

Force yourself to calculate the solution to it’s conclusion before moving a piece, as opposed to solving it like a guessing game, where you play the first promising move that comes to your attention.

This method is more time consuming and can test your patience, but it is more effective, and I’ve seen 2000 FIDE rated players who advise people to approach puzzles like this.

Second of all, you aren’t playing cautiously enough.

If for example, your king and your rook are on the same diagonal, make sure their is no tactic to win your rook, such as a fork or a pin.

I am guilty of not being cautious enough myself, which leads to many early blunders that I would never consciously do, but I did due to a lack of alertness.

Also, some of your games have you blunder in the opening because you are blitzing out moves without actually considering what your opponent is trying to do.

Opening traps are a common strategy to get quick wins, and they are especially popular at lower levels, so being more cautious and patient in the opening can save you a lot of headache and rating loss.

Also, if you feel angered or demoralized after a loss, don’t jump into another game to “prove yourself” or to “win back the points” because you play far worse when agitated.

Calm down, take a break, and analyze the game to see where you went wrong.

Oh, and long time controls aren’t magically more instructive because their is more time that you start with, they are more instructive if and only if you actually use that time wisely and extensively.

If you are resigning in the first 2 minutes of a 15 minute game, you are not taking the time you need to assess the position and plan your next move.

If you have a higher rated friend, ask them to play unrated training games with in long time controls, as these can be extremely helpful, especially if they can walk you through the post game analysis and tell you about your mistakes.

I find that when I play stronger players or engines, I play more accurately and at a similar pace to when I play peer opponents.

We humans are very adaptive when it comes to competing with opposition, so seeking out strong opposition can be very helpful in your development.

If this helped in the slightest, writing this post was well worth it.

Good luck. :)

I agree. Almost everyone here is in such a panic-driven hurry to advance right now...

If you treat chess like a job where you are racing everyone else for some hazy "superiority," you will only stress yourself out. Enjoy chess. Study it. Let the game reveal its secrets to you. Fall in love with it instead of just treating it like a task to be mastered.

 

Can someone PLEASE tell me HOW to "enter table rooms" ... where i can see tables with players signed in waiting for someone to "sit on the other side" 

You mean like graph where on the x axis you have time control, and on the y axis you have rating of the players?

As far as I know only users with membership can see that (but perhaps I am mistaken). Without it you can only define rating range and then seek the opponent based on the time control you enter and defined rating range. 


But in case you can see it, this is how you do it. Hover over  play, then click on play. Then click on custom game and choose open challenges in the top right. That is it.

I don't think I am in a panic-driven hurry to advance right now. And at the level I'm at, seeking "superiority"  is really not in the cards. I'm not asking "How can I get to 2000 in a week?" I am however, lamenting the fact that I am not improving at all. I started trying 15|10 games. I'm better at not running out of time, being pressured into making bad moves, but still lose 50% of games, so not sure if that is the issue. 

The point of playing longer games is not only so you don't lose on time. That is part of the picture, sure, but the main point is to think on your moves.

When you have 10 minutes for the entire game you will mainly make quick decisions, so your intuition will decide if you are playing a good move or not. And a chess intuition of a novice player is not that great, so you will play the moves that seems natural to a novice player, which is not really what you want to do.

Let's say that your opponent makes a pawn break and you can take, leave it as it is, or push the pawn. In 10 minute per side game you will probably do whatever first comes into your mind. If you play 45|45 for instance, you will spend a few minutes visualizing and calculating what happens on each of your choices. Apart from that, you will constantly miss tactical shots in your games in 10 minute per side on lower levels.

By playing slower games, thinking on your moves, checking up your longer games afterwards, and learning about chess in some way (books, video courses, or something else) you will improve gradually. By playing quick games it is more difficult to do so (there are exceptions, some people will improve like that as well, but that is not guaranteed).

The issue is...youre playing speed chess.

Caffeimeed, most people are 50/50, that is not a bad thing, is your overall rating improving?

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