progressively getting worse

I seem to be getting worse at chess rather than better, every time I play I end up with less elo than last time, can someone tell me what I’m doing wrong? Before you say “don’t blunder” I try not to and usually I don’t lose a piece by just hanging it but rather I lose it because of tactics by my opponent, or because I can’t get enough defenders on the piece. “Also people say to play slow but I do… and lose on time in a 15|10 game. Part of it is because I overthink and can’t figure out what to do in a position. So any tips? Currently I’m down 200 elo and it’s only getting worse.

Also some of you might question why I resign when I simply lose a pawn, but I hate being down material/ not having material advantage. My preferred way to win is to gain a pawn advantage and then take that advantage all the way to the endgame where I can then win more pawns and win. So hanging pawns basically invalidates that strategy. I only really “sacrifice” if I see a tactic to win material back plus interest. But I don’t really like the idea of sacrificing a pawn for a positional advantage because then your opponent can just trade off material and win.

I think you answered your own question. Stop resigning. People in your elo range blunder all of the time and by resigning instead of giving them the opportunity to blunder, you are throwing away rating points.

I see you are playing a lot of games. Do you review them afterwards or do any other forms of study?

Take this game you just played:

You resigned a completely winning situation. After they take your pawn, you play Nd4 - forking their queen and bishop. They can't play Nxd4 because their knight is pinned. This isn't the only example of this, either. This is why you are losing elo. You are doing it to yourself.

doing some more puzzles could help, at least each day 3

Doing more puzzles will make complicated positions seem simpler. Alternatively, try watching more chess instead of playing more. You'd be surprised how much you can improve by watching great players on YouTube and then trying to incorporate what you learn from those videos in the 2-3 games you play in a day.

You're resigning way to easily. You need to be tenacious and play on- your last game you were winning when you resigned- winning! Aside from everything else right now, your mentality has to change or it’ll be impossible to really improve, because at your level players will blunder all the time, including yourself, so being quick to resign guarantees a lot of losses for sure.

It's mostly about following certain principles when playing. That helped me reach 2000+ and that is what I teach others to help them do the same.

It's hard to explain games like this.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/141604837618?username=anoteableopponent

Some opening moves, and then you resigned for no reason. Why would you do that?

You resign to quick. Stop doing that and finish your games, that will gain you some elo. Also study the openings. What can also work is pick an opening for Black and for White and keep playing it until you feel comfortable with it.

I started getting better once I stopped accepting every single trade that was proposed to me. If you can calculate trades like 2 moves into the initial capture, that alone will probably save you a ton of headaches. As well as assessing whose piece is worth more in terms of position, material value aside.

Also, yeah, don't resign so quickly. Because you're a 400, your opponent is also a 400, and stuff like this can happen even with people noticeably above 400:

I know never resigning is not a realistic thing to advise; instead, what I'm saying is that if you can fight then you should fight, unless you have no pieces to reliably set up quick checkmates with (like, if I had a rook instead of the queen in the game above).

Obsessing over (and resigning over) material advantage will prevent you from winning in many cases. I've had games where I checkmated with queen and rook against a much better armed opponent:

Notice that in both of these games I figured the quickest checkmate and intentionally set up the pieces to go for it whenever I had the chance. If they don't bother to do something about it, it's game. At low levels people love to take as many pieces as possible before going for mate, and you have to account for these sorts of lapses in their attention. Especially if they're up by a ton of material; a lot just let their guard down at that point. These games are just two examples of this.

Learning to value position will help you exploit stuff like pins/discovered attacks, and trust me, discovered attacks (especially discovered checks) rock.

And I agree on doing puzzles as well as sticking to one opening while you're not intermediate. No matter what, I try to open with 1. Nf3 or 1...Nf6 to set up castling early, because that's how I defend myself best - it's the opening where I have at least a slight idea as to what I'm doing. Save for cases where 1...e5 is a necessary first reply for practical reasons.

Finally, watch the people that are good at this. I spectate games here with the evaluation enabled and use the real-time analysis feature to try to understand their moves. Think it's helped me a huge bunch.

The first game was really fun to watch

You could be playing tougher opponents now than you were before, which is actually a good sign.

What are you talking about? The guy is losing rating. His opponents are getting weaker, not stronger.

Congratulations 🥳

Terrible games, terrible.

Look on the bright side. You’re still playing. So there’s still hope. You have not given up yet. I can gather that you’re having “some fun” playing still so That’s great news.

15/10 really isn’t what people mean when they say play longer. I’d say play at least 30. That way you can relax knowing that you have a full thirty minutes plus your opponents time to really think of moves. Try it out.

Perhaps you enjoy the rush of fast chess. I sure do. The racing of the heart and the sweat building up in the pits. Keep at it. Don’t stop doing what is fun. But try the alternative and see how you fare.

One day you will wake up and really attack chess from an analytical perspective. Review your games. Stick to one white opening. Have two openings for black ready to deploy against anything. I suggest Dutch/Sicilian. Those two you should be able to employ against any opening you see. Play opposite of what your opponent plays as white.

Like me, I utilize the Dutch against any Queenside white opening and the Sicilian against any Kingside white opening. This spreads the game out a bit but these openings tend to close up rather quickly for me.

Stop quitting. That’s what resigning is. I have had some glorious comebacks down even a Queen. I, too, have suffered the agony of losing when up big. So you blundered your Queen. Big deal? Treat the rest of the game from that point on as a challenge to yourself to play perfect chess from there on. Really make your opponent earn his victory. See what you learn.

Anyway, you have some great advice in this thread so just have fun. Learn.

I do agree that these games include stuff taken straight out of a nightmare - but well, these games had to walk so that my current ones could run. XD

Thank you guys for the responses, as for the advice, I do look over my games after playing them, but in the game mentioned by response #4 HeckinSprout, I obviously didn’t see the fork, and even if I did, when I looked over the game in analysis white can play Qe3 and then taking the forked knight is a losing mistake because whites queen, other knight, and bishop get an attack on my king. So even if I did see it I would still lose. You first have to first trade off other prices before taking that knight is safe. Besides that specific game. Part of the reason I resign when I make an error isn’t just about anger, it’s also me trying to be practical, I don’t want to spend 20 minutes on a game that I have a less than 50% chance of winning, just to lose. So why humor a lost cause? And even if I do win, it hurts to know that the win was “undeserved” ie: I only won because my opponent didn’t capitalize on their advantage. But I suppose I’ll try to be a bit more “tenacious” as one response put it, but still, blunders make me feel stupid and not want to play.

Idk