Struggling to Improve
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It may be a good idea to work on you openings. Are you following opening principles? Then study attack. I would start watching YouTube videos. But don’t be discouraged and keep doing puzzles
May 13, 2021
0
#3
Honestly at your level openings wont work as your opponent wont be doing the best moves either. Just do simple blunder check can get you to 1000. Just make sure you dont hang any pieces and wait for your opponent to hang their's
May 13, 2021
0
#4
Here are some tips for you:
https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement
In short:
Opening principles
Play longer games
Do puzzles
Study about chess in general
If you have time for reading, you will see how can you do all those things and a bit more in case you need a guide.
It all depends how much time you have on your hands. 
In any case, good luck.
If you are at 600 then that is a clear sign that you often blunder. Always think carefully about your move and then check that your intended move is no blunder. That alone will propel you to 1500.
Why are you losing? What are the common themes? This is what to look for in your game analysis. So look at your last 10 losses and categorise the reasons for the loss, , then work on the most commonly occurring theme. For most beginners the problem is undefended or weekly defended pieces. They are so absorbed in their own ideas that they aren't paying attention to their opponents plans and threats. Every time your opponent moves ask yourself the question, what are all the things it does for their position? Only consider your
Sorry,, only look at your move when you understand theirs, what they are attacking or threatening. Most moves stuff or improve the control of squares based on a general intention.
May 14, 2021
0
#8
Dear RealCheapo,
I am a certified, full-time chess coach and International Master, so I have seen it and tried it all.
There are so many ways to get better and I know it can be overwhelming.
You can learn from free videos on youtube, there are books at your disposal that can all help, but they are not tailored to your needs.
One of the most important things you can do is to analyze your games! You must learn from your mistakes! That is a priority. You can't really move on to a new, different topic and learn new ideas if you still make the same mistakes over and over again!
This is where a chess coach comes into the picture. A good coach can show you how to study, what to study, gives you the material YOU need. Naturally, it takes time to use everything in practice, but if you are relentless and persistent you will succeed!
You should learn the main principles in every area of the game (opening, middlegame, endgame). Don't focus on only one part! You should improve your tactical vision as well as it is part of all areas!
This how I built my training program for my students. We discuss more than one topic during a lesson so it's always interesting and they can improve constantly. I give homework too and the right tools to make practicing enjoyable and effective!
Don't worry about your rating and the ups and downs! Just keep on playing and practicing!
I hope this helps. I wish you good games and 100+ extra ratings
Jun 29, 2022
0
#10
MrLanceGabriel wrote:
Honestly at your level openings wont work as your opponent wont be doing the best moves either. Just do simple blunder check can get you to 1000. Just make sure you dont hang any pieces and wait for your opponent to hang their's
"simple blunder check"
Hahahaha. this is like "you should play the right moves if you want to win, easy".
The problem is that some people (like myself or OP) will stare at the position for 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, or 30 minutes - and still blunder, despite doing tactics to death (1700-1900 depending), reading books, analyzing games, etc, etc. I've been in this state for years and spent hundreds or maybe thousands of hours trying.
I'm pretty sure something in the visual centers of my brain just doesn't work. This clearly comes easy to many/most people, since they're like "oh, I've been playing for a few months, only 1400, still a beginner"....
Yes, "stop blundering", but HOW? There is not a mechanical process that you can follow to eliminate blunders, and I can't picture more than one move into the future or I get too confused. Practice isn't helping that, at all. Post analysis shows some "blunders" require 3-5 moves thinkahead.... It's just not possible for me, and no one has ever given me a recommendation that has even slightly helped. A thing that I'll instantly "see" Monday will be totally invisible Thursday, maybe 90% of the possible blunders I'll catch, but one always slips through. It is excessively rare that it is not punished instantly, even at the 500-600 level, even when it is subtle.
(Also a lot of those books are kind of rubbish: the computer shows the analysis therein to be deeply flawed, so I don't trust them. And in any case - they're mostly just "here are some games!" and that categorically can't solve my problem. The games are in the database, and the computer analysis is way more accurate.
My "favorite" F.U. suggestion was in "The Inner Game Of Chess" where the first chapter - this book is for beginners - is in so many words like "play this game through in your head a couple times, without using a board, this is a great way to improve and pretty easy!" No, no it is not. It is not even remotely possible. Reinforced my notion about hard, inborn limits and made me think I will never improve.)
Jun 29, 2022
0
#11
Also: "your opponent won't be doing the best moves either" is complete rubbish as well. Computers can beat humans reliably. Anyone who is playing the best moves will crush their opponent, so this is meaningless.
BadZen kirjoitti:
Also: "your opponent won't be doing the best moves either" is complete rubbish as well. Computers can beat humans reliably. Anyone who is playing the best moves will crush their opponent, so this is meaningless.
I think the comment was about learning opening theory. See, the best move according to opening theory is usually the best response to the opponent's last move, which was the best response to your previous move.
Now if the opponent plays something silly, like hangs a piece so you can take it for free, obviously you throw the opening theory out the window and take the free piece, because now the move theory would have suggested as your next move is not the best move any more, taking the free piece is (unless of course you are certain that it is a trap). Actually at the point your opponent blunders a piece you are out of theory so you would really not be able to play by the book anyway.
BadZen kirjoitti:
MrLanceGabriel wrote:
Honestly at your level openings wont work as your opponent wont be doing the best moves either. Just do simple blunder check can get you to 1000. Just make sure you dont hang any pieces and wait for your opponent to hang their's
"simple blunder check"
Hahahaha. this is like "you should play the right moves if you want to win, easy".
The problem is that some people (like myself or OP) will stare at the position for 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, or 30 minutes - and still blunder, despite doing tactics to death (1700-1900 depending), reading books, analyzing games, etc, etc. I've been in this state for years and spent hundreds or maybe thousands of hours trying.
I'm pretty sure something in the visual centers of my brain just doesn't work. This clearly comes easy to many/most people, since they're like "oh, I've been playing for a few months, only 1400, still a beginner"....
Yes, "stop blundering", but HOW? There is not a mechanical process that you can follow to eliminate blunders, and I can't picture more than one move into the future or I get too confused. Practice isn't helping that, at all. Post analysis shows some "blunders" require 3-5 moves thinkahead.... It's just not possible for me, and no one has ever given me a recommendation that has even slightly helped. A thing that I'll instantly "see" Monday will be totally invisible Thursday, maybe 90% of the possible blunders I'll catch, but one always slips through. It is excessively rare that it is not punished instantly, even at the 500-600 level, even when it is subtle.
(Also a lot of those books are kind of rubbish: the computer shows the analysis therein to be deeply flawed, so I don't trust them. And in any case - they're mostly just "here are some games!" and that categorically can't solve my problem. The games are in the database, and the computer analysis is way more accurate.
My "favorite" F.U. suggestion was in "The Inner Game Of Chess" where the first chapter - this book is for beginners - is in so many words like "play this game through in your head a couple times, without using a board, this is a great way to improve and pretty easy!" No, no it is not. It is not even remotely possible. Reinforced my notion about hard, inborn limits and made me think I will never improve.)
Trust the books, not the computer. The engines often play moves that humans do not understand. You can not really play like an engine, if you do not understand why it suggests a certain move in the analysis, so you should study the books, where it is clear, why a move is played. You need to understand why the move you play is good, or the best, for it all to work out.
#10
"people (like myself or OP) will stare at the position for 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, or 30 minutes - and still blunder" ++ The trick is to split your thinking process in two stages. First you think about candidate moves and evaluate them for say 10 minutes. Then when you have decided on your move, you imagine it played and then you check for a few seconds that it is no blunder. Then you play it.
"despite doing tactics to death (1700-1900 depending), reading books, analyzing games, etc"
++ Exactly: analysing lost games, study of books, tactics puzzles do not stop you from blundering. Those only help after you got the habit of blunder checking.
"There is not a mechanical process that you can follow to eliminate blunders"
++ It is mental discipline: explore candidate moves, evaluate them, decide, CHECK, play.
"Post analysis shows some "blunders" require 3-5 moves thinkahead" ++ Then it is no obvious blunder. 3-5 moves ahead is tactics. Analysis of lost games, study of grandmaster games, tactics puzzles help at that. An obvious blunder is when you calculate 3-5 moves ahead and just forget your very first move hangs a piece.
"A thing that I'll instantly "see" Monday will be totally invisible Thursday" ++ We all have good days and bad days. You may have slept well on Monday and have real life worries on Thursday.
"maybe 90% of the possible blunders I'll catch, but one always slips through." ++ Nobody is immune, but try to up 90% to 99%.
"It is excessively rare that it is not punished instantly, even at the 500-600 level, even when it is subtle." ++ When a 500-600 can punish it instantly, then it is not subtle.
Jun 29, 2022
0
#15
Trust the books, not the computer. The engines often play moves that humans do not understand.
Bullcrap. Half of the inaccuracies I found in a lot of these books are 1500-1600 level tactics problems on here. The books are just sloppily written, even highly regarded ones. Look at the first game in "Logical Chess: Move by Move" by Chernev, for example.
Move 8 "There is just a wee chance that Black will be tempted to take the pawn."
"But Black /can/ take that pawn now, I don't understand??" I spent an hour staring at this trying to figure out why I was wrong about this "obvious" thing before I put it in Stockfish to find, no, the obvious thing is obvious.
Compare with the end of this game, where the escape from the attack from which the author cavalierly and incorrectly declares "there was no escape" is much harder - but not impossible - for a human to find.
If a player at my level consistently found stuff like Bxf7+ -> Bh5, I'd probably file a cheat report so it could be looked into. But that pawn is absolutely hung and maybe 60% of 500-600 players on this site will find that no problem, in seconds (I will lose on time in a 15|10 if I play carefully enough to do so consistently). I assume that nearly 100% of 1200-1400 on here would, if ratings are not totally broken.
This is one of the most common books recommended to beginners here and everywhere else. The books at this level are full of this stuff. And their self-contradictory platitudes explain nothing and are nigh-worthless - yes we've all heard them all before, but being able to visualize and grind calculations easily enough to know when to apply each is the real chess skill, and it seems you either have it or you don't - or if you can get it no one has ever even tried to tell me how.
Jun 30, 2022
0
#16
> "and then you check for a few seconds that it is no blunder"
Therein lies the magic. What you really mean is "calculate the tree of all possible moves several lines deep and wide, and make sure there are no hung pieces and that all resulting positions are acceptable"
This seems impossible. If I can even "see" my opponents' candidate moves one move ahead, that is a good day. I don't know how to improve this raw "machinery" skill and no one anywhere I've ever talked to has any advice other than that, which yours, boils down to "just do it". Yes, I get that y'all can "just do it". I can't. That's the problem. The problem isn't "Wow I haven't thought of doing that blunder checking thing!"
> An obvious blunder is when you calculate 3-5 moves ahead and just forget your very first move hangs a piece.
Ok, then, assuming by "hung" you mean "directly attacked, not defended" and not "some tactic gets it taken", avoiding what you are calling "obvious blunders" will most certainly not get you to 1000 on this site. No way. No how.
> try to up 90% to 99%.
My blunder rate in the last 90 days on this site is 5.6%. There are 30-50 moves say in a chess game. Got to be wayyyyy closer to that 99%, and I just don't understand how anyone can do it. Nothing works.
Jun 30, 2022
0
#17
Watch Gotham's video about making counterplay. It gave me like 100 elo ( or 200 idk) now i'm knocking at the 800 rated door ( I was a 600 before I watched it )
BadZen kirjoitti:
Trust the books, not the computer. The engines often play moves that humans do not understand.
Bullcrap. Half of the inaccuracies I found in a lot of these books are 1500-1600 level tactics problems on here. The books are just sloppily written, even highly regarded ones. Look at the first game in "Logical Chess: Move by Move" by Chernev, for example.
Move 8 "There is just a wee chance that Black will be tempted to take the pawn."
"But Black /can/ take that pawn now, I don't understand??" I spent an hour staring at this trying to figure out why I was wrong about this "obvious" thing before I put it in Stockfish to find, no, the obvious thing is obvious.
Compare with the end of this game, where the escape from the attack from which the author cavalierly and incorrectly declares "there was no escape" is much harder - but not impossible - for a human to find.
If a player at my level consistently found stuff like Bxf7+ -> Bh5, I'd probably file a cheat report so it could be looked into. But that pawn is absolutely hung and maybe 60% of 500-600 players on this site will find that no problem, in seconds (I will lose on time in a 15|10 if I play carefully enough to do so consistently). I assume that nearly 100% of 1200-1400 on here would, if ratings are not totally broken.
This is one of the most common books recommended to beginners here and everywhere else. The books at this level are full of this stuff. And their self-contradictory platitudes explain nothing and are nigh-worthless - yes we've all heard them all before, but being able to visualize and grind calculations easily enough to know when to apply each is the real chess skill, and it seems you either have it or you don't - or if you can get it no one has ever even tried to tell me how.
OK then. Stare at Stockfish all you want. Good luck getting any better.
Jun 30, 2022
0
#19
OK then. Stare at Stockfish all you want. Good luck getting any better.
At least read my reply before being dismissive. You clearly didn't - I found the inaccuracy (and lots of others like it) without the engine. And even if I didn't, their advice is useless. Beginner books - at least the ones I've seen - suck.
I've been playing chess for a couple months now and have not been able to get above a rating of 600. I've listened to what other people have said about analyzing games and playing with longer time, but nothing seems to be working. I've been solving a lot of puzzles too. I'm not sure how reliable the site chesspuzzle.net is, but my rating there is about 1450 at the time I'm posting this. I feel like I understand the basics, but it feels like I'm missing something once I actually start playing, like I don't understand how to get in a good position. If anyone has any advice or could review some of my games, it would really help me out.