Stuck at an embarrassing 800 rating with no clue why I'm losing games.

OP, you, like many others, are at the beginning stages of becoming a good chess player.  People call it "wading through the mud," but I don't believe chess is the only discipline where one has to "wade through the mud."  Just like any discipline, right now, you suck at it.  Michael Jordan wasn't born a good basketball player.  He had to acquire the skills after long hours of practice daily.  Also, he failed a lot.  That's the thing about success.  You haven't succeeded until you have failed many many times.

It's normal to start out doing something new and failing all the time.  That's the process of learning.  You can't get "good" until you've practiced "x" amount of hours.  It's especially normal for chess.  I saw your game and I can already tell you are a typical 800 player who misses tactics almost all the time and so does your opponent, and the reason why you lost is that you blundered a little more than your opponent.  Even at my level, games are usually decided by blunders, however, our blunders are less frequent and sometimes more convoluted to the point where it is a lot harder to see the blunder, but, after it has happened, you can see the position, and easily capitalize on it, if you are the winning side.

You are like the 50 millionthed person who has asked this same question though.  I don't know why beginners always ask the same questions over and over again, but anyway, at least you know now so you don't have to worry.  It's normal to suck at something when you first start doing it....  Yeah I know it's not as simple as that you've probably been playing for a year or so or whatever and havn't improved yada yada yada.  Truth is we don't know how long you've been playing because you didn't give us that information.  All you did was tell us you suck, showed one of your games, and expect us to be clairvoyant or something and ask us to tell you something only you can know the answer to, after asking the right questions.  This is the wrong question.  I hope you don't mind my curtness, but we get people like you that ask this same question over and over again and after they ask the question we never hear from them ever again.  I think you will fall into this category.  It's not productive to focus on a general idea like, "Why do I suck at chess?"  It's better to ask specific questions on how to improve in chess, like, How do I study Tactics?"  You may think you know the answer, but the answer you might get here may differ from what you thought was true.

Think before you write.  

I have analysed your game below, commenting on almost every move you made. I hope you find it useful. Looking through games like this and analysing what you did is a really great way to improve. So I encourage you to do this with more of your games.

After the game I will make some key remarks you need to look at to improve. 

Based on this I can detect three specific things you can do. 

1. Make sure you are comfortable with opening principles (moving pawns before pieces, moving one piece only once, for example). It didn't cost you here. But moving d6 and d5 on your second and third moves was easily avoidable. A better player than white would have punished you badly for that. 

2. Before you commit to each move check (a) whether you could have taken any opponent piece, (b) whether any of your pieces are under threat and (c) whether you have a check. Doing this would have enabled you to see 9. ... Qa5+ and would have helped you see that you knight on e7 was en prise for so long).

3. Understand that - certainly once the queens are off the board - a quick mate is unlikely. You need to think about how you can win. Around move 27 you were winning. At that point seek to simplify (exchanges help the player who is up in material in most cases) and think about how to get a pawn to queen. You should have focussed your attention on white's a2 pawn and then look to push your two queenside pawns. This would have put white under intolerable pressure and you would have won more material still. Instead you played 27. ... Bxf2 and didn't even notice that white could take your rook. 

I hope you find this useful. As other people have said, everyone was at level 800 at some stage. Most importantly enjoy playing!!!

And I at 725 and wondering if some tlinteractive books are enough.   That said.  Ii have only been at this since mid October....

Hi i would like to say you allready got tons of good advices ,i wanted just to add ,i wouldnt focus too much on the rating (it means nothing here i would say) , i lost years here by counting on the engines too show me my mistakes they show you the strongest moves but if you dont understand them (often my case ) then its useless ,i now find the ideas i missed by using a good database (a database where you got good club players in example with junior shampionship games are fine ,Masters avoiding most of the tactics so you dont see the ideas , so i got a database with club players and i can sort them by number of moves i look at the shortest and i see most of the tactics ideas in the opening).

I am 51 and i am litterally blind when i play blitz so for the moment i try visualisations exercises wiht tactics training

You hanged 4 pieces in that game and your opponent didn't even take the first one that you blundered (castling blundered the knight on e7). This is not rocket science if you put a piece on a square where your opponent can take it for free, then you will lose that piece. If your opponent attacks your piece and you don't see it, you will lose that piece. With a little bit more experience and with a bit more concentration those mistakes will be avoided easily. Another useful piece of advice would be to stop leaving pieces floating around on the board undefended (unless they are doing specific purpose or they are on really good squares, but in that case you should always be aware of the fact that your opponent might capture them).

Also, reading chess books while you are 700 rated makes no sense. The type of mistakes that you are making are very different from the things which are covered in chess books. Everything that you can read in chess books is too advanced and useless for a player of your rating. At your rating, games are decided by 1 move elementary blunders where somebody just gives up pieces for free (or blunders checkmate in 1). In order to become better at chess you need to stop doing that (you need to do it way less frequently). The stuff in the books doesn't matter because it does not decide the games that you will be playing at a 700 level.

I can empathize. My rank sucks and is in the 800s too despite years of trying to improve.

https://www.chess.com/blog/MrCheesec4ke

This blog provides chess lessons for all intermediate players and above! If you enjoy share and follow please and thank you! Send me a friend request so that you remain up to date! I hope to hear from you all soon!

Someone above wrote: "You hanged 4 pieces in that game and your opponent didn't even take the first one that you blundered (castling blundered the knight on e7). This is not rocket science"

This is exactly the main problem with those trying to get from 800 to, say, 1100 or 1200.  It's not rocket science, it's getting experience at seeing obvious and semi-obvious things, and being able to see tactics to play (and, a bit harder, not letting your opponent play tactics)

BTW, not everyone agrees with John Barthlomew as a coach here.  I have two coaches, and they both say that 15-minute rapid is terrible, because it doesn't give you enough time to think "what's the best move".

Dan Heisman has an interesting take, btw: he says that you need to play 30+ minute games *and* 5 minute games.  You play the former so you have time to think, the latter for a few reasons, including practicing your openings.  He goes so far to say that intermediate time controls instill bad habits and impede growth.  Don't take my word for it, but read how he explains it (it's pretty convincing to me):

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627030447/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman115.pdf 

Well John said in some of his later videos that longer games than 15 minutes with increment are even better. He recommended 15|10 more in the sense: "Don't play speed chess if you wish to improve, and don't copy titled streamers in that regard."

I'm not taking sides, just pointing out that, even with the above comment, they still disagree with each other.  DH is saying that 15-minute is detrimental and instills bad habits (moving too quickly), while JB is saying that 15-minute is useful even if longer is better.

Further, DH says blitz is good for practicing openings, whereas JB (I think) is not

As for blitz, hm, a little blitz is not harmful and one can play a game here and there, but the thing with speed chess is that you can always start the next game. Now, there are exceptions, AKA people who will get to 2 000+ level here just by playing blitz, but not many can do that.

As for practicing openings, beginner probably doesn't really have the need for something like that. Up to at least my level and a lot higher, it is enough to just build through longer games and whatnot. Sure, you can play a game of blitz here and there and build openings a bit faster. Downside is that time management might be a little off in some longer games if you play blitz. It probably depends from person to person.

I think that blitz strategy for openings is more a fast way for some titled players to practice some longer opening lines. I mean, someone like me who knows 6-10 moves mostly really has no need for that. I mean, fine, I can but don't really have to. It will not make too much difference in my results.

JB goes more on the safe side here. I am not saying that is the only way, but you will certainly be okay improvement wise, if you just play longer games.

Longer time controls is very good advice. And puzzles for tactics helps co-ordinate your attack and defence. You said you watch John Bartholomew, which is something I recommend, but it seems you didn't listen especially well when he explained overprotection and how important it is. Did you watch his original climbing the ratings ladder videos? 

You make some good points.  But I actually don't mean "opening lines", when I say "practicing openings" (which is my fault).

What I mean is this: every improving player, always, should review his game, and the first question he should ask himself is: what's the first move that I made that, when faced with the position again, I would do differently? 

Let me give an example: a few days back, I was white in a game that started 1 d4 b6.  I'd never seen that before, so I used general opening principles (grab some center and some space) and played 2 e4 and he responded, unsurprisingly, with 2...Bb7.  OK, so, now I really didn't know what to do.  I played 3 Nf3, and later regretted blocking in my c-pawn.  After that game, I looked up the opening, and I see that the mainline is 3 Bd3.  (I also learned this is called "Owen's Defense") Now, there is no way I'm going to study Owen's Defense.  But I learned something from looking up the opening, and if I ever play it again, there's a chance I might remember move 3.  Just today I played black in a game that started 1 e4 e6 2 e5.  Again: something else I'd never seen.  I looked up the opening after the game and I now see what black's best moves are for move 2.  Repeat and rinse for 100 blitz games, and you might be adding a decent amount of knowledge with not too much time invested.

All that said -- certainly, and no one should get a misimpression -- slow games are more important for the beginner.

All that said -- I went back and read the article I cited, and I had forgotten that he also qualified his advice with rating suggestions.  He writes:

So, players rated below 1800 FIDE who are looking to improve should avoid games in the ten to twenty-five minute range.... However, Blitz games are almost impossible for beginners to play reasonably, because quick games require some decent board and tactical vision and can be very frustrating to those not yet possessing those skills. Once you get to about 1400 FIDE, fast games are practical...

(Note: in the article he explains his logic for avoiding 10-25 minute games)

For those who want to explore the issue further, I'd encourage you to check out the article!

OK -- one more thing about medium level games.

Again, from the article: "Let's do a little math: fifteen minutes is 900 seconds, and there are roughly forty moves in an average game. So in a fifteen minute game, players have an average of about twenty-two seconds to make a move."

For the beginner, to get better is a matter of finding better moves: not hanging pieces, looking out for tactics (for himself or the opponent). You want to find a few potential candidate moves, evaluate them, and pick the best one.  How in the world can a beginner do that at 22 seconds per move?  Look at any game between two semi-beginners that are 15 minutes or less.  Too many blunders.  Period.  How to get rid of blunders?  More thoughtful moves -- which requires more time -- and experience.

You should grandmasters gameplay

You should learn more booked moves 

15|0 is certainly still a fast game, that is why increment is for, to help a bit. 15|10 is a lot better than let's say 10|0 which is what most people here play when they wish to play rapid games.

But to be fair, I personally agree with the notion that even something like 15|10 is not the ideal time control. I generally play 45|45 games or 60|0, and those are games I enjoy the most (ok, when I play OTB with someone, we play without a clock so those games are even longer). 15|10 games have different feel around them. You have some time for thinking, but you can't think as much as you can in even longer games, that is obvious.

But let's be frank here. Many of the users here are either younger people who don't have the patience, or older people who don't have the time required to play that kind of games, and then analyze them. Sure, I always say that people don't have to play games every day, but for most people such long games are not an option because they either can't or don't wish to play such a game online. So if we tell everyone they have to play classical time controls to improve, well, they would probably just give up, so it is better to try for them to find some optimal option based around their time and patience.

I would love for more people to play long games here, it would be easier to find the opponents at my range as well.

As for this, I will tell you my experience. Of course, when the game is done, you should analyze it. Now, that doesn't mean just turn on the engine and say: "Ah yeah, here was a blunder, here is a mistake, blah blah". 5 minutes gone and we are done.

That is not an analysis. Those are 5 wasted minutes. Analysis is when you ideally don't even turn the engine on for the first time. I don't do this part, to be fair, because in a sense, I already analyze a game without the engine while playing it, as it is pretty long in the first place. I don't do it because I don't want my analysis to take even longer. But I admit, that it would be better to do this part. So you go through game, try to come up with some alternatives, see where the important points were and so on.

When you are done, you turn the engine on. And again, it is important to know how to use it. The short story is, the more time you spend with it, trying to see the reason why behind mistakes, the better. If you don't understand the reason why the best engine move is that great go through the other, try your own variations which you were thinking about during the game. Spend extra time on the endgame bit, because that is when precision is even more important.

So those who just uses the engine like an all knowing messiah, not checking why behind those moves are wasting their time. It is fine to give up on some moves, but as long as you learn something about the game, even if it is 1 single thing, you are making some improvement.

I spend anything between 20 minutes and 2 hours on individual game analysis, and if I played OTB chess, I would spend even more on those games. And for those who play 15|10 games, analysis is even more important. Because they don't have enough time during the game to think about everything. They just have to take their time with analysis in order to think about certain moves, ideas etc. Of course, on beginner level, analysis can't be as thorough, but they still have to do the best they can with it.

As for what you said about seeing the main move where you deviated, I agree. But let me tell you something about blitz games. I myself play 1 rated game per 2 days. Sometimes I play some unrated games for fun, and last year I played a bit more rated games per day. I never played any blitz games, and I feel that my opening play is not a weakness among my peers. So while I agree, that doing some blitz games, but just a little bit, can serve a purpose, in my opinion, it is not necessary. Especially because one can easily abuse blitz play, so to speak.

As for Owen defense, conceptually it is not the best option for black because fianchetto positions require you to move a flank pawn, which already spends some precious time in the opening, and on top of it it is a queenside fianchetto, which makes it even slower. People on lower - intermediate levels can easily mess up such a game, so in practice, even though it is completely fine for you to look at that opening move, you will probably even be fine with just principles.

Here is one example why this defense is not easy to handle for black on lower levels:

I needed to find it in the archive, but the moment I hear Owen defense I remembered this game.

You're just gaining experience and improving that way.