Tactics Help

First of all, a difference in rating of ~800 between your live games and your puzzles is pretty normal.  No one plays at their puzzle rating.

Three things I noticed that could improve your rating:

1. Don't resign. Why did you resign in this game and in this game?

2. Don't play too many time formats at the same time. In bullet and blitz games you need to play a move in a couple of seconds. In Rapid and Daily games you can take your time. Playing them all at the same time will result in being too slow in one format or too fast in another. in fact, if you want to improve you should only play longer time formats. Bullet will teach you nothing.

3. Take more time to think about a move. In this game for example this position happens:

It's move 21 and you still have 8:17 minutes available. That's more than enough time to notice the white Queen is attacking your Queen. Instead you only use 8 seconds and lose your Queen.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Hi sorry I've been busy. Thanks for your advice! 

Regarding resigning in the first game I've no idea but in the second I couldn't stop the fork on f7 so I just resigned. 

I don't really know how to slow down my games and think. Every time I go into a game with the intention of taking time to think I end up playing on auto pilot. Any advice for that? 

Thank you!

Doing only tactical puzzles, in isolation from the other elements of chess is good, but not sufficient....you need to learn how to look at a chess position and understand what it is telling you about what you should do....and how to go about doing it.....this is not an easy thing....but it can be learned.....

browse these..... with a view to learning the important concepts and elements which need to be used together in order to accomplish the positional analysis and planning alluded to above...

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

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

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy

Pawn Play and Structure - for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/chess-books-on-pawn-play-and-structure

and my blog...

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

I just wanted to share the following position, because it shows how material count is gravely overestimated by beginning players.

Material is equal here and this seems like a sort of tenable middle game for white. Even if the king hasn't castled yet, there are no immediate attacks. There is h4, and the f-pawn can be stopped. Nothing to worry about, the beginning player might think.

But, as often happens in gambit openings, we have opened a few critical lines. And it's mate in 19!

The position was almost balanced, but Nd2 is an indescribable blunder.
White not only missed that Nxd3 is a discovered attack on b2, and that the f-pawn prevents the king's escape; there is also something much deeper going on.

The key square we have focused on is c1.

Notice how we have that square in x-ray vision by the rook and bishop. What's more, Nxd3 points at it, and the subsequent Qxb2 does so too. Therefore, directly or indirectly, almost all of our pieces are pointed there. White's defenses inevitably get overloaded.

It's like there's a ghost on c1, and by catching it we achieve mate. That's what's happening here and what beginners need to learn - seeing the unseen, behind the material. The intersection squares that the attacker has after the exchanges. And in this case, the ghost square is quite a black hole.

I just thought this was a nice example from one of my recent games as it shows an unexpected forced mate achieved through hypermodern gameplay.

You didn't really answer my question. Even if you don't play d5 or Be6, there are at least a few other moves that you can play that allow you to still play a winnable game. You should not resign in a position like that. Especially when there are good moves available and you have almost 10 minutes available.

Maybe you did answer my question. However, if you want to improve you need to be willing to carefully evaluate positions before you make a move.  If you want to avoid playing on auto-pilot, you can start following my super basic system: 

Decision making in chess is always the same drill. Look, identify, evaluate and pick one. In the most basic version the process consists of these three steps. Four steps for some.

1. Look at the board
2. Identify candidate moves you can play
3. Evaluate the position for each of the moves
4. Pick the best one

Thanks once again! I guess the issue was that I didn't see it as a winnable game was my issue there. I'll definitely try your system out and hope that helps thank you!

Sit on your hands. Just to break the "grab a random piece and move it" reflex.