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
Tips to improve for a begginer
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Nov 19, 2022
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#3
The most important thing to focus on at your level is tactics, and not blundering. When it comes to tactics make sure you learn the basic ones (forks/double attack, pins, skewers, and discovered attacks) most other tactics are based on one or more of these basic tactics. The other part of tactics is not blundering. You should try to do a blunder check every move to reduce you making a move that leads to just losing material. This alone will improve your level play by a lot. Doing puzzles also helps to learn tactics patterns and recognition so you will see more of them in your games.
When it comes to openings you need to focus on the opening principles. You typically neglect at least two of the opening principles every game from the ones I looked at. The specific openings you play are not that important at your level. If you apply the opening principles and don't blunder material in the opening you will have a playable position in all your games. players at your level are not good enough to make you pay for choosing an opening that is not ideal or not remembering the variation you want to play. That is as long as you are applying the opening principles. For example in your first game against santi4206 you neglected the principle of not moving the same piece twice on move 4. You played d4 which is not a good move. This allowed your opponent to get an even bigger development lead on you, and accomplished nothing but making your position difficult to play. By move 5 your opponent had two more pieces developed than you did, and in a position that is more open which in this game it was that can be real bad for you. Instead you should have played Nf6 which protects your pawn with two pieces, develops your knight to a great square for it be on, helps control the center, and unless he plays h3 or moves the queen again allows you to develop your light squared bishop to g4 with tempo. Learn the opening principles, and when in the opening every move you make in the opening should accomplish at least one if not more opening principle. The exception to this is if you are wining a minor piece or greater with the move, or preventing material lose for yourself or to avoid checkmate. As far your opening choices you can play whichever opening you want right now although the Danish and the Scandinavian are not that good when you get to more advanced levels of chess.
When it comes to figuring out what to do in equal position you need to learn the basics of strategy. The basics of strategy are material, space, time, king safety, and pawn structure. If you read to article on opening principles you will notice that these basics are rooted in the basics of strategy. You need to evaluate the entire board (both your position and your opponents) through the lens of these concepts. Then figure out which one you can improve for yourself, and work on a plan to accomplish that.
I don't know how much of endgames you know, so if you don't know the endgames that I am about to mention look up how to play those endgames. The endgames are two queens vs king, two rooks vs king, queen and rook vs king, king and queen vs king, and king and rook vs king. You need to be able to execute these endgames without having to think much and be able to do it in time pressure ie be able to do it in 30 sec or less. These endgames are the building blocks for all other endgame study. Also you don't want to get what should be a hard fought victory only to get a draw because you did not have enough time to checkmate your opponent.
Hope this helps.
Here are some articles from this site that talk about some of the things I have mentioned.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-evaluate-a-position
https://www.chess.com/article/view/good-and-bad-pieces
https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics
https://www.chess.com/article/view/strong-and-weak-pawns
https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening
https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-endgames
Hello, I am Andre I've been playing chess for around 2 years but have recently taken an interest in playing in tournaments and playing more games. I'm 816 rapid and around 500 USCF (I usually only play rapid on chess.com) and play Danish Gambit for white but if not I will just play normally and put knights and pawns in the center, and for Black, I play French and Scandinavian. I analyze my games when I can, I see that I make silly mistakes and usually blunder pieces over time, and sometimes I don't know what move to make when my position is equal. Are there any tips higher players would recommend to become more principled and well-rounded, as well as good openings that are simple and easy to understand?
Thank you, Andre