What am I doing wrong?

I've been studying lines but never really getting anywhere in matches. It starts out well but I always find a way to screw stuff up. The first match I was able to win because there was no attack against me. The second one I missed the mate and resigned. The third match I had an advantage but messed it up when I went in for the checkmate but managed to save a draw from it.

First piece of advice, play longer games. I know playing a 10 minute game may be "exciting" but it means you have less time to actually contemplate your position and spot the patterns that you learn by taking your time, you mention missing and messing up positions, this comes down to seeing every aspect of the board, which is harder to do if you are under time pressure, play 30 minute games, you will be surprised what you spot with that extra time up your sleeve.

Second, Focus less on studying lines, focus more on fundamentals, at this level you want to play sound and justifiable moves and let your opponent mess up. At the level you are playing at, if you are trying to pull off complex traps, you aren't focusing on the basics.

Finally, ignore people like MarkofGreatness.

Practice makes perfect and skillful practice makes superb 

So my studies in lines are pretty long up to 250 moves just to explore what the positions can and cannot do. When its a weaker AI, non-timed low level game, death by 1000 cuts checkmate I'm just fine. Attempting more complex checkmates and timed games its goes wrong. I have the basics down and can checkmate with the aforementioned death by 1000 cuts with minimal oversights (no non-timed games recorded for the record). Just that I'm trying to get more complex checkmates down without having to strip them down of all their pieces first.

Its always an analysis after each game and during each game to avoid making the same mistake twice. Non-timed games I do fine, short timed games the oversights multiply. Thank you for the link, I'll try it out. Its not really nerves that make me oversight but likely playing too fast to match the clock.

Don't worry about time at your level. If you're seeing yourself do well without time but worse with time, that just means you need to practice playing faster. You have all the skills you need to be at that level. Keep analyzing and that and the game explorer tool here on chess.com are the only tools I used to get to master level.

250 moves, 1000 cuts checkmates with minimal oversight, more complex checkmates, AI...

What?

Explain this. It reads that you resigned in a position for failing to finish them when you had the chance with nothing else mentioned. Missing a mate in itself is not something that warrants resignation. 

I've been advertising this resource around lately, but only because I think it can help many players improve. Hope it helps  Good luck with your chess journey. 

https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again

Okay so I think the issue is that you are overthinking all of this, Most games will last at most 40 to 50 turns (both white and black playing a piece), and that's a long game. Lines don't run 250 move deep, because by the time you can make anything happen, your opponent has won, again, you are overthinking this, the best chess players in the world spend years learning and developing lines, and often they are limited at 15 to 20 moves deep depending on the popularity of the openings being used.

my advice, stop trying to study lines, start by going through the lessons under the Learn tab, by getting those fundamentals you will come to realise a lot of what you are looking at and considering are unsound positions and moves to make.

I think we're missing each other's language here. The lines I was studying that went over 80 moves were super long clearly draws but I wanted to study how not to lose if there was no way to win outright. Checkmate by 1000 cuts refers to the phrase "death by 1000 cuts" where the opponent (or you but hopefully not) is killed by 1000 cuts; basically slow agonizing torture death where your functions (chess pieces here) are removed slowly. More complex checkmates means sharper checkmates where one doesn't need to reduce the other side to just the king and maybe a few pawns only.

I had local superiority and attempted a complex checkmate but botched it...which is one of my weaknesses. I've been trying to work on that in live games with very slow progress albeit. It seems a bit rude to torture them to death by drawing out the game so I tried to be more complex. Their developing double threat which was reduced to single threat but oversighted the second threat got me after my botched complex checkmate attempt.

That's a good guide of fundamentals, I tried to thumbs up the post but was unable to find the equivalent function. Hopefully my progress will improve with that advice.

The extreme length was just to figure out the endgame and how to win pared down endgames. That practice has paid off as I've gotten quite good when/if it reaches that super reduced endgame situation. People do tend to tell me I overthink pretty much everything so you wouldn't be the first one. That's a character flaw being resolved as best I can. Though at my level without time restrictions it goes quite well so I suspect fundamentals is not the issue. I tend to set up pins, traps and such but cannot win outright without stripping the opponent of every piece first. That's why I was attempting to use the live games as a chance to practice sharper more sudden checkmates.

I get my queen in the game to soon and when my queen gets taken I start to lose my other valuable peices.

Just practice and sharpening up skill sets I guess. I'm seeing progress so that's good news but its still still. Thank you for the encouragement. How long did it take you to get used to timed games?

Advice from a 900 is rather funny, as they usually have no idea what they're talking about. I'll give you my two cents:

-Tactics - these help your game and can honestly increase your rating quickly. Also, you need to be aware on hanging pieces on both sides of the boards. Not blundering single-handedly improves your play. 

- 10min Chess w/ mixing in SOME 30min Chess - Quicker chess helps you develop systems and get more familiar with your opening. Longer time controls will develop analysis skills

- Analyze your games for mistakes and use the reasoning of why the engine preferred a move, and how it alters the position

-Middle game planning - look at some grandmaster games (agadmator covers them well) and start plan development so you know what you are doing.

- Work on your endgames - this is clean-up work and this site has Drills that can help you

With all that being said, good luck!

Thank you for the feedback, I'm not really sure how one sees the rating of posters either. Is 900 a good rating?

I'm just curious, whats up with MarkofGreatness judging from the comment about him/her? As a new person here, I've no clue what to make of that comment.

Tactics - I do just fine non-timed and catch the hanging pieces. Timed, I can miss maybe 1/3 of them that could be a game changer. Similarly, pretty much no mistakes in non-timed games. Timed, I can make some missteps that are costly. Though technically I lack the sharp checkmate ability but am improving over time.

10 vs 30 minute chess - Now I'm confused on which to do if at all. Technically I've never timed my games before but 30 minutes sounds far more accurate than 10 minutes. But I tried the 10 minute ones just to see how I'd do implementing my [weak ability for] sharper checkmates without reducing the opponent to just the king and 2 other pieces.

Analysis - I analyze everything and even diverging lines just to what might have happened. Read above and a poster was right, I over-analyze things in general.

Middle game - That's actually pretty solid for me when I'm not in 10 minute games.

End game - That's pretty solid when I gradually wear them down then checkmate the isolated king...but I'm assuming any novice can do that. My current project is to improve my weak ability to do sharp checkmates when the board is still moderately populated.

A chess.com friend of mine asked a similar question; they asked me how I got into chess and what chess rating is considered "good" so I gave them a shorter version (still really long I admit) of how I began chess and responded to the rating portion by describing some "average" ratings for chess. Here is copy & pasted my response to them:

Okay, cool; here is another long message coming here 

First let me give a shorter summary of my chess, so you get some idea where I'm coming from. I don't know if I mentioned how I got into chess to you yet, so here is the super short version... I knew the rules of chess since elementary school, but chess was just another board game to me and I almost never played. It wasn't until years later I decided I would try to get a little more serious into chess - literally just as a challenge to see how good I could become. The day I decided to take chess more seriously was the day I created my chess.com account!

That was just over 3 years ago (time really flies) and I've learned a lot since then. My "true rating" (if I had to guess) in elementary school was about 800 maybe? (I didn't even fathom that chess was a competitive thing with ratings and tournaments back then). When I created my chess.com account, my rating stabilized around 1100 or so (after all, I did play some chess as a kid, but again very little). Since then my determination has had me improving, but unlike your story, I didn't have any large breaks from my learning. It has been a little over 3 years since I "started" (so I completely find 4 or 5 years for you honest and relatable to me since you had some breaks in there). 

Obviously, chess isn't all only about playing and studying (although even this might get one fairly good too). One example of a big long-term step in my chess journey was joining a chess club; playing longer time control chess in person is much different than online. About a year and a half ago I joined a local chess club (yes, it took me over a year to find one for me, but this is another story!). Another step that undoubtedly impacted my chess was that I became a member of USCF a little over one year ago. Chess is about a lot of little steps: as are most big undertakings in life.

I'm leaving out a ton of details of course because I don't want to cram 3 years of experiences into one post, but I analyzed virtually every game I played over the 3 years. Most with a computer, many by hand with a physical chess board and lots of them I even wrote annotations with my game written game moves - yes, I am quite determined when I set my mind to something: not just chess but a lot of my life success I can attribute to putting in the effort for a lot of things.

Anyway, let me give some samples for what is "really good" (since you probably forgot to answer this part of my last post xD). 

Rating and chess ability is ALWAYS relational. When you are learning, a 1500 might seem undefeatable. To an expert, a grandmaster can probably win with little effort and many of them can even win blindfolded! What about "super-grandmasters" qualifying for the world championship match? They aren't "really good" compared to many chess engines (computer programs), so rating really is relational and it greatly depends on your rating pool. Who are you comparing your chess level to? Other online players? Chess club players? Fellow USCF or FIDE grandmasters? It really depends a lot!

First of all, what do you think the "average" rating is? This question always surprises people when they hear the answer. Counting all players who play chess in the world - doesn't matter if they are rated, unrated, know the rules, forgets en passant, grandmaster or beginner, the average chess rating is around 1000 rating. People are always under the false impression that it is much higher. What is more interesting to me is that 1000 rating is a very attainable goal; with some dedication, learning the rules and just following opening principles, 1000 is very reachable with time. So the "average" (or better than 50% of all players) is about 1000 rating. 

This seems like a good time to mention an obvious point if I haven't said it already, but the rating system is very math-based, so it is no wonder a nice round number like 1000 works out to be the average because the rating system can be put into a statistical bell-curve to see how you align to everyone in the world mathematically. 

Anyway, 1000 is roughly the average rating for all chess players everywhere. What about the more seasoned chess crowd; what is "average" or "really good" for them? chess.com is a tougher group of players than the average chess player because you are more likely to create a chess account if you are good at chess. I think the chess.com average is currently 1100 or 1150 or somewhere around that for 10 min games (the most popular time control on chess.com). What about USCF (United States Chess Federation) average? If I recall correctly, the average in this tough rating pool is around 1200 or so I think. Surprisingly, it always seems like every local chess club has at least one or two really strong chess players. Club level USCF average (rating of strong chess players in a local chess club in a fairly populated area) is probably around 1500 or 1600 with 1800s not being super uncommon to see and some clubs may even have one or two expert players (2000+). 

I know that last paragraph was a ton of averages for comparison, but hopefully this gives you some idea. 2000+ is generally considered USCF "expert" and 2100+ is probably around National Master (NM) level. Higher is likely Candidate Master (CM) or Fide Master (FM) with exceptions of course. 2300+ or so is typically International Master (IM) and 2400+ is usually solid grandmaster (GM) level. All of these official titles after "expert" also require norms to be completed and costs money to receive, but I'm speaking more about the level of play and not so much if the player completed x-norm or not. The class of grandmasters competing for qualification into the world championship match are informally called "super-grandmasters" and is typically 2700+ rating! This is the absolute elite. Now granted, these 2700+ players might be able to score 3000+ rating on chess.com, but this is because they accumulate points against streamers and other "strong" players who are much weaker than they are, instead of their regular 2700-ish competition. Chess computers (based on the program) are usually rated anywhere from this up to 3500-ish on the highest settings. Even Stockfish that chess.com uses is only around 3200 I think, but anyway that isn't important - we are not computers, nor do human players usually compete with them, they are tools for learning and training more than they are opponents. 

This is a ton of info, but I don't want to discourage you by listing all of the many "averages" because again, the "real average" is about 1000 or so if we include all chess players in the world. You can check your profile "stats" on chess.com to view your "percentile" for various time controls. This is how you statistically rank on chess.com global ranking (by rating only) against others - beginner through grandmaster. If you are lucky enough to reach 1300 chess.com, that is around the 75% mark I think (meaning that if you played against 100 random chess.com opponents range of rating from beginner to grandmaster, you will win about 75 of the 100 games). 1500 is around the 90% point I believe. 1500 chess.com rating is about higher rating than 90% of all chess.com players in the world!

Long story short, it depends on average and what you consider "really good"