I lost and I am not learning

Okay this is like my 15th loss in a row. I am down almost 130 in my rank... I am not learning anymore. What can I do to learn and get better at chess. I do tactics everyday and I play during the day too, but I feel like I am not learning from my mistakes. Any advice is helpful.

[Site "Chess.com iPhone"]
[Date "05/01/2019 03:17PM"]
[White "chicagodrums (1386)"]
[Black "161107at (1413)"]

1.e4 {29:59} e5 {29:58} 2.Nc3 {29:43} Nf6 {29:53} 3.Nf3 {29:26} d6 {29:25} 4.h3 {28:53} a6 {29:05} 5.d4 {28:06} exd4 {28:14} 6.Qxd4 {27:44} Nc6 {28:11} 7.Qa4 {26:42} Bd7 {27:50} 8.Bg5 {26:08} Ne7 {26:52} 9.Qb3 {25:20} b5 {26:05} 10.Nd5 {23:31} Be6 {25:27} 11.Bxf6 {23:02} Bxd5 {25:14} 12.exd5 {21:55} gxf6 {23:17} 13.Bd3 {20:59} f5 {22:50} 14.O-O {20:18} Bg7 {22:16} 15.Nh4 {19:52} f4 {22:04} 16.Rfe1 {19:10} O-O {21:55} 17.Nf3 {18:58} h6 {21:29} 18.c4 {16:53} b4 {20:31} 19.Qxb4 {16:29} Rb8 {20:28} 20.Qd2 {14:27} Ng6 {19:51} 21.Rab1 {14:10} Be5 {18:12} 22.Nxe5 {14:06} dxe5 {16:51} 23.b3 {13:28} f5 {16:02} 24.Be2 {13:01} Qg5 {15:39} 25.f3 {10:50} Nh4 {15:24} 26.g4 {10:25} Ng6 {14:18} 27.Bd3 {8:57} Qh4 {13:26} 28.Qh2 {7:00} Rf7 {9:06} 29.Bxf5 {5:25} Rxf5 {6:47} 30.gxf5 {5:21} Qg5+ {6:36} 31.Kh1 {5:08} Qxf5 {6:33} 32.Rg1 {5:04} Kh7 {6:25} 33.Rbd1 {4:53} Nh4 {6:09} 34.Rgf1 {4:32} Rg8 {6:03} 35.d6 {4:28} Rg3 {4:03} 36.dxc7 {3:54} Rxh3 {3:48} 37.Rd8 {3:13} Rxh2+ {3:05} 38.Kxh2 {3:07} Qc2+ {2:10} 39.Kh3 {2:49} Qg2+ {2:08} 40.Kxh4 {2:47} Qg3+ {2:06} 41.Kh5 {2:43} Qh3# {1:57} {161107at won by checkmate}

I started playing chess at 7, my Father taught me. He never let me win. I really won my first games once I started playing my friends in school and I had to teach them how to play. There are many different levels of chess play. From beginner, to intermediate, to advanced. Taking this into consideration you should not be discouraged from playing chess online. I find I can lose any game playing online by making even one mistake on the playing field. Take your time in a 30 min game and review each of your opponents' moves as they make them. Ask yourself : "Why did they move there?" "Where will that playing piece be able to move next?" Chess is both a defensive and offensive game. Keep your defense up for as long as necessary, until your offensive has the opportunity to carry through with a series of attacks that will win you the game. My general rules for play are as follows.

1 : Do not move pawns unless necessary. Keeping everything close to home makes it easier later in the game to march your remaining pawns to your opponents' side for a new Queen. 

2 : Do not let your opponents' officers hangout on your side of the board. This only will let them attack you later to your determent. Kill any playing piece that tries to cross over to your side of the board. 

3 : Knowing when to attack is also very important, so take advantage of any mistakes your opponent may make. Follow through your attacks as long as those attacks will net you the advantage for a win. 

4 : Castling is a great move that allows you to move 2 pieces at once, your King and a rook. Just remember that when you castle make sure you move to the side that has officers to help defend your King and his pawns. Note that castling is not always necessary and in fact can lose you a game vs. an advanced chess player, because now your opponent knows which side of the board to focus all their attacks. This choice of when to castle or Not to castle comes with playing experience. 

5: En passant (French) for in passing. That move where you can move your pawn behind an attacking pawn. Very useful, but not always needed if you want to use your opponents' pawn as a wall for your own defense. This again is a choice that comes with playing experience. 

Hope this helps you <3 

Sincerely, Anna

There are some simple tactical mistakes.  And yet, 23 in puzzle rush is a pretty great max score given your rating.  I wonder if your thought process/blunder checking is consistent.  I know your playing mostly rapid, not blitz, but maybe try a few 30 minutes per side games and force yourself to check everything every move.

Clearly, you have not had much if any human instruction as there are also simple positional errors.  On move 6, you recaptured the dpawn with your queen instead of your knight.  This allowed him to play nc6 "for free" because it attacked your queen.  This is called gain of "tempo" -- i.e. gain of time.  You then played qa4, your queen got attacked again, and it ended up badly misplaced on b3.  A beginner principle is not to move your queen before your done developing, because its hard to tell where she belongs, and the other side can gain time chasing her around.  So it sounds simple and unimportant, but no intermediate player would have played qxp there -- nxp would have been automatic.  Then if he trades knights and you play qxp, at that point, he can't make your queen move with gain of tempo, and so at that point, the queen being on a central square is not a bad thing.  

You want to get better, I think you need more human instruction.  If going to real world chess club once a week or so is not an option, then post a game here once or twice a week and you'll pick up the basic principles your missing, like the queen issue I mentioned above.  

You cant beat cos you dont have strong planning/strategy.

4. h3? ( sub optimal move). 4. d4 is stronger that indirectly prevent Bg4 ( 4..d4 .Bg4. 5. dxe5  then black lose a pawn or exchange Bishop)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dont take with the Queen, Nxd4 instead

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Nd5?? Dont exchange pieces when you have better space. ( Black has crampy kts and king side development). Instead, e5! may be. Then Rd1( when 'd' file is open)

Looking at the game, my advice would be to think more about the strengths \ weaknesses of the minor pieces in the middle game. Looks like you are trading willy nilly, rather than thinking: "Ok, this is a bad minor piece for me, maybe I could try to swap it off for one of their better pieces." Also, it would be helpful to think "What do I need to do to improve my pieces and activate them?." If you were thinking along these lines, you would realize around move 23 that: a) "my bishop is the same color as my giant pawn chain that likely won't move for a while, maybe it would be worth swapping it for the knight that can find many squares on the dark squares next to my pawns" b) "my giant pawn chain is great, but my rooks can't really get around it either...where can I activate my rooks? Hey, I know, I have a half-open file on the e-file! Except black's pawn is defended by his knight...hey doesn't this remind me of a thought I had a second ago?"

So, finding 23. Bxg6 wasn't even a matter of noticing tactics, but just thinking about activating your pieces, and whether potential trades on the board involve a good or bad piece for you.

The ghost is right:: BXE7 on move 12 wins a piece.  My advice work more on tactics and analyzing positions. 

Also, it's generally a bad idea (as I'm sure you've heard plenty of times) to bring your queen into the center in the opening, when your opponent can develop with tempo attacking it; it seems like you had no plan for bringing your queen to a5 either, and all it did was serve as a target for black to improve their position. 

This game was decided by tactics. The recapture with queen on d4 and Qa4 don't make much sense. However those are only inaccuracies. 11.Nd5 is a more serious mistake and blunders the pawn on e4 without compensation. Others have pointed out more tactical mistakes and missed opportunities. There is no point in learning strategy if you don't see basic tactics.

First of all, don't get so discouraged! You played quite a few good moves in that game, and while it is annoying to lose a game like this, it doesn't mean that you are not improving or that you're just a bad player. You achieved a winning position a couple of times

 

thanks for all the advice guys and gals*

I greatly appreciate it. I gotta get more tactics down for sure

Good luck.

You worried so much about defending your king at the end that you stopped being aggressive and were just reacting to his moves, you were up material, I would have been looking to trade off and simplify and just push a pawn for the win, move 34 I would have blocked with my queen and tried to force a trade

I have some questions.  What were you thinking in this position?

 

It seems like you have some sort of tactics set that you are studying but you cannot figure out why you are not getting better?  Am I right?  It's not all about tactics sets, sometimes, you have to train using a tactics trainer to train your overall tactical awareness.  You can treat tactics from tactics trainer like a real game at the critical moment.  Doing as many as you can of these will help you with your games the most.  Studying tactics sets has it's uses, however, it's just part of the picture.  You need to also do a lot of tactics trainer, and I do not know for sure if you do tactics trainer every single day I'm thinking you spend more time on your tactics sets that you are studying.  I used to do the same thing, but I've since noticed that chess tempo standard problems are good "mini games" to give a lot of practice of real tactical situations in a short period of time.  In a chess game tactics only appear maybe once or twice but if you do 50 problems then you just studied 50 patterns that you did not know previously.  50 tactics will usually take someone 30 minutes to an hour to do, and that is about the time it takes to play a rapid game.  You should do 30 minutes to an hour of tactics a day.  You can start by doing 15 minutes, and gradually get to 30, and if you want, do more!

You can't count your tactics sets as doing tactics.  That stuff has to be extra.  So you are starting to see why chess can easily take up your whole day.

 

Your not very good at blitz, that means you've really only played long games for the most part, and mysteriously you somehow got a puzzle rush of 23.  You should probably do puzzle rush daily after you do your daily tactics.  Just do enough runs to get 20 or above.  If you have a hard time getting that do less.  You may have to pick a number to get to on your own.  This is a good exercise to do every day along with any tactics that you are doing.  A NM told me puzzle rush is a good chess vision test because it teaches you to spot easy to see blunders at the split of a second.

In short, you have non-book openings when coupled with your inadequate knowledge of opening principles, causes you to lose a lot of games, though, strangely, will win a few games due to dumb luck (mainly because your opponent made blunders or a blunder).  You shouldn't count on your opponent to make a blunder, though, that is the sort of thinking one might run into when you yourself make a blunder yourself and hope your opponent doesn't see it.  Your going to blunder a lot more so I would say while you are playing just patiently wait for your opponent to make the move and hope and pray, what more can you do, and after the game, if he blunders, think of what you could have done to prevent that and figure out why you made that blunder.  There is always a reason behind the blunder.  Blunders stem from inferior positions.

 

I would say get some kind of opening book and study an opening repertoire.  These days opening books along with teaching the lines also teach you the middle game ideas behind the openings so you also learn opening principles while you are studying openings, so the people that say do not study openings are now in a pickle...  I will not recommend a book.  Why?  Because I do not know what type of openings will best suit you.  All I can say is that there are a lot of resources here on the forums that people already offered in that department that I am sure you can find.

 

Ultimately, it's not about openings, it's mainly about tactics tactics tactics, however, I find that you make the same type of positional mistakes when you go experimenting with different opening moves without really understanding why you are doing  them, so I feel that if you study an opening, you will, in turn, find a good book that teaches you the ideas behind those openings, as that is the norm for this day and age.  In my personal opinion, I think, MCO, and FCO, are outdated.  One does not need an opening encyclopedia when nowadays you can have your very own opening repertoire crafted for you by a FM and up only for 20 bucks, and the book usually teaches the opening principles behind the openings as well.

 

Also, you have poor endgame skills.  I saw a game you could have drawn had you known simple king and pawn endgames.  So, I would take some time if I were you to also study the endgame.

 

You're going to have to learn the middle game as well, and I will not give a resource, as there is so much information out there it's easy to figure out on your own with a good google search, or just read past forum posts from For Beginners.

 

Yeah, chess will take up all your time, but you don't have to study all phases of the game every day...  You're going to have to figure out exactly why you want to play this game.  If it's because you want money you picked the wrong thing!  I personally think I love the game, so I spend time learning it even more.  Something like that is a good answer, not, "Because I want loads of money."  

 

It's very hard to improve in chess.  I hope you will someday get out of this rut and look back at this and say oh well look at this!  Good luck in your future chess endeavors!

Just some advice from krazykat here. You don't have to take it. Limit yourself to two games a day, one in the morning, one at night. If you choose to play more games outside live chess, I would play the computer, that way your ELO isn't affected. Try to space out plenty of time in between the rated games.  Some players just don't realize the toll one game of chess takes on your mind, not to mention, visual. You're probably a Class B chess player ( 1600-1800) and don't know it yet. You want your mind fresh, clear, and ready to take on your opponent when YOUR ready. I let my mind wander off to paying a bill on time once during a game of chess, and I blunder my queen. It's all about focus, defending, attacking, and making the best move possible. You're better at this game then you think, I think you'd clobber me playing black or white. Just play one rated game a day, and I bet you get your 130 back in no time! I'm willing to bet on it. Best regards, and good luck.

There are several tools on Chess.com which can help you achieve the level of play you believe you're capable of. All of the following are available on your desktop app:

1) Review your game immediately after playing with the help of the analysis free tool. I just went to your profile, clicked on your game history, and clicked the "Analyze" button to see what the free tool had to say about the game you shared. It gives you feedback without judgment and should improve your game: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/3662884583

2) A few drills in each category of play are free to everyone. Play these! They are legitimately challenging and interesting. Watch the white/black strength monitor to see how strong/not strong your moves are. Take back as many moves as you need to get a positive result. I played and replayed the Master Games drill (there's only one for free) because my endgame could use a lot of help. Try to do at least one of these a day: https://www.chess.com/drills

3) Watch the pros play on Chess.com! One cool feature is that you can guess the move while the professionals are playing their games, and then you find out immediately if you guessed right or wrong. Obviously, a lot of their play is above the rest of us, but you can feel proud if you get a couple right. Visit your main game board, which is automatically set to a chat option on the right (looks like a word bubble). The very next icon is a pair of binoculars. Click on that to see a list of active games being played by Grandmasters and International Masters. Click on any of these and try to follow along.

4) Lastly, make a ratings goal, and don't stop playing until you've achieved it. It's very important that this should be attainable in a sitting. Your current rating is 1382, so let's say you shoot for 1400, which is a rating you've had in the recent past. Once you've hit your goal, give it a rest for the day. Then choose another attainable goal the next day. Fight your way back up.

5) Several of your posts are negative against yourself ("I lost and I am not learning," "I've lost my mind," "can't beat my one buddy in chess," "losing...". Stop this. I've looked at your game history. You've got some wins and at least one draw mixed in to your overall downtrend. The next time you post something, I want to read about a win and about how you can get even better.

i am good 

Totally agree with "smattathias" in the previous post...Outstanding advice!

Same 

I think you have a lot to learn ...way too many positional and tactical errors . Idk where to begin with . I am not a huge fan of your early queen activity. Since you are an advanced beginner , you should play safe . Also , try to focus on activating the minor pieces first before the major pieces . Try to avoid letting your opponent have a tempo move. Also , you HAVE to stay focused and count instead of just playing intuitively all the time. It felt like you didn’t count the combinations well enough. Like how others pointed out that you could have won a piece . I don't think just playing puzzle rush is enough . You have to train your imagination as well. But ,the important advice that I will give is that try memorizing patterns for pattern recognition . Start it with memorizing all the checkmating patterns . It helped me a lot . When you already know the pattern, you don't have to calculate everything all the time  because you already know the pattern and the solution as well . And how to use puzzle rush? Not just solve puzzles ,but watch and repeat the solutions over and over again till it commits to your memory . Also, about your game, I think the main advantage your opponent had was the open file eyeing toward the kingside . A rook having an open file targeting a kingside is already a deadly idea . Try avoiding that . Sometines ,I avoid capturing pawns if it helps a rook to have open or half open file. It will allow more activity for the rook. Try learning the difference between bad bishop vs good bishop and bad rook vs good rook . Any bishop that is blocked by a pawn and not having a clear diagonal for future activity is bad bishop . Same for the rooks . Rooks are stronger if they are on semi open file or open file .                             

Here is a video that may help your tactics and calculation a lot :  https://youtu.be/EegZgFWxhi0