Losing every game played - an appeal

If any of you all are feeling particulary generous of your time and insight, I'd appreciate you having a look at my last 10 games (all played today, the 27th or yesterday), and telling me what I am basically doing wrong.

I don't expect an in depth analysis or anything. Just a general overview, if such is possible, of my overall approach, with some comment upon what is wrong.

When one loses every game over a 10 game period, against all ratings, something is fundamentally wrong, wouldn't you say?

I am not a beginner though these games may look like such. I have read books, watched videos, etc. on general chess openings, tactics, etc. I am not inexperienced.

Thanks in advance for any help, it would be greatly appreciated!

I agree with conehead.  I looked at one of your games and the problem was tactical vision.

I'm not sure what it means that you couldn't see this pattern on your own. I suppose we can be blind to our own weakness even when it's obvious to a stronger player.

Thanks. I think that was what I was looking for - just one thing that is at fault. And to Cone, I think we need to define what I meant by "beginner", or maybe I don't need to now, since you pretty much figured it out. I do have "some" chess knowledge, but yes! I have managed to almost completely fail at tactical vision. Is it possible that I am a person who simply cannot learn chess? Am I constitutionally unable to play this game?

I've always wondered if a person can have a love of something, whether that be playing a musical instrument, or learning a language, or wanting to play chess, and not being good at it at all. So I guess what most people do, if they find themselves in this situation, is to simply give up despite their love of it, and have to go on without it. Doesn't seem "fair" somehow. To really love something, work at it, and then find it is all to no avail regardless.

That's my sense of it. I got interested in Chess about 16 years ago and even had a chess teacher. Read the books. Did the excercises in Bain, etc. Analyzed my games. And it didn't matter, I still was not able to play and progress. Now here it is 16 years later and I thought, "I'll have another go at it". But, same thing. Garbage.

Oh I think you have it just right. Totally blind.

http://www.chess.com/tactics/

I would imagine some people just don't get chess. I mean how can some people play for 30 years, play 60,000 games and have never been above 1300(I played someone who said this to me, and I saw that they have played over sixty-thousand games on the site I played)? 

Dear CHZ, yes very good fellow with some very nice lessons! Thanks.

That isn't true.  Just because you have doesn't mean everybody else can.  And everyone reaches a plateau anyway (a peak strength) eventually.

And, like trysts says, there are some people who simply never do improve much at the game.  No matter what the time and effort spent is.

lol

Have you bought any pickles?

Maybe (given his name) he should be buying pretzels.

Well, you get out of it what you put into it... as cliche as that sounds.  I find it hard to imagine a person who has worked hard at important skills and not get beyond a 1300 rating (60,000 blitz games sounds terrible lol).

I think the primary reason people get stuck below ratings like 1300 is that the game as played at the 1300+ level, and the practice required to get there is not appealing to the person.  It's boring to work on endgames, or it's tedious to calculate all the time for example.

I saw one instructional chess video on youtube where the master had put his queen on an ineffective square, and the wasted tempo meant his position was now falling apart.  In the comments one person said "if this is how chess is played at the master level I never want to be rated higher than 1500 lol"  I think that's an interesting sentiment.

Actually, a lot of people do say stuff like that.  Also the ones who think that memorizing (or even reading about) openings dampens your creativity (like it's painting or writing poetry or something).  And how about the ones who think that taking a perpetual is wussy?  Or who would rather lose than get a draw?

FYI Pretty sure every good writer/poet is a voracious reader/stealer of ideas

no kidding 

To get better you should play some Online Chess.

Well, some interesting ideas and a few of the usual unhelpfuls. I think of all the replies the one that really caught my attention was that of Wafflemaster. After watching two of aw-raats videos on how he would go about getting someone to the masters level, wherein he describes all the stuff one needs to do in the way of study, analysis, excercises, etc., I realized, maybe for the first time in a deep way, that I simply was not motivated to do that kind of work! It does seem tedious to me. I think maybe I really don't like chess in its fundamentals. What I mean is that there are various aspects to the game, but the nitty-gritty stuff, which is just slogging thru the basics and the analyses and the excercises, is boring. And more than boring, some of it simply is not part of my mental makeup. In some ways chess is like puzzles. And I hate puzzles!

There may be a plateau, but it's not always clear what it is. It seemed like my plateau was 1200 at one point, but once I changed some things about my approach that wasn't the case anymore. I had a plateau in the 1800s for about a year and a half, after rapid improvement. I was still pretty serious about chess at this point. But then my drought suddenly started to break down, and the main difference I noticed (because I consciously kept telling myself to do this) was that I started to study the parts of the game I didn't want to study and started to appreciate them.

So for example I liked strategical games, and so I would read Silman and convince myself just reading the pages will make me better. And it did work up until around that 1800 mark. I would avoid tactics and tactical training like the plague, as solving them was just a chore that I sucked at. But when I was fed up with my 1800 rating, I did something you'd expect an opposite style player to do: do thousands and thousands of Tactics Trainer problems, evidenced by my plentiful comments on them. I worked on the stuff I was worst at, with a passion, pretending it was my favorite part of the game, rather than doing the stuff that made me feel like I was good at chess.

It makes sense to me: assuming the reason one loses games is because of a certain deficiency in their game, if you get rid of it or lessen that deficiency, your results should improve. Diagnose your weaknesses, and work on them dilligently.

And now I've started to see the beauty of tactics, so I think I have enjoyed and appreciated the game more as well.

Absolutely... you have to think your way through chess. You just can't develop that thinking process in Blitz. It takes time. Online allows you that time to analyze positions and threats. To sort through candidate moves.