Serious help for a beginner needed!

Hey everyone, I'm a bare bones beginner and I keep getting beat down and I'm starting to become a little frustrated. I have a problem seeing multiple moves down the road and instead just tend to get caught seeing pieces individually. I keep practicing the tactic trainer, but it just doesn't seem to help.

I played the computer on the chess.com app as white with the computer at 3 second strength. By move 8 I'm put on the defensive and it is downhill from there.

Any advice on how to see the complete picture better or what I can do to strengthen my game. I'm kinda ashamed that things aren't clicking yet for me.

Also, here's my last game that motivated me to ask for help.

[Site " Chess.com"]

[Date "2012.11.20"]

[White "fenrisbane"]

[Black "Comp"]

[Result "0-1"]

1. c4 e5

2. Nc3 Nc6

3. g3 Nf6

4. Bg2 Bc5

5. e4 O-O

6. d3 d6

7. Nd5 Be6

8. Ne2 Ng4

9. O-O Bxd5

10. exd5 Nxf2

11. Rfxf2 Bxf2

12. Kxf2 Nd4

13. Nc3 c6

14. Kg1 Qb6

15. Be3 Rab8

16. Rb1 f5

17. b4 f4

18. gxf4 exf4

19. Bd2 f3

20. Bh3 f2

21. Kh1 Rf7

22. Be3 Rbf8

23. Qa4 f1=Q

24. Bxf1 R7xf1

25. Rxf1 Rxf1

26. Kg2 Re1

27. Bf4 Ne2

28. Qc2 Qg1

29. Kh3 Nxf4

30. Kh4 g5

You played relatively well up until 19. Bd2.  In that position, a much better move would be Bf2 blocking the discovered check on your king when black moves his knight.  It seems that you lost mostly due to passive play, only responding to black's apparent kingside threats after his two-pawn attack (which didn't really exist).  You're defense should have been to make threats and retake the initiative.  Simply by playing moves like Na4 attacking the queen and preventing the discovered check with Bf2 would allow you to maintain and advantage.

Thanks ibastrikov! I really appreciate you taking a look at my game for me, I went back to move 19 and replayed it from there and I feel that I did much better. I still lost, but I didn't feel as much pressure and I was not scrambling in response to black's moves as much. 

Are there any other kinds of things I should be doing to play better? I'm superficially rated at 1300 on here for live games, but thats because one nice opponent decided to coach me into check and another just blatantly timed out/quit on me. I feel that I am much worse than what that says about me. 

Keep practicing tactics and also read Silman's "The Amateur's Mind."

Check out Novice Nook articles by Dan Heisman. He's an excellent teacher. Read his stuff on his work on safety.

Hiyas, well - watching the chess videos here should help you.

With regard to your game... Tactics means that you actually see a combination when it's on the board; this is very important, but most of your rating level is determined with how you play when there is not a combination on the board YET: you have to increase your chances that a combination will occur.

You can do that by making all your pieces as active as possible, with as many forcing moves as possible (threatning something means usually that you have moves that let your opponent little choice, like giving check, or taking something (even if it's sacrifice)). Never execute a threat unless you finally have that (material) winning combination ;).

A few simple basis rules for the opening: Develop PIECES, not pawns. Develop/use ALL your pieces. Develop the piece that is least developed first (that is: make a plan where you want your pieces to go to; which is a balance between how good they are once they get there and the number of moves you need: less moves is good too ;). Then start with a move that makes the longest sequence of moves shorter. This can even be moving a knight back to reposition it, or moving a pawn to make way for a bishop, or moving your queen in order to castle or connect your rooks, or moving a piece just to free up that square for another piece that needs the square.

Roughly, bishops are good when your own (center) pawns are on different color (or at least if they are on the other side of the pawn chain), knights are better when they are on the half of the board of your opponent, preferably in the center or close to the enemy king, and rooks need to be connected, on open files and ultimately go to the seventh row.

Also, your pieces have to work together, which means that they should attack the same squares: then you can put something on that square and have that piece threating more by being there - while if your opponent exchanges it, they just lose a tempo cause you develop a new piece to that square. Therefore, also, don't exchange anything in the opening (unless you actually win something with it): get more pieces involved instead. Collect tempos. Once you have enough tempos, and your opening is finished, then you can start to move ahead with pawns: put stuff on advanced squares that you have been attacking multiple times and move forwards.

So... I think that your first not-so-good move in this game is e2-e4: it doesn't help you to develop a PIECE. It blocks your bishop on g2 (you make it a bad bishop by putting a center pawn on a white square) and you make d4 very weak, while that was the square that your opponent was going for already, allowing him to put a knight there. Then later you take a pawn exd5, why not cxd5 towards the center? The more center pawns the better. This allowed black to start the advance with his f-pawn that later destroyed you.

In my own opinion, the natural playing strength of a player lies in his/her ability to see threats before they happen. Training methods aim toward increasing your ability to recognize various threats, wheter it's for tactical, positional, endgame, or opening.

So if you really want to improve, my suggestion is you need to understand how you see threats, or why you miss them.

You say you're a bare bones beginner. Just how bare bones is that? A week? Month? Year? How many games have you played? Under 100 or under 100?

The problem with studying chess is that it's unlike studying anything else you've ever undertaken--apart from a musical instrument. If your task in school, for instance, is to master quadratic equations or the causes of WWII or the process of cell division, well, there's a specific body of knowledge to be studied and mastered. You know just where it is, and you know what needs to be done to "conquer" it.

With chess and music, though, the rules change dramatically. If you want to play "Fur Elise" on the piano, you don't just go from nothing to studying that piece exclusively. There's fingering technique, scales, note-reading, chords, beginner's etudes, etc. etc. that must be tackled before you even THINK about playing a classical piece.

Thus it is with chess. There are opening principles, strategic considerations, tactical shots, endgame finesse and much much more. Basically what I'm saying is that there's no point whatever in getting frustrated this early in the game. You've got hundreds or thousands of tactical situations to practice and solve, hundreds of games to lose, scores of videos on chess.com to watch before you can even think about saying you're not making progress.

Focus on having fun, enjoying chess, savoring your victories, and learning from your mistakes. Then come back in a year and complain that you're not making progress. I doubt you'll have that problem.

Good luck.

Aleric17 - good practical advice in your post but would you please include some paragraphs next time ?

Fenrisbane, I see that you've belonged to this site for only two weeks & completed five games, so it might be a good idea to give things a little more time ?  You have two open Turn-Based (Correspondence) games in progress - do you find that you make better moves when you have more time to think ? - because that might be the answer.

lot of good advise; Dan Heisman is very helpful and open with learners; also Jeremy Silman's stuff is excellent...I'm going through his "Reassess your chess" right now.

First of all, it's really hard for me to play against 3 sec/move computer. It's hard to sit and think while my opponent responces almost instantly. I belive you should reduce computer strength but allow normal time control.

Next. English opening? A common advice for beginners like you and me is to play central games, e4 or d4. They are more natural, it's easier to understand what's going on.

Next. 5.e4? You can't protect d3 and d4 with your pawn any more. This squares will be targets. d4, for example, is a nice place for black knight to be at. Move 5.d3 looks better for me.

Next. 6.d3? Look at the board after this move. You made FOUR pawn moves while black made ONE. You activated 2 of your pieces while black activated 3 and castled. You're white and you're down in development. I believe you should move your king's knight instead.

Next. 10.exd5? Black bishop looks at f2. There's black knight on g4. Black's going to atack your kingside and you move your pawn away. 10.cxe5 is better, I think.

I didn't look for tactical tricks. Just the moves I dislike with first sight, so I may be wrong badly.

I was always told to avoid playing the computer (though, like everyone here, I like a little computer chess).  I find that I do better when I try to follow fundamentals (control the center, develop pieces, king safety) than when I get caught up in winning.

I find tactics trainer good for developing vision.  YMMV.  I might recommend poking around the forums here for some recommendations on a good first book to work through.  A lot of people have recomended Cheng's Practical Chess Exercises as a good beginner book and I found The Idiots's Guide to Chess Openings (which I saw recommended here a couple of times) to be pretty helpful.

Chess Mentor on this site is great too.

Thanks stephen... I editted my post and added a few new-lines .

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=404041533
I don't know if this will help, but i played a really good endgame 

Wow, I went away for thanksgiving and did'nt have time to get one here and when I get back my thread has blown up! I really want to thank everyone for their time in responding here trying to help me.

Yes, I have only been a member here for a few weeks, the chess bug has just hit me recently and I've been doing my best to play and learn as much as I can. I categorize myself as a barebones beginner because I havent played in almost 20 years or so and I've never really been able to get much beyond control the center, this piece does this, and try to checkmate. I noticed a deficiency in my ability to see tactical situations beyond 1 or two moves at the most, and I find it difficult to see mate situations.

I do think slowing down and taking my time does help quite a bit, but I still feel like my mind gets blurry when I try to see what happens next and encompassing the big picture without taking a considerable amount of time.

I understand the idea that it's still fairly early in my education, but it's just frustrating that some people who do not actively play can easily see more than I can. Would it be beneficial for me to employ a weekly chess tutor? Also, to whomever recommended amateurs mind, I will look that up asap. thanks