Targeting 1400

@ChessBoy513, Yep I meant the Knight - not the King, my bad. I updated the post.

Cool article

Game #4, White, 15 | 10, Loss:

Overview: I felt comfortable for the most of the game. Nothing too tricky in terms of positions until the end. My opponent played well and took advantage of my weak defense.

Chess.com is doing an outstanding job of promoting Chess world wide!

Game #4: 

Overall quite good, stayed pretty even until his final attack.  You still have much room for improvement in your opening (which we haven't addressed at all yet), you look like you didn't have a plan for the midgame, you're still not sure which exchanges are good, and you are wasting tempi, especially with queen moves, but that's all stuff a 1200+ player would be working on.

3. ...h6.  Does nothing, wastes a tempo.  Bad move.  You can take the lead in development.

4. c3.  Throws away the chance to take the lead.  Doesn't develop any pieces.Also, where is your b1 knight going to go now? 

5. d3  Allows the bishop to develop (or the b1 knight).  Perfectly good move, but d4 would be even better (prevent black's next move).

6. 0-0 Not sure if it's better than Nd1, Bd2, Be3

  Nd1 looks ugly, blocks your bishop.  The computer says it's OK, which is a bit of a mystery to me.

  Bd2 barely improves your bishop, blocks your knight, is generally lackluster.

  Be3 invites an exchange, which will leave you with doubled e-pawns and an open f-file.  Reduced king safety - this is your worst option of the four.

  O-O looks surprising: your whole queenside hasn't moved yet!  But it's a quite good move.

7.d4  Why are you trying to open the middle?  You don't have a lead in development!

10.  Nxe5  Do you think this exchange is worth it?  Advanced knights have given me trouble..

      First of all, It's an even exchange of material, so you asking the question is big progress compared to your game #1.  It's not so obvious, but it's actually the best move. Your bishop on c4 is under attack; you have to move it or defend it if you don't take the knight.  But if you do that, you lose the pawn on e4 (attacked by the other knight).  Taking the knight buys you time to do something about e4.  (11. Nc3, develops and defends e4.  Excellent.  Beware ...Ba5, though.  You're not done protecting e4.)

16.  Yes, good trade.

19.  alternative to g3:  Qf3.  Black still has (since move 17) a skewer that can win a rook for bishop, but it stops the mating attack.

Thanks for the review @nartreb!

Yea, openings are mystery to me now. Especially when black. Midgame plans are one of my weakest points, as far as I can tell. Very often I'm catching myself not knowing what I want to go for during this phase. I kind of wait for opportunities to present themselves (which is not great).

h6 is his move. c3 is kind of d4 preparation for me. You are right about the Nb1 though, later I wondered where to place it. d4 is auto move for me. Usually if I can win ground in the middle I go for it. Didn't consider who was in the lead at the time. Qf3 was better than g3 at the end, I saw that after.

Ok, so here is the situation.

In my last 7 games I lost 6. I'm constantly making blunders. Even if I'm ahead, I manage to pull something stupid and wipe out not only my lead, but the whole game. Now, right at the start of the game I already feel like I lost it. There's not much to analyze in these games, It's been so many mistakes and blunders at every stage of the game. I feel like I know the game better than before, but I play at my absolute worst. What do I do?

I`ve been in this situation many times. I played a lot between november 2018 march 2019. In the beginning I was enjoying the game a lot and playing lots of good games. But in the beginning I was just playing for fun, I didn`t care about rating at all, If I saw my opponent had connection problems I would offer a draw, if I lost I thought "oh well, doesn`t matter, chess is just for fun anyways, good game". Then it became an obsession, and I started studying and playing a lot. So much of my ego got tangled up in the game that I felt a bit nervous and uncomfortable playing because I was too scared to just play naturally. I wanted to win, I HAD to win, if i was on a losing streak I would just keep playing to "end on a win", the games were predictably horrible of course.

Chess isn`t a game where you can force anything, many times your opponent won`t give you any easy opportunities. It`s a bit like boxing, in that you can sometimes just go full aggro and bum-rush your opponent and land a lucky hit. But an experienced opponent is just going to smile, soften you up with a few jabs and wait until you tire yourself out, open yourself up, then they are just going to land a clean blow on your jaw. 

I decided to fire up a chess game again at the end of may, and I played well, I won. I didn`t feel stressed out. Every move followed logically from the next. My ego had been disentangled from the game during those months off. Now it`s starting to drift off to hazardous territory for me again. I`m playing too many games, not studying, not practicing good chess habits. 

Anyways, the point of my rant is that sometimes the best thing you can do is to just do something else to refresh yourself and reset your mind. If you want to do something chess related, fire up some tactics puzzles and don`t make a move until you are 100% sure of your calculation. Don`t just rush to look at checks, captures etc. Look at all the pieces, what are they doing? Which pieces are active, who has the safer king? What are the opponents threats? If they don`t have any immediate threats, how could they set up one? Take 20 minutes if you need to. Looking at chess positions without the stress of a clock ticking down and having to think about a win can teach you a lot. 

Sometimes though, you just need to force yourself to take a break, sometimes a day is enough, sometimes a week or more is needed. 

Your best bet is to master an opening, I suggest the Italian Opening, which you've already played in several games. The more you learn it, the more you can learn what to watch for, traps, etc....and you'll be at 1400 in no time. ( Trust me, Italian Opening is about all I know, and I'm at 1400, dumb as a box of rocks. If I can master it, so can you.) Reviewing a few of your games, I found the root of your problem is that your openings are not aggressive enough. Sometimes, you seem to have an edge on your opponent even, but don't seem to notice it. That's another trick to master....trying to see the big picture. It's difficult, because there's so much going on in chess. but you can get better with every game you play. If you win a game, figure out how you won it. If you lose a game, figure out how you lost it. A lot of blunders and mistakes are repeated blunders and mistakes. And never get too frustrated, very few of us are grandmasters. Stay focus on your goal, you'll be fine. 

Thanks for the advice @DaddyReza, @Giasira and @krazykat1975. 

I slowed down a bit. Still did some tactics though.

I think I put the pressure on myself by expecting to get to 1200+ rating on Rapid (because I got there on Blitz). However I'm not that better (if at all) than a 1000 rapid player. So I can't expect to win everything. Especially quickly. This numbers game is a dangerous thing.

well played

I'm only gonna give comments on the moves I think are very good or noteworthy:

14. Kh7 Why did you move the king? When making a move, make sure it does something, losing a tempo for nothing is never a good idea.

15. a6 I think a5 would have been better to take more space, besides, after b4 you could have played axb4 and keep a better pawn structure.

20. Bxd4 Good job, you found the correct move order, you know have a material advantage.

23. Qf6 You should have played Rb8 to take control of the b-file, having a rook and a queen waiting to infiltrate with a relatively exposed king is not good, also, by trading the rook and the queen (it is somewhat forced, otherwise you could trade a rook for his queen) you'll simplify the position and the extra pawn will be more relevant.

24. Rfe8 Again, you should have kicked out the rook or traded it in. 

27. Rxd6 This is why you should be careful with infiltrations, not only are you prone to checks and pins but the pieces of your oponent will be more active.

27. Bxf2+ You should have taken the rook, you are in a bad position, losing a bishop for nothing is not good.

30. Rd2 Losing a rook, gotte keep an eye on those pieces.

A few comments about the game. I didn't like the idea of pushing d5 so early. It's generally a good idea to maintain tension in the center if youre white and try to get more out of the center than you have. I didn't like your idea of shifting your queen to the q-side leaving the king to fend for itself. a check on a4 is rarely good if it can be blocked by the bishop. queen like to be on c2 in most d4 openings not in most e 4 openings. in e4 openings you will most likely(at your level) be trying to eliminate the f6 knight and then swing the queen to h5 or g4 or something. Try to attack with pawns on the king side also if possible. the queen is an important attacking as well as defensive piece don't leave it on a useless square like c2 where it only parks and hopes to find a role one day. use your queen very actively.

You could have played Re1 followed by d4. You had a roughly equal game but messed up in the end. You should have traded his attacking pieces(i.e queen trade).

Openings for white: d4, Reti opening ( Nf3). Openings for black: Sicilian (c7 pawn moves to c5, plays strongly against whites common d4 opening. Keep in mind if you play the Sicilian opening, your next move should be d7 to d6. This pawn will back up your c5 pawn, as well as allow your queen side bishop to move freely.) If you get time, check up on these videos on youtube. For white opening, look up King Indian Attack. For black opening, look up KIng Indian Defense. They're both brutally effective openings, good luck!!! 

Thank you all for the input!

@krazykat1975 For the moment I'm staying away from Sicilian as I hear there's a lot of theory behind it and at my level this isn't where I should focus. Of course if there's a good reason to try it I will.

Game #5: Black, 15|10, win (barely):

In short: I think I was way too passive in the opening and mid-game. My opponent took advantage of this and pressed me on my side of the board. Even though he wasn't too developed in the beginning, he was applying lots of pressure. Regardless that I "won" the end-game, for the most part I was behind and at times my position was one mistake away from a mate.

I don't advise you to play this variation of the berlin. Instead of 0-0 play d3 supporting your e4 pawn and preparing c3 to follow taking better control of the center aiming at d4 soon after transferring your knight from b1 to d2 to f1 to g3. From there you eye the f5 square and your 'spanish' bishop will end up at c2 after being kicked from its present position. from here you can make plans to attack the king but more likely it will be a long drawn out struggle between your struggle to capture the center and the opponents plan to gain queenside initiative and control of the c file.

I have studied this line. Theory begins at move 18. Also you only come into c4 when your opponent allows it. Much more often you come back to c6.