Where am I going wrong in my chess (Rated 1148)

Lately I feel like I have hit a peak in rating and I feel stuck frustratingly. I just played two of arguably some of my best games, and yet it felt like a struggle the whole way through. I felt I played the right strategies and ideas I needed to for the openings but I felt out of my league against my opponent. I just need some general advice of what I am doing wrong with my chess. Is it strategy, tactics, or is my play just so bad that I am breaking every fundamental rule of chess. I feel like I should at least be able to hack it with the 1400 players but its just overwhelming for me at the moment. The two games I am posting are 15|10 games. The first I played black with the Dutch defense and won because my opponent was in time pressure. The second I was white and I played against a French Defense where I  made an early e5 push (I'm not sure what its called) I have only started looking into the French and the Dutch so my theoretical knowledge isn't as strong as other openings I play so I think they better represent the raw chess player in me. Thanks in advance for any tips.

I mainly looked at the second game. Forgetting the intricacies of the French, if you go to the position after black's 13. Bc5 then the position is reasonably level for players of your rating. 

So I don't think you need to worry too much about the first 13 moves (which is not to say that they were perfect). 

After 16. ... b6 you play 17. Ke2 (see below).

I am not sure about Ke2. What worries me most is your comment about a pawn storm on the kingside. You just blocked your g pawn with Ng3. But moreover, what are the pawns and bishop/knight going to do. Without queens on the board you are simply not going to mate black quickly. You need to be thinking now about what sort of endgame you want to play. Would it be better to play Bd2 and then O-O-O? I think that is what I would do.

You agree that 19. b4 was a mistake and loses a pawn. 

The above position is after black has played 23. ... b5. Again you are talking about your kingside attack. Look - it is just not happening. Not now. Not ever!! Without queens you can forget that sort of stuff. And it is not the case that you are lost otherwise. You are a pawn down. Even at 1800 people can recover from that. Certainly at 1100 it is not a problem if you play well. But notice that whereas you have romantic ideas of a kingside pawn storm (probably because you watched too many videos by GM Simon Williams - who is wonderful by the way!) black is grinding  you down with simple tactics. Already black has won one pawn. Now he is threatening to play Nb3+ and win the exchange on a1. By comparison you are not threatening any tactics. Rather than a pawn storm you should be thinking about how you win that pawn on d4 which looks ripe for plucking. 

After 24. ... Bxg2 you lost another pawn. The thing about this one is that you saw it earlier and didn't even mind because you thought you could exploit the half-open g file. So now you are two pawns down and the game is slipping away.

The next position is after 29. h4

After 29. h4 you have pushed forward on the kingside. You have quite a nice knight on f6. But notice you are not really going to get anywhere. Meanwhile you have not put any pressure on that d4 pawn. And you have your own weaknesses such as the f4 pawn. I wouldn't play 30. Kc3. Firstly, black can play Rc8 and that is nasty. But also because of the worry about f4. 30. ... Ra4 is quite a smart move by black though. I am sure he was thinking about your f and h pawns. 

Now you are in a whole lot of trouble. You need to kill that pawn asap because the black bishop can cover the queening square on d1. However, even after you play 33. Rg2 black could just play Rxf4 and scoop up your kingside pawns, such is the weakness in your position. However, black's last 5 or so moves are exemplary technique. 

You lost almost every tactical battle in this game. 

How to do better? Well, tactics trainer on chess.com if you have access to it. But also I think you may be over-thinking things. Rather than going for romantic pawn storms you should be thinking about much more modest ambitions such as how can I win that d pawn?, where can I safely put my king?. how can I improve the activity of my pieces? I hope this helps. It's just my view. Others may think differently.

Thanks for sharing the game. I learned a few things myself by going through it. 

Just looked at the first game. You comment on some relatively unimportant decisions but don't comment on moves that turned the game. So first, try to figure what the critical positions /moves are that should have decided the game and what alternatives could have been played.

Here: 26. bc? loses the bishop AND: 33... Kg7? loses a full rook and should lose the game. Fortunately your opponent was careless and allowed you to mate him/her.

I just looked at the first game. I agree you played better. This is the position after white's 22. Qg4.

Again, you have done well. Material is even. The pawn on d6 is weak. And the knight on a4 is stopping you playing Qd7 (white exchanges queens and then forks king and rook). But your bishop on g7 could be good. 

However, 23. ... O-O is a mistake. As in the other game, a silly tactical oversight results in you losing a pawn. These are the things that matter, You could not play Qd7 as mentioned. But you could play Qe7 before O-O. I think, all in all, I would rather be black in this position. So well done! 

And in this position, 

well done for seeing that you could win a piece with Bf8.

White does well to push the d pawn again though. 

After 33. d6 you are in a bit of trouble. I would probably play Rd4. It could go 

33. ... Rd4 34. Rxd4 Bxd4 35. Rd1 Bd6 36. d7 Rf8 and I think you are ok. But this was a tough position. Especially if you did not have much time. However, 33. ... Kg7 was nasty and loses a piece (by the way, instead of 34. ... Rxd7 play 34. ... Bb6 and sacrifice your bishop for the pawn with the resulting position quite even). 

The end was a bit of a mess. White should have played 38. Ra6 (rather than Rh8+) when it is you not he who is in serious danger of mate (though I appreciate white was in time pressure). But well done for spotting your mating opportunity. You definitely played better in this one.

chess is 100% tactics

French Game: I hate to admit it but there is some truth to the GM Simon Williams thing haha. But yeah move 29 was pretty useless to me after looking at it, besides the other points I think I realize the flaw in the romantic chess play idea especially with the Queens off, I could have done much better if I pressurized the pawns. I agree that I need to work on Tactics but to what exent, what rating should I have just gotten to 1600 in the tactics trainer on here but I definitely don't seem to be playing that way with all your suggestions. How else can I improve them; should I not stop until I get to 2000 rating in tactics? Is it that over enflated? Thank you very much for you insight Corum

He's right, for us beginners trying to get an advantage by learning openings by heart is always tempting, but in the long run a better understanding of the game will pay more benefits.

One of the problem with low rated players is that they tend to focus too much on specific part of the game - most of the time the opening. And because of the fact they are low rated, they still make bad decisions even if they spend 30 minutes on first 10-15 moves.

Because of that, they fall apart at other areas, because is too much for them to properly see whole board and they tend to make moves quickly not paying much attention. They don't have the skills and stamina to hold whole game.

So what should do is make natural looking moves, develope, castle quick, dont move same piece twice, dont give pointless checks, don't plan too much just make a move, but look if it is safe.

I am ~1700-1800 and i can tell you chess is not about that much of strategy and positional understanding at that level and even above. It's all about tactics and patterns.

As you guys are discussing about the pawn storm and king side attack, I would like to give an example of my game that I played today. (both are 2k+ in 1 min blitz). As beginner , we all started attacking king with pawn storm but if we know how to attack then we dont need to push too much pawns to attack an opponent's king. 

that is not blitz. that is bullet Fyi

    As others have mentioned, don't play the Dutch until you reach 1700 or better.  Start out with the Queen's Gambit Declined as your first defense against 1. d4 and then after you understand the QGD, then you can branch out to the Grunfeld, Benoni or Dutch defenses. 

@OP

Hi there. As an experienced club player, I'll try to guide your thoughts in the right direction. Because what I see in what you wrote, is lots of confusion. And confusion in chess, has two sources: ignorance, and... stubborn ideas (or obsessive ideas).

I frankly hesitated to go through the endeavour of trying to explain you those things, but okay, I'll do it, because I've got with you in common, many many games I played with an early and irrelevant f4 with white. f4 looks great, but, alas for guys like us, it's not always the right choice, far from that.

In the French Defense (advance variation) you played, very soon, it becomes obvious your pawn on f4 is doing nothing to help you. And now, you might want to take a new look at your opening, and imagine what usefull move you could have play instead.

That being said, do you only know why anyone is playing a French Defense at all? As in, but where is it coming from? What is the core idea of it? And I'm asking you this question: how do you hope to counter the core idea of the French Defense, if you don't even know what it is black is trying to achieve?

Let me give you a starter: In the king's pawn openings, it is considered, since long time ago, that if black manages to push d5 without facing any real incovenience for it, black then equalizes. The very first and very natural attempt, will be, of course 1...-d5 immediatly, the Scandinavian Defense. You probably already know why that immediate d5 by black is not without problems for them. If not, you shall look up online, by googling it, and read a bit. Then as Scandinavian proved not satisfying, players also came with the ideas of supporting the d5 thrust by other means. As in, playing first 1...-e6 -French Defense) or 1...-c6 (Caro-Kahn Defense) or even other attempts such as 1...-Nf6 (Alekhine Defense) and 1...-b6 followed by 2...Bb7 (Owen Defense). Then you've got the many Defenses that delays d5 to much later in the game. But each of those set up have got backdraws, you're simply to know these "whys and hows". Or you're playing blind.

So, I advise you strongly to read about the ground ideas and principles of openings and defenses, so you know basically in what field you're playing, and avoid moves that are irrelevant to the position.

Good courage and good luck!

idk about that. He is 1200. I have been 1500 and i did not knew a damn about openings. 

From what i saw from his 2 games i noticed somethingis his game is chaotic. He has pieces all over the board including a king in the center. He likes to push pawns and weaken himself just like any beginner. He does not spot simple tactics, but is not that bad, and he makes 1 move ideas without checking next move of his opponent, or checking his other option if he has better move for that same idea,  because he is very limited in that area which is normal. He does not develop all of his pieces and he does not like to castle. 

Solution? Tactics. Lots of tactics. Watch videos of masters how they play with comentary and compare your own moves in mind - ChessNetwork and IM John youtube is excellent start. They will boost you in just a month you will know so much about chess than any opening study can give you.

I have played more than thousand of blitz and bullet games against 1000-1500 - and they all play ignorant, agressive, one move attacks. they often go for something, 2 moves later they forget about it or blunder something on other side of board.

They have wrong, very wrong understanding of chess, because they bad plans worked many times against other weak players. So they have bad habbits and carry them in every game.

hi Mechand. Well I would rather quote Tal and say its more like 99% tactics. But anyway. The problem is alot of things. Generally speaking it is just a lack of knowledge and then applying that knowledge.

Join my club/group. You can ask anything you want and I will give you access to my 15 years of coaching experience for free.

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Also check out my Youtube Channel. It has just started but You will get a great chance to see the fundamental basics of chess and see if you maybe missed anything along the way. First we clean up your current game and then we move forward to more knowledge okay?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwjjBT5pHEAaXl_hNblli1w

If your rating is that low then something is lacking with your board vision and tactical awareness. Strategy is not going to make much difference - if any.

Actually the games you posted aren't that bad (relatively speaking) - but hidden away in your game history are games that much better exemplify why your rating is down at that level with basic material drops, leaving pieces en prise and so on...

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