As I think about it, I don’t consider candidate moves very often. I typically analyze what’s in front of me and make the best move from there. Your suggestion is very good and appropriate, and something I will definitely work on.
I’m grateful to you and everyone else who’s given me advice.
You mentioned that some of my opponents used engine assistance against me. What is that and how do you know that occurred?
You mentioned that some of my opponents used engine assistance against me. What is that and how do you know that occurred?
In your game history, if there is a red circle with a line through it (and a hover-caption of "Closed: Fair Play") it means their account was closed for cheating - usually done by consulting a chess engine (chess computer) and copying its moves, to play against you.
The chess.com website is pretty good at detecting this kind of cheating.
You lost two games on November 30 to someone who did this to you.
This also happened to you on two separate occasions in March.
The advise I would give myself if I was a beginner again would be to hire a coach at least for a while. They may find where you are making incorrect assumptions about your training. A coach for me would have saved me years of wasted training and mistakes.
Yeah, I saw those 11.30 games. What really galls me is my opponent was chatting with me about how good the game was as he was kicking me around the board!
My coach never reviews my games; just teaches tactics etc. probably not the best method.
Learn and practice a good opening. If you learn all the main lines and variations to it then it will help set up a good middlegame and endgame and will help make you less susceptible to blunders early in the game and will give you an advantage over your opponent. I play the London and I find it gives me control over the opening with less variations and I can play it against any black response. It also gives a less tactical and more positional game which is easier and simpler for me. Just find a good opening and learn it well.
I’ve said it before but I’m so very grateful for all the good advice I’ve received. Thank you all.
My coach never reviews my games ...
I would ask him to do so. Reviewing your games with a stronger player is one of the best ways to learn and improve.
And if he is unwilling or unable to do so, then I would strongly consider looking for a different coach ...
I've been playing two years and I still miss obvious tactics and hanging pieces even my queen. Until you stop doing that there is no point wasting time on anything else. A book is not oging to help you. Eventually I had to accept that fact I will never have the pattern recognition ability, or memory and spatial vision needed to be good. Most of us never will. I will be 600 for life and there is nothing wrong with that.
This player gained 400 points of Rapid rating in the last 2 hours. LMAO
Keep playing and try to have fun. When I first started I just played. No opening study, lessons or anything. Experimented with every opening move you can think of. Lost a lot, learned a lot, and had fun.
When it comes to online play rapid is the least competitive it has the smallest pool, full of new players and I'm a new account. I think I literally gained 200 points from a single game and one of my last few matches. In my opinion online Blitz is the most accurate representation of your chess strength. Rapid is for OTB.
The report is maybe 5 years old by now, but it showed 10|0 is the most popular time control.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/interesting-chess-data-time-controls-and-game-results
Rapid is likely the largest pool.
Blitz is not good practice for lower rated players because there is not enough time to check whether their opponent's last move gives away a piece, and whether their intended move is safe... and this is the most important habit to develop.
I bought Chess Tactics for students by John Bain on the recommendation of my instructor. After looking thru the book it seems like a waste of time. I know what pins, forks, skewers etc are. Any thoughts on whether spending time on this would be useful?
Well here is my suggestion giving your level and difficulties.
Chess is all about thinking, so it stands to reason you must adopt a very strict thinking process. This idea is usually overlooked by books etc, perhaps because it is so obvious!
A simple - and highly popular - thinking algorithm is the CCT system, for each move you have to make go through the CCT process. In order:-
C - look for any Checks on the board.
C - look for any Captures on the board.
T - access of any Threats.
You perform this thinking process first on your own colour then possibly on your opponents - you may have a checkmate or an overwhelming gain.
From this you will have a set of 'candidate' moves to consider, which may require deeper calculation or validation.
Sounds very simple - and it's quicker not to bother! - and many will say they do 'something similar' anyway, but most are delusional - you can check this by noting what error caused a game loss and lining it up with the a part of the process neglected, a very useful process on it's own as it encourages you to continue to practice.
As I said, sounds very simple but it will take months of practice for the whole process to be automatic. I suggest you start off by writing the above down on a card and reviewing before longer games. Playing Bots in this way might be initially better as you can give yourself infinite time to practice without any time stress.
You will not find it easy to stick to the method as it is very easy to get carried away with the game! Giving your level you should see positive results within a month. I would ignore all other forms of 'chess learning' till you ace this method and if you do try it don't complicate by 'adding extra things'.
Lastly don't play any games without a significant increment as it will trash this method during the learning process.
Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond
When it comes to online play rapid is the least competitive it has the smallest pool, full of new players and I'm a new account. I think I literally gained 200 points from a single game and one of my last few matches. In my opinion online Blitz is the most accurate representation of your chess strength. Rapid is for OTB.
The report is maybe 5 years old by now, but it showed 10|0 is the most popular time control.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/interesting-chess-data-time-controls-and-game-results
Rapid is likely the largest pool.
Blitz is not good practice for lower rated players because there is not enough time to check whether their opponent's last move gives away a piece, and whether their intended move is safe... and this is the most important habit to develop.
I doubt it still is. And rapid is absolutely not the largest pool. Look at it this way, the website doesn't even have a classical category for 30 mins. Thats because if you play on lichess, its all provisional accounts lol. I would say bullet and blitz have the most players and are way more competitive. Rapid is where everyone on this forums tells the noobs to play and it shows. Faster time controls are just more rewarding and people believe they have less cheaters.
For the 3 live time controls the average rating is below 800... beginners like longer time controls... the chess boom brought in a lot of beginners... there's no reason to believe blitz is the most popular.
Sure I prefer blitz, and I dislike rapid online, but that has nothing to do with what's most popular.
When it comes to online play rapid is the least competitive it has the smallest pool, full of new players and I'm a new account. I think I literally gained 200 points from a single game and one of my last few matches. In my opinion online Blitz is the most accurate representation of your chess strength. Rapid is for OTB.
The report is maybe 5 years old by now, but it showed 10|0 is the most popular time control.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/interesting-chess-data-time-controls-and-game-results
Rapid is likely the largest pool.
Blitz is not good practice for lower rated players because there is not enough time to check whether their opponent's last move gives away a piece, and whether their intended move is safe... and this is the most important habit to develop.
I doubt it still is. And rapid is absolutely not the largest pool. Look at it this way, the website doesn't even have a classical category for 30 mins. Thats because if you play on lichess, its all provisional accounts lol. I would say bullet and blitz have the most players and are way more competitive. Rapid is where everyone on this forums tells the noobs to play and it shows. Faster time controls are just more rewarding and people believe they have less cheaters.
For the 3 live time controls the average rating is below 800... beginners like longer time controls... the chess boom brought in a lot of beginners... there's no reason to believe blitz is the most popular.
Sure I prefer blitz, and I dislike rapid online, but that has nothing to do with what's most popular.
They haven't released a report in years but people's preference has been for shorter time controls more and more over time since. Many streamers have commented on the change so it would be curious to see. If most people truly like longer time controls classical will be an actual category on this website. But it would be silly for them to add that since almost no one would play it even if it was considered 20 minutes. Lmao. I come from liches and I could tell you most classical players are literally provisional accounts at my level. this is online chess. Blitz and bullet are preferred for an endless amount of reasons. And if we are talking title players especially super GMS bullet is the most popular and no I'm not saying that because I like playing it. I don't even like watching it.
Yes, experienced and good players prefer time controls like 3|0 and 1|0. Those are the only time controls I play. I played some rapid on this account but all of my games were either simuls or against friends / family / unrated etc. I don't play serious rapid games online against strangers.
But again, the vast majority of players are not experienced. The vast majority are near beginner level... and beginners don't like fast time controls.
Yes, experienced and good players prefer time controls like 3|0 and 1|0. Those are the only time controls I play. I played some rapid on this account but all of my games were either simuls or against friends / family / unrated etc. I don't play serious rapid games online against strangers.
But again, the vast majority of players are not experienced. The vast majority are near beginner level... and beginners don't like fast time controls.
So even you don't like playing rapid. But you have convinced yourself it's the most popular Because of a report saying 10+0 was the most popular 6 years ago? Do you know how much chess has changed since then? And do you know what was ranked right under it?
People don't change, not over 6 years, not over 6,000 years. People are people.
Let me also quote with Magnus the current world champion said on Lex Friedman not too long ago. " long time controls mask your deficiencies" he said classical chess is not how we should be deciding a world champion. And telling people they should play slower time controls to get better at Blitz is foolish and an outdated tradition. To get "experience" at Blitz you play Blitz. I play classical when I want to relax and do other things like watch TV at the same time. But playing too much classical is only going to make me terrible at Blitz.
Yeah, I can tell you're actually coolout, welcome back 
Let me also quote with Magnus the current world champion said on Lex Friedman not too long ago. " long time controls mask your deficiencies" he said classical chess is not how we should be deciding a world champion. And telling people they should play slower time controls to get better at Blitz is foolish and an outdated tradition. To get "experience" at Blitz you play Blitz. I play classical when I want to relax and do other things like watch TV at the same time. But playing too much classical is only going to make me terrible at Blitz.
Yeah, I can tell you're actually coolout, welcome back
Oh so you finally clicked on my name? Is this your 36th account? Still testing amd "experimenting "with the rating system? Lol.
Nah, I've slowed down on the accounts. Maybe one new one a year now.
Just glancing at a few of your recent games, I'd say you play quite decent chess. I would not feel discouraged, in your position.
Some of your opponents played much better than their ratings. A few of them actually used engine assistance against you. This, unfortunately, can leave you with the illusion that you're much weaker of a player than you actually are.
Though, judging by some of your blunders, I'm left wondering if you're aware of the concept of "candidate moves".
These are moves that you consider, when thinking about what to play.
Normally, casual players will look hard at a position, ponder the threats (or possible) threats that they see, then they will decide upon a move and play it.
But more experienced players tend to consider "candidate moves", which means going beyond that initial move and considering other options.
As a general practice, whenever I decide upon a move, I then force myself to STOP and then: look for A DIFFERENT move.
Or, in proper terms: to find another candidate move.
Try to do this on EVERY SINGLE MOVE, no matter how obvious the best response may seem. By doing this, it will force you to do two things:
1) It will force you to slow down - as rushing and playing too quickly is often the cause of many of our mistakes.
2) It will force you to reconsider, and to think about other options. This can help us break from from the narrow focus that we sometimes get, in some positions, that causes us to get stuck on only one single idea. Sometimes this means we keep trying to get the wrong idea to work. In many positions, we have to accept the possibility that this idea isn't correct, and to look for a better one.
In short: try to consider at least 2 candidate moves, every single time it's your turn to move. Make this a mental habit of yours. Stick to it. This will not turn you into a master overnight, but it can certainly be a step in the right direction, by giving you better mental discipline at the board. Hopefully, you'll find that some of your more simple mistakes will start to fade away ...