Be your own chess coach!!!!



Take your ten (or more) most recent losses and pick them apart. Try to find common threads. Are they all in the same opening, or a certain pawn structure? Do you enjoy speculative sacrifices too much? Are you fine in the middlegame but come apart in the endgame, or vice versa? Try to find prevalent patterns, and then you can try to fix them.
And don't excuse a game because 'it was a blunder and I'll never do it again.' Okay, sure, but WHY did you blunder? Was it overconfidence in a winning position? Did you get careless in an equal position? Was it pure blindness? If so, why? What were you thinking about instead? Most of my own blunders tend to come after I calculated for a long time, analyze lots of variations, and then I hang a piece. Opps. Okay, so how do I prevent that? I started doing a quick blundercheck after serious calculation and I improved greatly.
Once you have a rough answer, study your most pressing topic. If you keep losing to the London System, study some ideas, maybe play it as White in a few blitz games, and try something new. If you keep losing in the endgame, review some endgame books, study a few Capablanca and Rubinstein games, and then try your luck next time.
Finally, do what Botvinnik suggested and publish your analysis. Post a loss in hte forums with your commentary, where you think you went wrong, and see what others say. It's not the same as having a coach, but a fresh pair of human eyes can help. Good luck.

I don't have the book, but Dan Heisman has a book where he annotates his own games beginning when he was a low club player to master. He helps us see how his analysis improved along his climb up the rating ladder. I believe it's called The Improving Thinker or something like that.

The Improving Chess Thinker by Dan Heisman...
https://www.amazon.com/Improving-Chess-Thinker-Dan-Heisman/dp/0979148243/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522709956&sr=1-5&keywords=dan+heisman+chess+books
The Improving Chess Thinker by Dan Heisman...
https://www.amazon.com/Improving-Chess-Thinker-Dan-Heisman/dp/0979148243/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522709956&sr=1-5&keywords=dan+heisman+chess+books
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708101955/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review717.pdf
I don't have the book, but Dan Heisman has a book where he annotates his own games beginning when he was a low club player to master. He helps us see how his analysis improved along his climb up the rating ladder. I believe it's called The Improving Thinker or something like that.
Maybe: The Improving Annotator by Dan Heisman
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708234314/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review786.pdf
Maybe consider: The World's Most Instructive Amateur Game Book by Dan Heisman
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092834/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review872.pdfor
and/or A Fresh Look at Chess by Lev Alburt ("40 instructive games, played and annotated by players like you")
It's important to notice that the Hertan Hierarchy is only good for analysis. Don't use it during an actual live game.

It's important to notice that the Hertan Hierarchy is only good for analysis. Don't use it during an actual live game.
That's a helpful observation. Does Hertan provide a hierarchy list specifically for use during an OTB chess tournament game?
... Does Hertan provide a hierarchy list specifically for use during an OTB chess tournament game?
I imagine that FishEyedFools would be happy to provide some thoughts on the subject. It might be of interest to ponder this passage from HTRYC#4: "In the third edition of How to Reassess Your Chess, I gave a thinking technique that I had personally found useful over the years. ... However, the passage of time (which always brings new experience and insight) drastically changed my view about the practicality of any complex system of planning. ... Though I no longer have faith in convoluted planning systems, I have retained the firm belief that fully understanding the imbalances is 100% attainable for players 1400 and up. ..."
IM Jeremy Silman was writing about planning systems, but perhaps similar feelings would be appropriate for any general list of things to consider before every move.

It's important to notice that the Hertan Hierarchy is only good for analysis. Don't use it during an actual live game.
You are right. Playing with such a list in your head will just disturb. I think that good players have such "hierarchies" in their heads when checking candidate moves, although their "hierarchies" were acquired through experience (going through hundreds of games).

I cannot help you much as my elo is rather low compared to you, but I was given more or less the same advice by different friends of mine.
1-Replay the game trying to find your blunders or advantages you missed. Write down everything, even if you have doubts on some variations.
2-Use a chess engine to confirm or discover the missed points. Take the time to compare with your own analysis.
3-Identify the weeknesses in your game (doubled pawn, discovered attack etc.) and do some thematic training. If find this page very helpfull: Tactics Stats
4-Come back to thoses games after a while and try to remember major moves of the game.
My friends said this method should work regardless of the level.
I try to stick with it, and I must admit I slowly improved my game.

A decent computer and chess engine is not needed until very high skills. Just use any average chess engines to check for obvious tactical mistakes.

Here's a way. Pick your last game and re-play it from your opponent's view point, i.e. if you had white pieces in the game, consider yourself having black pieces in this replay. It generally works like a mirror and you get to identify your own strengths and weaknesses. Repeat the procedure for as many of your own games as possible in future. Good luck.