getting better at chess!
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Hello fellow chess players, I am a novice at chess, unfortunately. I feel like I could be an intermediate player, but I am trapped for I have an inability to blunder check and think through my moves after I lose. Yes, I get extremely tilted. That is not the point though. Can anyone give tips on how to accrue elo faster and not go on tilt or blunder check tips? Anything helps. Thanks
Well the good thing here is that you acknowledge what the root issues are. In terms of blunder checking, always look for the old adage of "checks, captures, and attacks" in that order. The important thing is to apply this to your opponents moves too, remember, chess is a 2 player game, they have a plan too. Before you make a move, look at what yours and your opponents threats are, look for what squares you gave up and what squares you gained. If everything looks good, do a final check to make sure you're not just hanging a piece in one move or allowing your opponent to create an unstoppable threat next move. This accounts for nearly all blunders. Chess is a game of one or two moves ahead until you get to an advanced level.
As for tilting, since you play rapid I would advise you analyze after every game, actually understand what you did wrong. There's no better learning than learning from your mistakes. If you make the same mistake twice, that's telling enough.
Play every game with the intent of winning and make sure to manage your time. You queued for a 10 minute game, use those 10 minutes. I see way too many people completely lost within the first minute or two and spend the rest of the game thinking about how to get themselves out of a mess instead of getting themselves in a good position and thinking about how to finish the game off. Also I would suggest not playing more than 3 games in a row. You're playing what are on average (let's say only half the allotted 20 minutes) 10 minute games at least. That would mean you're playing for, being conservative, 30 minutes and liberal, 60 minutes. Plus your post game analysis and whatnot could easily have you playing for 45-60 min. Playing and analyzing to improve shouldn't be easy. It should be semi-challenging which means you won't be 100% on your game for 8 games in a row (just judging by your past sessions). So you may as well quit at 3 and make those 3 games impactful. This way the worst case scenario is you lose 3 games and the best case is you play 3 games in good form and learn without destroying your mental or rating in the process.
Hope this helps