how do I improve

I'd recommend you read the book, Back to Basics, by Dan Heisman. One of the best books for going 1200+ and quickly reaching 1500-1600.

revise forks and pins and other tactics. these can catch opponents at your rating off guard. focus on attacking weak squares and pawns and attack the king. at your level people give away free pawns without their knowledge for example. 

white is a pawn up.

Pushups, situps, and plenty of juice.

forks are very common look for this pattern. especially against people who don't know what they're doing.

explain. there are better but he's 1000 rated not 2000 rated.

Actually white is not a pawn up, but rather in an inferior position after the typical 8...Nxe4.

Yeah, sorry to say that black is obviously better in that example (post #3).

Move the white pawn back to c2 and it's not bad though.

Yeah, at that level people also think they get free material because they just calculate 1 move ahead.

As you can see, chess is rather difficult.

I

i've edited it thanks 

^

(1) The advantage is even greater than before, since white played the horrible Qe2 move. 

(2) No offense to gingerninja, but you should know what you're talking about before you post. There's an engine you can check with attached to the diagram.

He also said that one the moves I made in my last post was an obvious mistake, thinking that I just hung something in one move, not seeing a multi-move sequence that saves the piece (that I didn't play in the game). One of the few kinds of things that annoys me... 

The basics of each phase of the game

Opening:

Follow the Opening principles:

1.      Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5

2.      Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key

Ø  Complete your development before moving a piece twice or starting an attack.

Ø  Move pieces not pawns.

3.      Castle

4.      Connect your rooks

Ø    By move 12, you should have connected your Rooks, or be about to do so.

Middle game:

When you have completed the Opening Principles, you are now at the middle game.  Now you need to formulate a middle game plan.  The middle game is a very complicated part of a chess game.  A simple way to develop a middle game plan is to perform the following steps.

1.      Scan your opponents 5^th, and 6^th ranks (3^rd, and 4^th if your black)

2.      Look for weak pawns, and or weak squares.

Ø  Weak pawns and squares are Pawns, and squares that cannot be defended by another Pawn.

Ø  Knights are excellent pieces on weak squares.

Ø  When deciding on weak squares, and weak Pawns to attack, the closer to the center the better

End game:

Start with the basics:

1.      Learn basic mates – KQ vs. K, KR vs. K, KRR vs. K

2.      Learn Opposition, and Key Squares

3.      Learn basic King and Pawn endings

Pre Move Checklist

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.

2. Look for forcing moves: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board.

3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.

4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.

5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"

for my post on winning a pawn i did that one quickly if i looked at that for a bit longer i would've seen my mistake. i based it off a position i reached in this game.

just to clarify i would've seen it if i was bothered to look at it for a minute.