I HATE my Rating

Feeling pretty discouraged just now.I don't think I will ever improve.

 

SOOOOO sick of playing this game and not feeling good at it. About the time my rating starts to improve even a little, it seems like I lose a game or several and.... I just get nowhere. Why am I so bad at this game. takes all of the fun out of playing to be honest. IF I am never going to be any GOOD at this game,maybe there isn't any point.

You will improve with time, practice, and play. The lessons, tactics, and puzzles will help. Hang in there!

I guess I would feel better about the whole thing if I could actually SEE the improvement, instead of it being this stupid roller coaster ride. Up and down all of the time. Like... sometimes it seems like everything is  clicking and I am seeing stuff and playing well and other times I make STUPID blunders. What gives? If my play were consistent it would make life much simpler. If I CONSISTENTLY played poor chess i would get sick of it and probably eventually give up the whole thing on the grounds that I will NEVER have a title to my name so I will never be worth anything at it. On the other hand IF I  played well consistently, I could at least hope to see improvement and continue to get better and maybe hope to actually be good at this game someday. As it is... i am constantly second guessing myself. Given that the ONLY real indication I have as to the quality of my play ( Or lack thereof) is the results I see... every loss basically seriously bruises my ego.

 

analyze tour games
i know everyone says this bit it's true

just last week i started every game i played with a notebook on hand and i would take notes, write my impressions, whatever as i played the game

after the game i would go over game move for move and give my thoughts/impressions even further

it is quite tedious- and after a few times i would refrain from this approach and play a few games as it is a lot of work

the thing i have noticed is one begins to see patterns in one's own play that is detrimental- it is here where we can begin to shore up our weak points

it is hard work so maybe set aside a few games a week to use this approach

but still go over all of your games win/lose/draw to find what is happening at critical moments- even if we are noobs and are limited in our ability to analyze

at the very least- this approach will keep us from going on tilt and playing several games back to back in the wrong frame of mind

best of luck

I have pondered studying some masters games... any advice as to where I would begin...HOW to I go about it, and WHOSE ought I to go over? FOR instance... there are those players whose games I admire and others who play a style of chess that would not interest me ( THEREFORE I doubt I would get much from their games) I tried running some tactics drills for a while, but that seemed to help me only so far. THAT is precisely the trouble with studying it and practicing. I am UNSURE as to precisely where I ought to devote my time. AND I definitely KNOW what Daxy means about playing several games in a row in a wrong frame of mind because this seems to happen to me every time after I take a hard loss. 

a book that is helping me is "logical chess-" by chernov?

it is basically the author's analysis of each move of some classic master games

the author's approach is what i strive for when i attempt to go over my own games

You must pray to Caïssa

It all depends on exposure to chess.The younger you begin and nurture it the better.Good memory helps.But then again there are some who never improve beyond a level even if they bend over backwards..lol.Can't do much about it.

I feel you. Ive had this feeling. just ignore your rating and play for the fun of it

Just do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I know its false

 

Play for fun, dont care for ratings.

Analize your lost games and understand where you wrong.

Play and make a lot of tactic trainer puzzles, really, are very usefull...trust me, very often a puzzle that you made days before...will be inside a real game.

If you wrong a puzzle...analyze it and understand for yourself the correct move.

Ignore all the above comments and please STOP playing chess today 

Excuse me? The whole point of HAVING this discussions IS that I don't REALLY WANT to give up chess.

I love how when I asked "how to get better?" all I got was vague "patience and perseverance" and 0 concrete explanation on how to improve. Well let me be an outlier, I'll tell you the 3 key things that boosted my rating by 500 points. Of course there are many more, but these are the three that I noticed did the most difference.

1. Never undervalue your pawns. Was a mistake of mine for a long time, I just sacrificed pawns for no reason, without any tactical incentive. Classic example - when a queen or a rook is aiming at your queenside pawn on the second rank and you operate on the king side, and let it slide, your opponent will take it to the endgame and decimate you. Of course as you improve, you can sac pawns for tactics, but at lower level it's not recommended, because often times you THINK that you see a tactic, which in reality can be disputed with a simple move or two. 

2. Learn all there is about pins. At the higher level play there are always pins involved, and many tactical opportunities along with them. For a while after I learned about the pins I was still missing half the info, because a pin to me was vertical, and it took a while after I realised that you can do the same diagonally, and I don't mean pinning the queen and the king with a bishop diagonally, no, that's easy, I mean pinning the pawns diagonally. Set up your bishop on the other side of the board and operate right in front of pawn wall that defends the king, and pawns cant take you, because they are pinned. Tough to explain in words, that's why for the number 3 I'll use a chess game.

3. Set up outposts. Opportunity to do so doesn't appear often, but when it does, you must take it. Outpost is usually a bishop or a knight into the enemy position (5th, 6th and sometimes 7th rank) that cannot be attacked by their pawns, and preferably be defended by one of yours. Example: 

The bishop is planted firmly into opponent's ranks with no possible way to move it from there, unless they want to sacrifice material (rook for a bishop). Outposts may initially not seem like great moves, because they might not attack anything right away or seem misplaced (it seemed like that to me, because I am a tactical player and always looking for action), but trust, medium to long term, it will disrupt your opponents plans for counter attack, piece rotation and sometimes even defence. I was a tactical player all my life (that's why my peak tactics rating is 2300, but peak blitz is barely 1800), but in order to improve, you gotta know your positional game, so if you're like me in that regard, study the seemingly boring structural play, openings and endgames, and you will see the improvement yourself.

Best of luck.

@Cjx and gum- How do I avoid DOING that because SOMETIMES I see what I have done the second after I move and am sitting there FUMING at myself for it. Is it that I am tryng to make my moves to quickly?

 

ETA- I DO notice that those are more prone to happening when I feel crunched for time ( Not by the clock necessarily but by other circumstances.

 

Your rating is very good.

Oops,sorry.. continue playng,it was only a prank.

At your level, you will see the most improvement from tactics.  At that level, you're blundering pieces all the time, and so are your opponents.  If you start taking a few more of the pieces your opponents blunder, and blunder a few less of your own, you'll start to climb the rating ladder; tactics alone can get you to 2000, although by the time you're hitting 1200 you may want to begin paying attention to some positional factors.

But there's not much point in trying to figure out positional factors when you hang multiple pieces every game.  You're not likely to pick up much from master-level games if you're constantly overlooking threats.

Here's something you could do, though.  Before every move, consider the following:

1. Is my opponent threatening any of my pieces?

2. Does my opponent have the ability to put me in check?

3. Does my opponent have the ability to threaten any of my pieces?

4. If anything in 1-3 is true, does it create a threat that I cannot defend against, or that will significantly weaken my position?

5. Am I threatening any of my opponent's pieces?

6. Do I have the ability to put him in check?

7. Do I have the ability to threaten any of his pieces?

8. If anything in 5-7 is true, does it create a threat he cannot defend against, or that will significantly weaken his position?

 

Often you can ignore your opponents threats, but you should be aware that they exist and not be surprised by them.  Often your potential threats accomplish nothing, but you should be aware of the potential in case the position changes such that they become useful later.

 

If you follow those steps on every move, it will help you improve.  That alone won't take you to 2000, but it should easily push you past 1000 and help you get set up for future improvement.

 

Another thing you can do is lots of tactics puzzles.

When I first started playing on this site, I had a couple friends that would play on the 3 days/move setting with me. Non-rated instructional games.  After each move we would chat about threats, etc.  It helped my game a lot.