You suck badly. But a good book.
Paul Littlewood, Chess Tactics, (1984). Will boost your rating quickly.
I suck at chess. Bad.
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zborg: I'm not sure I understand.
Oct 25, 2014
0
#24
What do you think about using blitz chess as a poor mans tactics trainer? That's where I make all my truly stupid moves.
What exactly is Blitz Chess?
shadow23541 wrote:
zborg: I'm not sure I understand.
The Littlewood book will make you much stronger. 150 pages of small, bite-sized exercises for learning to win pieces, and NOT to drop pieces.
Simple way to improve quickly.
L.I.M., is there a timeless live version?
Chess sucks.
Put a 5 second bonus into your time controls, and play at any and all speeds, according to whim. Or continue to suck badly. Your choice.
I'm going to assume that you are not a little kid, so the chances that you will ever get instinctive enough about playing chess to play at a higher level is almost nothing. So you really shouldn't worry too much if you lose a few games. As long as you're playing against opponents who are more or less your level then you should win some lose some and get a small number of draws.
Plenty of people here they are advocates of the idea that you should play very slow time controls, probably because that's what they were told.
I go the opposite way. Baby steps and the energy of a child running around the playground (just as a metaphor) is the way to go. You can bet that all the top players started out that way. Once their enjoyment and talent was recognised they got given the chance to play slower games against stronger opponents. Not the other way round.
Yes, you will blunder games away all the time, but you will learn to recognise the blunder moves. After a while, you will recognise the blunders on the other side of the board, and that's how you win most of the games that you play at the sub genius level.
So let's try another metaphor. How do you learn a language? You can do it formally and slowly, but immersion is generally considered to be the best way.
So I say, play, play, and play some more. Don't try to overanalyse what you're doing and don't try to pretend that playing slowly is playing smartly.
There is no child learning language analogy there. Immersion language learning means that you live in a situation where the language is spoken. Think exchange student dynamics.
Personally, I don't think that online games that last for days are really games of chess. I mean standard tournament conditions are 120 minutes for 40 moves, that's 3 minutes per move.
And at that speed, mediocre players might look 3 or 4 moves ahead, strong players probably 8 and I think Anand was quoted at 16 or 17 moves. All that done without consulting databases.
To say that you understand chess much better when you are taking close to 3 hours per move is like saying that you are a good mile runner because you walk down to your mailbox and back every day.
astronomer999 wrote:
To say that you understand chess much better when you are taking close to 3 hours per move is like saying that you are a good mile runner because you walk down to your mailbox and back every day.
lol, nice analogy.
Although it can be good practice. Tournament chess isn't about knowledge. Knowledge is important, but the winner is the one who performs better. Correspondence chess isn't so much about that performance, but it's a fairly good way to increase your knowledge if you work at it.
To say that you understand chess much better when you are taking close to 3 hours per move is like saying that you are a good mile runner because you walk down to your mailbox and back every day.
Worst simile of the week award. 
Basically when you are playing bullet or blitz (5 mins or under), you'll be making random moves most of the times without seeing 2 or 3 moves ahead (at least that is what I do). So if you are planning to play blitz and you really want to improve at chess play the 10 min time control, that should give you enough time to learn to look ahead and predict your opponent's response.
Oct 26, 2014
0
#35
To say I understand chess at any level is to travel to the black hole in the center of the galaxy, because it just sucks.
Go over your games and see where you went wrong. Also study the games of Steinitz and Botvinnik. Try looking for self annotated games if possible, like Botvinnik's three volume set. For Steinitz self annotated is hard to find, so maybe Reti's classics (Modern Ideas in Chess and Masters of the Chessboard) and Kasparov's My Great Predecessors 1 will be a big help there.
DrSpudnik wrote:
No speed chess until you get better. If the game doesn't last at least two hours, you are moving too fast.
lol
Oct 26, 2014
0
#38
casual_chess_yo wrote:
DrSpudnik wrote:
No speed chess until you get better. If the game doesn't last at least two hours, you are moving too fast.
lol
Unintentional humor, I guess.
If you're lucky enough to be able to play and enjoy games that last 2+ hours at least once a week that will certainly help you improve.
Oonland: That's one of my main problems.. I can't seem to fix it, which is why I'm asking you guys for help.