Improvement

I dont claim to be a good player but I have been in the 900 region for 5 minute games for what seems forever, no matter how often I play which can be up to 10 or 15 games a day I dont seem to get any better.

I have reveiwed games and can see where I went wrong at the time but games are never ever the same !!

Maybe I should just give up, its very frustrating.

I dont want to stop playing but it is getting to the point where I cant see any reason to carry on without just accepting that I am destined to stay at the 850 to 900 mark for the rest of my life !!!!

Sorry ! this is more of an agry rant at myself than anything else, I am going to go and do something else for a while and calm down.

Sorry

just practice

I would urge you to play slower games. In particular, I would recommend Online Chess, where the games are played one move at a time.  Take whatever time you need to study each position _before_ you make a move.  The "Analysis Board" is very helpful for playing out different outcomes of different moves, so you don't need to do it all in your head.

Also, there are some wonderful training resources here on chess.com; I would recommend Chess Mentor -- there are lessons at every level of expertise.

Let us know how it's working out!

I hear you! I looked at your last half dozen games and I see few things. Firstly you're leaving pieces hanging fairly often. Everyone does now and then but when you do it a lot that's gonna hurt! The best recipe for that is to do two things: before you actually make the move always do a quick scan for anything that's in the line of fire, and secondly to start doing some tactics puzzles. The tactics trainer here is good, and there are other sites on the web that offer tactics puzzles too. Once you start doing a lot of them you start to build up a sort of sixth sense for hanging pieces. An example - in your recent game with bond7 when you did the queen trade, if you took the knight first you would have gotten it for free but when you took the Q first the knight escaped.

Secondly, you seem to move a lot of pawns in the opening which makes the area around your king look like swiss cheese - lots of lines of attack for your eneny. Plus in a couple of games you seems to have no regard for your king safety - trading off everything (pawns, pieces) on the queen side of the board, leaving your king in place, nekkid as the day he was born, with no chance to castle and then the enemy queen waltzes over and starts putting the boots to you. For learning the "elements of solid position" you should play some slower games, think about what is open/hanging and going to be open/hanging. Plus watch some videos on youtube about opening principles, or hit the library!

Good luck!

Good advice all around, Metastable.  Following up on your helpful comment that "before you actually make the move always do a quick scan for anything that's in the line of fire," I would offer a simple thought process that I try to do before every move.  When considering a "candidate move," I ask myself:  Would this move expose me to a (1) check, (2) capture, or (3) threat?  If the answer is yes, then I need to look closely at how that check/capture/threat can be dealt with. The original candidate move may still be the right move to make, but going through this mental discipline before every move means that there will be fewer surprises.

In chess, as in travel hotels (borrowing Holiday Inn's excellent tag line from a few years ago), "the best surprise is no surprise"!

Thank you all very much, you are all very helpful.  I will take it all on board.

Again, thank you

One thing that really helps is to find a mentor/coach. 

This can be done by hiring someone but you can also use a player to help in this as well. I would suggest picking 100 games by morphy and play over his games. get used to how the pieces are moved, where they go, how they interact as  team. Notice are they defending or attacking the center or squares around the king? Are they creating pins or simple attacks?. Train your mind to see good moves.

follow these simple guidelines and reinforce them in all your games. 1. improve my pieces 2. fight for the center 3. keep my king safe.  

Study a simple opening like the scotch and play it a lot. Play 5-15 min games if possible in it for several weeks. study the games with a friend or computer and look for major errors. Rinse and repeat. 

Tactical mistakes. Play games and focus ONLY on this. every move ask what did my opponent attack. Do NOT rush your response. if you lose on time so be it but try to eliminate simple dropping of pieces.

Study a TON of tactics. get bains chess tactics for students from the library and read it over and over until you can see each answer instantly ala multiplication flash cards. NOT figuring them out but instant recognition. When working on the tactics trainer the same way. 5-10 seconds get an answer and move on, over and over. if your not getting that instant recognition stareing longer is a form of cheating (like counting on your fingers to figure out multiplication) you look at the answer then start again. 

I would suggest not playing 5 minute games ever. Or at least until you're having a hard time remembering being in the 900-1000 range. IMO, 5 minute per side chess is for people who've long passed the basics levels. Play 15 minute per side, maybe with a 5 second increment. 2 games a day, and review them, win or lose. Be able to say.."ok, right here, move 14, that's when the tide changed. The opponent noticeably got ahead right here." Pretty soon you'll be saying that was when you got ahead. At 5 minutes per side you're just  making legal moves, you don't have time to think about them. Think about it!

I disagree, The normal mantra is blitz is bad for chess . Granted if that is all that is played yes it can lead to superficial play. The other interesting point i find is that ALL good players I have ever talked to they all said the samething "I played too much blitz" Interesting how ALL good players played a lot of blitz...

the benefits of blitz ,.. 

teaches a lot of tactics which is critical in the beginning steps and punishes mistakes if games are reviewed just for tactics they can show you a lot of your weaknesses and where to focus your attention (are you missing knight forks? Bishop forks? pins?  etc

it keeps the "fun" in chess and motivation

Key in chess is pattern recognition and LOTS of it. 

but again its a balance LONG games are a must i would say 30 min games are better and REVIEW them with a player thats stronger by 400 points than you. (or a good teacher that is stronger) focus on 1-2 move tactics dont worry if you miss something that is 5 moves deep for now. 

Dont skip around on openings, play the same ones and study typical tactics that arise out of them for both sides. if you get into a bad position time and time again study or make a forum and ask where your mistakes are. Remember to always Ignore trolls