I am a noob at chess

yes I am

Forget about your rating. Enjoy this beautiful game. Pick a great player from the past, and play through as many of his or her games as you can. Buy yourself a beautiful chess set and use it to study those games. And then, you will see that as you fall more deeply in love with chess, and you begin to understand why your favorite player made this move or that move, your elo will rise.

For example, play through the Fischer-Spassky match. Or the first Tal-Botvinnik championship match. You will find yourself becoming totally fixated on the beauty of this game. You will then become hungry to deepen your understanding. Worries about your own elo will become a thing of the past.

Thanks @Antonin1957, I plan to go through Lasker-Capablanca, being that they are both my favorite players, however I was also interested in Fischer-Spassky.

I have also struggled with rank and points, being more important than the game. I think we all wanna be the best, but that also ruins the point. I often remind myself magnus loses, so no matter what we will lose..

I was afraid I would make a fool of myself when I started playing on this site. That feeling went away after I played 250 live games within a month.

When i returned to this site I definitely was afraid of losing rating, even had a lengthy break playing from playing rapid because of rating anxiety. That feeling went away when I started playing frquently again and gained almost 200 rating in less than 1.5 months.

The only way you will get rid of the anxiety is by playing more. You should play at least 10 rated live games per week at rapid or slower to progress. Its great that you study but without practice theoretical knowledge goes to waste.

Thanks @Gimfain, I see what you mean, I played 2 games last night and lost both + around 40 elo, however I didn't expect to win back to back games after taking a 40+ day break. I am going to play 2 more today so hopefully I at least get a win.

Don't compare yourself to others, and make sure to take breaks. I also got stuck at 1200-1300 for a while and my friends did surpass me but I focused on myself, took the game at my own pace, and improved to 1521.

I also slowed down during my games to look for checks, attacks, and hanging pieces.

Oh, hey, it's WarriorKnight.

I do that to @Sobrukai2, let's just hope I improve, glad to hear others were in my situation, and overcame.

It's worth caring about chess. 🙂

unless youre tryna be #1 on the leaderboard id definitely stop caring about elo, just numbers after all. no joke i used to care about my elo around like 700 bc i was tryna hit 1000 but once i started focusing on my openings, strategies, and playstyle more than numbers, i soon hit 1000. then once i hit 1000 i was scared to play bc i was scared to lose my rating i worked so hard for until i realized that the reason i even had those numbers is because i was putting myself into the mindset that they didnt matter at the end of the day.

no one likes losing of course, but with chess every loss is quite literally a learning lesson that leaves with you with just a little bit more experience and knowledge than you previously had(if you decide to take it as a learning lesson, that is.)((ANALYZE EVERY GAME))

besides if you play enough anyway youre gonna usually be where you need to be in terms of rating. if youre truly a 1200 rated player, youre most likely just gonna hover around that rating until you start incrementally rising through hard work and more games.

i promise you, you will see massive improvement once you stop caring about rating and losses and focus on consistency, patience, and self analyzing. goodluck !

I play in focus mode for the blitz games, so that helps me relax while playing. I do care about my rating, as it tells me when I have to focus more or take a break. By getting pounded and dropping over 200 rating points in the blitz 5 minute game I actually learned a few things and I'm slowly coming back up. It's okay to think about your rating, but not to the point that you stop playing. Pound on the weaker bots to rebuild your playing confidence. There's that old saying "Look before you leap." Best chess advice going.

Thanks @nothing, you're a good person, you to @JBarryChess, the advice is greatly appreciate I played 4 rapid games in the last 2 days, won 1 but I am getting back up there.

I am talking about my own rating, not my opponents.

Someone told me that no one really cares about your ratings except you. While probably not 100% true, it's a good way to look at it for me. If I study and play regularly my rating will eventually increase.

Ya

Worrying about your rating, especially an online rating which has little meaning and bears no relationship to ELO, is the road to ruin.

Just enjoy the game - your rating is what it is. I would actually rather lose an exciting game than win a dull one!