Keep playing. Ever hear of an "Aha Moment"?
Edison believed in perseverence - he invented thousands of light bulbs that did not work.
That's the trick - take a break. Go do something else - take a walk, fish, read a crime novel.
Einstein pondered things while he slept - and woke up after dreaming one night and crafted the theory of ralativity.
Believe in yourself - whether you think you can or think you can't you are right! I bet you can improve
How do you know when to give up and just accept that you aren't any good at chess, and probably shouldn't waste any more time on it? I'm trying to get better, but lately it seems like I'm regressing and playing worse than when I first started.
You've been a member for six weeks! give yourself a chance, usually a three year apprenticeship in this game (it's complicated).
same problem here. I just enjoy to play and not try to be the best anymore
Well, I'm not expecting to be the best. Right now I feel like half the time the person on the other end is sitting there laughing, going "What is this idiot doing?"
Play a computer - Target has a Fritz engine chess game for like 5-10 bucks. If you get stuck it can give you a hint - but more importantly it saves your games and you can play them back and see where you may have missed something. You can load up that game at that point, then play from just prior to your mistake and go a little further.
I have been playing since Christmas, 2008. I am terrible but the mental challenge of the game is great. The stories of players are delightful, this site is great, and there is so much to read and learn. Take delight in the learning and set incremental goals for yourself.
I took a tough rybka chess engine up to 20 moves today. I still lost but 20 moves is the best I ever extended a computer. Keeps me going -
One thing you could do is slow down a little bit. your ave time per move is at 33 minutes. Do you never leave chess.com?
Dont be so disheartened. I think all chess players come to a point wherein things aren't going their way. And the thing that helped us keep on moving and overcome this misfortune is the love of chess and we keep playing. By the way, as i have read, the more mistakes you make, the more you learn. =)
Bruiser, you have to make it fun. If you lose, find out why you lost. You may have fallen in a known trap or overlooked some combination. Try to annotate yur games and put them in another forum here under game analysis and someone will comment on it. Play over your games and try to find the losing move. Try to recognize good moves from bad moves. Check with opening explorer and see what the "book" moves are. Put your games in a file and look over them periodically, especially your losses. Sooner or later you will have less losses and more wins. Playing chess is a matter of experience and pattern recognition. Look at chess books or databases. Pick only 2 openings as white and 2 openings as black and try to know them as well as possible. Study master games if possible, especially if they have notes to explain the moves. Above all, make it fun. Even if you lose here, you may still be better than 70% of the rest of the chess players. My best recommendation is to study traps and miniatures - games less than 20 moves. From them you get mating patterns, combos, sacrifices, and what works or not. Soon, you will be creating your own chess miniatures.
If chess is not fun for you, then yes, you should better give up. It's not worth pursuing something you don't enjoy.
If you've got better things to do with your life, get on with it, but it's not like you ever forget how to play.
Perhaps it is your measures of success as well - set out to learn something or try something new. If you accomplish that you had a good day.
I love to fish - one day last November (in the Northeast US) I went Bass fishing. I knew the water was too cold, the weather wrong, my ability to get deep enough compromised. I still fished and had a ball. Doing what you love is sometimes reward enough.
Couple of thoughts for you (maybe more, we'll see):
1) I appreciate your frustration, I feel it everytime I make a stupid move and give away a game by blundering away say my Queen. I do that less often now, but there was a time I thought about quiting and not putting myself through the effort to improve. I learned that to get better, improve that is, frustration is to be expected as few of us are actually naturally gifted at this game.
2) Is is worth it to you? I can not say, but "nothing worthwhile in life is ever easy" I would quote to you, not to preach but to encourage you not to quit. Do not quit if you even think that you like this game, it is well worth whatever effort you can devote to improve your play and it will help you in life in ways that you can not know otherwise. Are there more important things in life, yes of course, take the balanced approach and you will find pleasure, not torment.
3) This is the best site to learn and improve that I have found, it is friendly and a comfortable place to play, find a group of likeminded players and give it another go, just remember to take each loss as a lesson to be learned from and dont be too hard on yourself. Take each win as a lesson to learn from and dont let your head swell too much, enjoy the wins yes, but enjoy the losses to, this game has far more to offer than simply winning and losing.
3) There are ways to improve systematically and efficiently, if you apply yourself. They are here on this site for free, or minimal investment, how much if any you want to improve is up to you. Best Games to you.
YOu shouldn't feel that way, knowing there are even more people worse than you.
Bruiser, chess takes time. In most circumstances, it is like golf, you can't pick it up right away and be good. I am not good, and have little success, but I love it because chess is the ultimate game. My advice to you, coming from a new player is to play games that give you longer time to move. Don't expect to be new and be able to beat people at blitz chess. When you get comfortable in strategy, then you can play quicker games. That is what I intend to learn.
Stick with it. Your\'re already better than the average person in our country, most don't know even how to play, other than where pieces move. Good luck!
When to give up?
Never!!!!!! Everyone has a time in life where one think is incapable of fulfiling a goal, but is not that you are realy uncapable, its just that you need and you will take more time than what you expect to fulfil that goal; The key is to never give up and always keep coming back!!!
Life is great is realy amazin; Is just that it isn`t too easy
Sinceerly: Percyval
i agree with DW_Batty, slow down a little bit. I ran into the same problem for a little while. For some reason i began playing worse than when i started here. Then I realized it was because i wasn't taking as much time to move. I had started to become comfortable in my openings and began moving without thinking quite as much in the early part of the game. A lot of times I overlooked something major and gave up a huge advantage then lost the game. If your not in a quick or blitz game take time to analyze the board, try and be as sure of your next move as you can be. Most importantly stay loose while your playing(remember this is just for fun) if you are tense and nervous the likely hood of eventual error becomes tremendously increased.
Stay with it. I'm a semi-pro poker player, and say I'm quitting every day. I've had bad runs that have gone for weeks. Sometimes you need to just ride the wave, good and bad. Don't worry about results if you enjoy the game.
Your're already better than the average person in our country...
Well put.
Do not play too much. Don't burn out. Enjoy it. A serious hour every other day for a year and the averge person could never play you. They'd think you were a GM it would be so devasting. True, you would still probably not be a 'strong' player in the chess world, but you would be good enough to enjoy the game and continue to improve.
I was thinking along these lines about a week ago. The "little chess partner" was having its way with me, and on the easy mode no less. However, this week, my game feels stronger, and even though i've been winning a few more, the games i've been losing no longer seem as confusing as they did. Just stick with it. Play a few games a day, and when you're at the point of "i quit, this is getting too rough" stop playing for the day and come back to it in a day or two. Everyone needs a break.
How do you know when to give up and just accept that you aren't any good at chess, and probably shouldn't waste any more time on it? I'm trying to get better, but lately it seems like I'm regressing and playing worse than when I first started.