Online Chess vs. Real Life Chess

During the school year, I'd play a few games with my friends and members of the chess club at my school.  Most of them were relatively weak, but atleast kept my chess mind sharp and helped me slowly improve with tactics, various pawn end game scenarios, and the infamous mate in 1/2/3's.  However, now that school is out I have no one to play chess with in real life other than complete beginners.  With this in mind, I've started to play chess on www.freechess.org.

I know I'm not an exceptional player or anything, but I feel like when I'm playing online my level of play plummets.  When I analyze my games following online play, I notice mistake after mistake, things I know I'd see in real life.  Sadly, losing online has begun to bring down my self confidence when playing.  Maybe it's because I don't take online chess as seriously, as there is no person at the other side of the board, and no real honor at stake. 

 With this in mind, the last thing I want to do is to lose my passion and (although little) skill for chess.  What can I do to improve?  I've bought a chess book or two, but I'm not sure if they were good or not.  Do any of you have books you'd recommend, or just advice for me in my situation. 

 I guess if you've read this far you actually might care, so I'll ask another question.  Online, I usually play 10 0 and sometimes 5 0.  Would I benefit from playing longer games??  Even in real life, most of my games are 10 0.  None of the games with my classmates or even members of my chess club seem to take very long, as they are all huge fans of blitz/lightning.

 Thanks in advance!

To start, I'd definitly recommend playing longer games (30 minutes or so).  Take the time to play out each move in your head before making it.  Try to see as many moves ahead as possible.  It's an acquired skill to be able to play good chess quickly, in my personal opinion.  As you get more and more used to finding the right moves in longer games, reduce the time limit of the games slightly (30m to 25m to 20m to 15m, etc, etc).  This will help to gradually increase your speed of finding the right moves.  Other than that, I'd highly recommend reading the article "Rapid Chess Improvement - 400 points in 400 days" (Yahoo or Google it).  It may sound tedious, but you'll be surprised after lots of practice how much it will improve your game. 

The "Winning Chess" series by  Yasser Seirawan are all great reads as well, and highly recommended.

Good luck! 

This is a good question you have! There are many ways to improve. Sadly the blitz chess which you have played is not the best way to do it.

1) Practice tactics problems as much as you can! A good site for this is: http://chess.emrald.net/

2) Know what chess books to read, some may be more advanced than your level or more towards the beginner end. A good article to read about choosing the right chess books is: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman06.pdf

3) Play slow chess to practice correct thinking process during a game. I usually play only 90 minute games with 5 second delay online. I really find that when I play these slow games it really helps my play and I see an improvement in my game. I really try to stay away from blitz games even though they are fun.

4) Finally here is an interesting article about reviewing games and getting the most out of it: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman50.pdf 

BIG DIFFERENCE SO MANY QUESTIONABLE LYING CHESSPLAYERS ON THIS SITE WHO CHEAT OR FALSELY ACCUSE HONEST CHESSPLAYERS OF CHEATING AND TO MUCH BLITZ AND BULLET B.S. CHESS