Should I quit?

I learned the basic rules of chess when I was in grade school. I took it up in full back in October 2016. I can't seem to get any good. I bought a few chess books and have been studying them, but I seem to blunder my way into checkmate or time pressure. 

I know some 2,000 Elo is going to get on here and say that I just suck and I'm stupid. Maybe it's true. Also, I have a job and a family. And I'm old. 

So, should I just pack it in and stick to doing something easy like keeping the couch from flying up?

Do you enjoy playing? If yes, carry on. If no, quit.

Of course you should play)  its not like you are making living out of it, just play, study and become better step by step, I'm doing the same right now =) don't hurry to become Magnus in one year, it will take time)

You've only been playing 4 months!! If you enjoy it then carry on playing and improvement will come.

Other posters have given you good advice, be patient and practice, you'll get better. Only other thing I would add from personal experience is that Chess is VERY addictive. So, please exercise good self control, else it will take over your life, ruin your career and family.

Kummer is funny,quirky and is something...and he says 'alright' again again and again between his talks. Btw, if you have to improve your chess you have to work hard and standup for your chess,may not be possible when you have a family.So the decision should be all yours to take. Think about it.

I know these forums are brutal but why should you care? Don't you realize that nobody on Chess.com knows who you are? Try not to be so sensitive.

You cannot be worse than all other players. There must be thousands of players of your level. Play for fun - this doesn't have to be a race.

I think (just my thought) that the best way to get better at chess for a beginner is to play it over the board with a friend. You should play for 2 hours everyday if you enjoy playing it.

Playing online chess will not help you improve your game at this stage. After you have played on the board for a year or so, you would probably be at around 1500 and then playing online will help you improve your game.

 

One last thing for fast development of your game: DO NOT start using your queen early in the game. The major difference between grandmasters and patzers (people like us, who suck at chess) is that grandmasters always start their attack with knights and bishops and only bring in their queen later. Once you learn how to start attacking/defending with your knights and bishops, your game will improve at lightning speed.

1. What kind of chess books are you studying?  If no tactics it's hard to improve.  If your not paying for membership here, there are great tactics problems at chesstempo.com.

2. Can you name the possible Tactical Motifs?  Can you describe the difference between Interference and Attraction?  Do you know what an X-Ray Attack is?  How about a Swallows Tail Mate? (A great interactive list is here: http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html).  If you can't do some of these things, how can you expect to recognize the patterns they represent while playing chess?

3. What do you mean by "Studying?" Do you take notes or make outlines?  After you finish each chapter of each book, can you write down a 1- or 2-minute speech to give yourself that is a concise summary of what you learned in the chapter?  Do you take notes?

4. Have you read any books or articles on Habits of the Mind?  THIS is my biggest weakness and some of it is due to seldom playing 30 min.-(per clock) or longer games. I see you play blitz, rapid, and bullet games only.  It's hard to see all the possibilities, unless you've been playing at a high level for years, when you've got 15 min. or less per game and it generates bad habits in terms of cutting off your thinking before it's complete, so you're not learning to think completely and developing a structure.

5. Have you had chess.com analyze your games, or downloaded the freebie Lucas Chess and Analyzed your games so you can see where you missed various tactics?  If so, have you used them to identify what your weaknesses are?

I can testify that all that stuff is not necessarily required to get up to ~1500 USCF. Still, it could well be that progress is hindered by less helpful practices - not playing enough slow chess, trying to read books that are too advanced, that sort of thing.

No why should you quit? If you enjoy chess go on and don't quit just because you're not good at it yet! :) A guy at my primary school taught me chess and I kept losing against him and anyone else at school. Although I kept playing chess and decided to join a chess site to play chess after I got home from school too. My ratings weren't that good and I got beaten almost every game lol but I enjoyed my rarely wins too. It took me a year to get my rating up from 800 to just 1000. The guys at school were still to strong for me but I noticed a little improvement in my game and I made them shake at some games for the first time. Competitiveness took my rating to the next level 1100 at the end of my final year at primary school. I have always felt so weak for not being able to beat them (it was a long time ago but I guess they were somewhere at a 1300-1400 level) untill I really managed to win from one of them! I got a little bit lucky and do remember I won by a back rank mate but it was my first win at school which I was proud of and you had to see his surprised and a little annoyed face just after the game ;). Unfortunately that was my last win against one of them because they went to different schools after primary school. I haven't played many games of chess at the board anymore and just kept playing a little bit internet chess since I went to my new school. There was not much will for me to improve my games anymore because my "chess friends" were gone. Slowly my rating went up after a couple of years but not as fast as before. I probably lost some of my interest in chess in that period of my life. Just 2 years ago I started to play chess more frequently again :). I walked around in my free hour and accidently saw 2 guys playing chess. I didn't had anything to do so I just asked them friendly if I could watch them playing :). After their game ended one of them wanted to play with me and I agreed. It went into a draw but I felt I had a winning position. Anyways they were pretty surprised seeing me playing so well and they told me they would like to keep playing chess with me :) and we did. I played less online and more with them. Both of us have improved a lot and that made me wonder what my current rating could be. For this reason I joined chess.com since October 2016 and my daily chess rating went up to 1850 right now!!! :) I just played 60 games yet but I think it is accurate to say my rating is at least around the 1800 now. All I want to say is keep playing chess if you like it, improvement comes naturally :) 8 years ago I would never have expected that my rating would go up from 800 to 1800!

I played 465 10 minute games and haven't gotten any better. But it's still fun.

NEVER QUIT !!!

Put yourself together and stop being a little crying girl everyone gone thru this learning experience !

Keep playing longer time controls ! At this point don't study at all ! Play at least 1000 games , trying to understand why this particular staff happening and TRUST me your rating will hit 1000 If no more then that I gerante! !! After that it will get more complicated and you need to study a bit , but for now play play play 30 mins games

....follow your heart luv.

just to clarify, people with lower ratings have been know to do that as well.

you should quit and resign yourself to living out your remaining years on the couch in front of the t.v. eating pizza and chips. it's not a bad way to go. I've done some stints.

its not a bad thing to loose on time and still have the winning position . if anything your opponent develop badhabits like that. dont worry about the clock ,play for winning position ..

Yeah, you suck at chess, you're old and you probably won't get better much for a while.

 

So you should quit chess unless you find that it's fun . If you think chess is fun and you play for fun mainly, then your playing strength is hardly a factor for why you play. It's like asking two guys who like tennis why they play, since they'll never go to Wimbledon. It's just for fun. 

If chess is no fun for you and all you want is some master title for some reason, quit now. 

The books I have are:
Chernev's Logical Chess Move by Move
Nunn's Understanding Chess Move by Move
Small Encyclopedia of Chess Openings