Some 2500 tactic puzzles later...

I still get crushed in the 1200 bracket, I feel like I'm just wasting my time. I can't deny it's nice to have learned those patterns but it seems those kind of positions are never reached in my games, don't know how to make it happen, it's never as obvious as in the puzzles. I only feel frustration from all this, I'm not improving at all.

It takes time to get better at chess.  If you've only been here a year 1200 is not at all a low rating IMO.

You may have worked tactics so much it's your strong point now.  Time to exercise something else.  Learn some strategy or endgame, post games to analysis forum, stuff like that.  Targeting the weakest link gets the most results.

I think it's also important to try longer games to give yourself a chance to apply new knowledge.  Blitz only gives you the time to play what you know instantly.  At some point we all hit walls and have to wait for improvement to kick in again.  This is more so if all you do is play blitz (I would know, being a former blitz junkie).

Fantastic points, I couldn't agree more.

Everything wafflemaster said is 100% bang on.  You might be really good at tactics now but are getting beat because you don't know strategy or endgame technique.  Playing longer games is very important for beginning players.  I would say blitz could potential hamper a beginners development as a chess player.  Look up Dan Heisman articles, I think you might get a lot out of those.

Yeah it's frustrating, I'm 2100 tactics and still outright hang pieces all the time and rarely spot impressive tactics.

You guys are right about Blitz, I often lose on time (10 mins) because I can't think fast enough, so I'll switch to standard. I know some opening theory (KID, Sicilian, Ruy Lopez etc..) but alot of my losses are midgame due to some crazy blunder where I just want to rip my hair out.

How can I work on my endgames? They sometimes have endgame problems in TT but that's it.

Knowing opening theory is not really that important.  Most players at 1200 don't know more than the first 5 moves or so of any opening.  Opening principals are important, like castle early, develop pieces to active squares, don't move the same piece more than once in the opening unless you have a compelling reason to do so, etc.  Strategy is more about understanding weak and strong squares, weak pawns, pawn structure, superior minor pieces and stuff like that.  For a beginning player that knows the rules I would say they should devote 60% of study to tactics, 25% of study to end games, 14% of study to strategy, and 1% to openings.  Maybee 1% is too much for openings, but the point is a very small amount.

"How can I work on my endgames? They sometimes have endgame problems in TT but that's it."

Can you use the computer workout? That has a number of common endgames where you can test if you know the winning technique, and obviously studying an endgame book.

As a diamond member, you can watch some excellent videos on end games.  Daniel Rensch is an endgame expert and his end game videos are some of the best instruction anywhere.  Also chess mentor has some very good end game material.  Look at the study guide for end games for beginners and intermidiate players on this website as well.

For non diamond members, the end game corner on chesscafe is very good

http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#Endgame Corner

I would also recomend getting either Pandolfini's end game book or Silmans endgame book.  You don't need both, just pick the writer that you can absorb better, some people prefer Pandolfini and some people prefer Silman

tactics often appear by magic when your position is superior to your opponents. this is why strategy basically goes hand in hand with tactics and should definitely not be ignored.

I disagree, I think studying openings is really useful at any level. That is, if you do it correctly that is understanding the strategical ideas, the plans, and the common themes.

How else is he gonna learn "strategy"? Openings are the best teacher of strategy. And in chess strategy is as important as tactics, because if your position is already messed up after the first 10 moves no matter how good you are at tactics, you simply won't have any when you're being dominated.

And absolutely play longer games, blitz it's useless to improve.