To most of my students, I give this advice (and it's all they need):
The biggest reason people struggle in lower-level chess is because of blunders. They make them in almost every game.
A mistake can instantly put you in a bad position, no matter how well you played earlier: if you had great opening knowledge, great positional skills, great endgame skills, whatever; a single mistake can change everything (you lose a piece or get checkmated).
So, how do you avoid blunders? Follow these two simple steps:
1. After your opponent moves, think if it's dangerous. Ask yourself, “What’s his idea?”
2. Before you make your move, think if it's safe. Ask yourself, “What attacking replies can he play?”
If you feel like getting to levels like 1600, 1800, or 2000 in chess is super hard, let's look at it in a different way. Those players you're facing make blunders in nearly every game they play. Beating them isn't so tough if you stop making big mistakes and start using their slip-ups to your advantage.
Again, it does not require you to become a chess nerd or spend all your time on chess. Just doing this one thing can boost your rating by a few hundred points right away.
I've been 400-500 after a year of playing. Seems like other players are way better than they should be at this level.
I know the basics:
- don't hang pieces
- take hanging pieces
- control the center
- develop your pieces
- the Sicilian opening strategy
- keep an eye out for potential batteries and forks
Yet, here we are.
I don't always do these things perfectly. Hanging a piece occasionally happens. But that occasionally happens to >500 players also, I assume.
400-level players aren't nearly as bad as people think. They're not "learning how the pieces move" bad. They're not even "learning basic tactics" bad. They're way better than that.