What can I do as a beginner to improve my chess skills?

Hi, all!

I was just introduced to chess a month ago and I have been playing and watching youtube videos tutorials and even reading books, but everyone I play with, I lose. I really don´t know what to do. Could you give a few tips on how to improve?

Thank you!

Well I am not very highly rated (~750)  but that's still about double so maybe I can help a little bit.  In your last four games (not counting the one with zero moves), you hung your queen.  In three of those, you got caught.   I think one of the things to focus on right away is to be more careful with your queen.  Every move, ask if you queen is in danger.  Every time you are thinking about moving your queen, triple check that its a safe square.  

Secondly, you haven't played any puzzles.  Start playing a couple a day.  I have gotten a lot better at recognizing backrank checkmates and fork opportunities since I have been playing lots of puzzles.  So I know my opinion isn't worth much, but I think those two things would help a lot.  

brandyogando1 want to play a game?

Follow opening principles, do puzzles daily and double check every single move of yours and make sure its not a blunder. My suggestion for you is to watch yt series by chessbrah called Building habits - how to improve at chess, its great for beginners! I wish you all the best at your chess improvement. If you have any questions, you can send me a message and I will try to answer it. Maybe we could even play a game or two sometimes.

Dear Brandyogando1,

I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you.  Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.

You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals. 

In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career. 

I hope this is helpful for you.   Good luck for your games! 

Thank you very much for your advice. I will start playing puzzles. I have also noticed some improvement ever since I started taking care of the queen when making my moves. 

I really appreciate your advice. Once I have a budget, I might reach out to you. Thank you.

Wow thanks a lot!!! I am already watching that video. Thanks for your advice.

You are very welcome. Of course, let me know when you are ready and I help you with pleasure.

If you like to play with your queen a lot, then the Scandinavian opening is a correct way to do so. Qa5 of course.