What gives?

There are some 12, and 13 year old snot noses on here who get to 1800 after a year or so, yet I'm still sucking in the 1200s.

1. Apply cold water to the burnt area
2. Rinse
3. Repeat

In the past there have been much younger "snot noses" named Morphy, Capablanca and Reshevsky who were already +1800 (using the Glicko rating system) by age 6 (if not sooner) and were probably IM or GMs (in effect) by age 12-13, so get over it: Or, keep on obsessing over it if that's what makes you happy.

I guess I'll keep on obsessing over it, cause that makes me happy.

Well I'm glad to see someone is happy this holiday season! MERRY XMAS!

Still sucking.

Well, what steps are you taking to improve?

Obviously you're repeating the same mistakes over and over again -- you might consider figuring out what those are.

Oh and as a premium member, you might want to put some hours into the tactics trainer here, very beneficial.

Cripes man! I do.

If I had to guess it's that there are certain basic tasks that you (and many adults I'd guess) find too tedious to do regularly enough that they become habitual.  Things like blunder checking, what are all the new sqaures my opponent's last move influenced?  What are all the sqaures my intended move influences / no longer influence? etc. 

Looking at a few of your games you spot tactics for yourself that are much harder than the tactics you allow your opponents.  e.g. you capture a defended pawn but because you see in 2 moves you can do a king and queen fork you know the pawn isn't actually defended... but then on a different move your opponent threatens a pawn and you ignore the threat.  Or the move you make undefends a pawn so your opponent simply captures it. 

My patience isn't the greatest.

Quit chess.

Dork

If you are gonna name called then how the hell are you gonna improve?

I didn't know that prevented improvement. I'm going to bed.

Spank yourself and no dinner.

Ahhh yesss.... another peaceful Sunday night on the chess.com forums. :D

First, chess intelligence is correlated to real world intelligence but not directly related.  As an adult I have realized that multiple responsibilities in life detract from certain tasks such as learning chess due to multiple factors influencing the conscious and unconscious mind.  Additionally, it is a known reality that at age 12 the brain is still growing and as such perhaps at a young age it is easier somewhat to acquire skills.  One thing you must realize though is that experience and wisdom is more valuable than youth and if you dont appreciate this then you should because whether you want to or dont, you will age.  The key is to use time as the valuable commodity it is.  With your comments you are contradicting yourself:  You are seeing what is wrong and refusing to deal with it, apparently.  You have not indicated what you will do with the reality that there are players higher ranking than you.  Given this reality, who cares?  I make more money than an 1800 ranked 12 year old and have a better job.  Sure they may have more opportunities than I do now when they get older, but I wouldnt be anyone else in the world but me.  I like me.  I use this as an example to use the wisdom that yes there are many teenage twits that are high ranked.  They are probably smart at chess, but very, very stupid in real life.  Cant communicate, self-centered, all left brain, etc etc.  What is fascinating is the ability to study the games of these youngsters and see what they could have done better.  All of the chess players, every single one of them, make mistakes.  None are perfect.  Take in mind Kasparov for example:  In his book, Life is Like Chess, he tries to justify his political positions through chess analogies.  Near the end of the book he more or less complains about intuition in life and lack thereof.  Yes, chess doesnt teach deeply about this, because physiologically it is a more left hemisphere game, which of course has positives and negatives:  Chess is highly tactical and exciting, it's fun.  Nonetheless it doesnt necessarily reflect a real war.  A real war is more like Go, or wei-chi, where the intangible factors that Kasparov tries to understand, but cannot, hence the complaining of lack of intuition in the book.  In all fairness, not to take away from Kasparov, however his disputes with Putin is much much more convulted and difficult than a chess match, even at the grandmaster level.  If anything chess will allow Kasparov to remain sane when dealing with the political mess that is present Russia.  So it is important to put chess in its place for what it is and the relevance of ratings in only allowing two players to obtain a suitable game:  Chess is fun, it is a great tool in improving memory and insight, and it helps with stress.  Chess however is hard pressed to be deeply strategical due to the inherent set up of the game, which requires tactics quickly at the start of the game.  For a much deeper game which is more forgiving and even more abstract, Go, or wei-chi needs a closer look.  As a chess player to get a higher rating, study high rated games of players you like(I typically study women grandmasters as women think differently than men-Anna Sharevich and Svetlana Matveeva), study tactics problems, play chess games, include chess960, and also study life and death problems(Go) and play wei-chi, or Go game.  Give yourself time to think and absorb the information you study.  And then wait for change to happen. 

CP you've been here  since Dec 09 and still you haven't improve but complained most of the time how you are not improving. That's why I suggested that you quit chess and take up a new game or a new hobby or both.

I would say learn the castle and slidey pawn.