What is the point of playing?

Thanks to the OP for starting this interesting topic. In my case I play Chess for FUN ! Otherwise what is the point of playing ? If I didn't enjoy Chess I might as well go back to playing Texas-hold-em Poker ( playing for points, never for Money as I'm on pension  lol ). Mind you I also have an ulterior motive in playing Chess which is to keep my mind active.   

Practice tactics until you can recognize them in your games.

Another episode of One Whine To Give...

I went up 600 points on here in 18 months, way past age 15, and still made all sorts of mistakes, even in the past half hour. Just walked into a fork of Q and R and lost my Rook for the enemy Knight because I moved too fast and didn't use the @#$%&* checklist again, not even in my head. I had rejected one bad move and ended up doing a much worse one instead, and hit the button thinking good, at least this isn't that other one, but right after the button 'oh no wait!' How many times to learn the lesson before at least using the checklist in my head, I don't know, I am not there yet. It is just that kind of mistake that caused almost all of my losses, playing too fast, nowhere near time trouble.

Yeah that's the most frustrating thing about chess.

I don't know about that...some music pays rather well. 

I took a membership for 1 month, just for the tacticstrainer. I love to try to solve those little riddles. And while doing so I have learned many little tricks.

Not that I have improved majorly, but I do see a whole lot more then little time ago. And I see more traps against me, but also attacks for me.

It does feel like many puzzles at the 1300ish level seem to suddenly get extremely tough. Whereas I think 1 minute for 1200 puzzles, I have to think 5-10 minutes for a 1300 and sometimes never solve it. Exponential growth in difficulty so it feels to me.

Yes (thus the ).

Just give up on chess. There are lots of other things u could do in life.

I've gotten caught in the "hanging pieces" phase a few times - as a beginner (a level I stayed at for quite awhile), then later when I'd come back to the game after one of my long absences from it. There are really 2 components to the problem:

1. Chess Vision, or the lack thereof: a player who is regularly hanging pieces is simply not seeing the board in the same manner as a player who isn't. One has a kind of tunnel vision, where they become focused on one narrow part of the board, while the other has a degree of awareness every move as to what is happening on the whole board.

2. A lack of tactical skill. Players with even basic tactical skill rarely hang pieces; players without it, or without sufficient tactical skill, hang pieces all the time.

So what to do about it? You have to, first off, give yourself the opportunity to develop chess vision and break the habit of playing a move the moment you see it. Which means no more blitz and no more 0 increment games until this habit is well behind you, because as long as you're playing with the sense of urgency to make a move that is part of blitz, you'll be stuck in the same habit.

Longer games like 30 30 will give you the time to begin doing the following practice to break this habit:

1. Look at the move your opponent has just made. Do you see the purpose to his move - is there a threat in it that you can decipher? Are any of your pieces loose or hanging?

2. After you've done the above, write down his move (you will be keeping a score card of your game the same as if you were playing in an OTB tournament).

3. If there is a threat you found, look at ways you have to either parry the threat or create a stronger (or more immediate) threat of your own. If there is no threat, look at your candidate moves to find the one you believe is strongest.

4. Now that you've decided on your move, look at the board to see how playing the move will change the position - does the piece (or pawn) you are moving defend a piece that your move will leave undefended?

5. Write down your move.

6. Play the move.

Always do #5 before #6 and make sure you make this a habit. Do this process along with the next exercise and your habit of hanging pieces will become less frequent, and then it'll simply stop as this new habit becomes second nature.

So the next exercise, which will improve both your chess vision and tactical skill is to pick up a book of tactics that has lots of puzzles that are not too difficult. Winning Tactics for Juniors and Chess Tactics for Champions are two good options.

Do as many problems as you can, daily. Consistency is the key here, so its more important that you do at least a few as often as you can rather than doing many only once a week.

In time you'll break this habit and can go back to faster time controls; although if you find yourself hanging pieces again, you'll know you're playing at time controls that are too fast for you.

white dynamite is here to take the cup , white dynamite has no time for this bullshit 

Furthermore, white dynamite points out that he had no time to post anything here either.

Hey Andy! What's the point of making all these jokes?

Aw pipe down, Dutch Boy!

Chess pisses me off a lot too.

Didja ever throw your king across the room (or call your opponent an idiot)?

First get a "sunrise" spirit, not a "sunset" (as beautiful as it might be).

If you like to play organized baseball or basket, you would be placed in a category according to your abilities. ..and you would enjoy playing...So get into your chess category and enjoy playing, for the sake of enjoying the game. . .and forget your crying for better rating.

"Go West young man. . ."

Just now I played a game where I had a winning position and completely made an idiot move (like I do every other game) and resigned. Every time I blunder, I resign. Even if my opponent doesn't see it. Because I deserve to lose. Sunset is visibly annoyed at losing, and I can understand that. There's no point of playing a game like this if your goal is to win, because you won't win.

I also agree with your other comment about improvement being nearly impossible. Anand had a quote that went something along the lines of "if you aren't a GM by 14, you might as well forget the whole thing". This is true, since all good players already had their titles by the time they were teenagers. Past that, improvement almost never happens.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have no board vision whatsoever. And I make moves impulsively eithout calculating. It makes me feel stupid when I lose, and sometimes I want to quit playing.

Overall, chess is definitely a bad thing in life unless you are good at it, since if you don't win, it makes you feel like crap, but then you want to get revenge. So you play another game, and you lose again, and again you feel like a piece of crap. Chess is no fun at my level because 100% of games under about 1400 rating are decided by blunders that make you feel dumb.

You can always find an opponent to make you feel like a piece of crap, no matter what your level...