Why am I getting so much worse?

the tactics problems will definetly help you but you cant be good at chess even with lots of tactics if u naturally suck, lets say you arent very logical u dont have patience to think ahead u are scared to play the out of the ordinary moves, then yeah ull hit a rating wall at 1300 even with lots of tactics

Haha at cognitive dissonance.  Don't take it so personally.

Actually he's a well respected author and trainer, having written well received books and a ton of useful articles at chesscafe.com over the last 10 years or so aimed at helping beginners improve.

Making a threat and hoping your opponent doesn't see it is useful advice for a beginner on what not to do, I agree.  Playing a move and, for example, assuming a capture, recapture, or some other unforced reaction while ignoring important moves is a mistake that creeps in many more player's games.

Agreed. The word hope simply doesn't describe this though lol. Not completing the proper prcedure for soemthing is not the same as hoping that you can get away with not completing it. You may just not understand what you were supposed to do or have forgotten on this occasion to do it. Anyway, I'm not arguing with you, just that stupid term.

At least people remember it even if they don't know what it is hah.

I guess the name could be better.

hahaha, totally. My heart is a serious liability in face to face chess!

Because you need a break :D

never thought about this before, but wafflemaster's point is good. 'Unfalsified' chess just doesn't have the same ring to it. 

Do not think playing endless hours of blitz/bullet chess makes a chessplayer.

That's like indulging in "snap" at cards.

This thread highlights the need to play longer games where can concentrate/think about the moves.

If you lose too many in a row, stop, and take a good night's sleep. Cleaar your mind and resume in the morning.

Opening principles and knowing basic strategical ideas are necessary to get into a position where you have tactics in your favour.

In my ongoing online-game I made a stupid hope-chess-move in the opening. I got the deserved punishment which is that I lost my castling-rights and cannot bring one of my rooks into play.

Now I have to find moves where I must prevent losing something while having less material.

Tactically that's very challenging and so far I've always found a move that thwarthed the worst threads. (often enough by posing threads myself)

However, if my opponent doesn't blunder, which is likely, I cannot really hope to win. No matter ho good my tactics are. He always had the additional ressource because I lack the undeveloped rook.

The mistake I made was a simple "brought out queen too early". He skewered a pawn behind the Queen and while I got one of his pawns in exchange the taking of my pawn, unfortunately also was a check.

We live, we learn. Keep it simple and don't lose material stupidly.

When you play something for too long and you start to deteriorate in your performance, you should probably take a little break and do something else.

or a long break...