Why am I not good at chess

Analyse your lost games to learn from your mistakes.

true memorisation from chess does come from playing games, you can study which is good, you can watch videos and read books, but chess muscle memory essentially comes from playing, that's how you soak in the information most, like learning a language, you can learn from a book but unless you're trying to speaking the lingo daily with with someone else, your learning will have a ceiling.

Skill issue

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 this simple algorithm:

While avoiding blunders is crucial, I also share a few basic principles with my students. These principles help them figure out what to do in each part of the game - the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame. Understanding these simple principles is like having a map for your moves. I provide my students with more advanced algorithms that incorporate these fundamental principles. When you use this knowledge along with being careful about blunders, you're not just getting better at defending. You're also learning a well-rounded approach to chess. Keep in mind, chess is not just about not making mistakes; it's about making smart and planned moves to outsmart your opponent.

wow