I REALLY NEED HELP!!!

Read chess books.  Here is a list of good ones:

• Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur by Euwe
• My System by Nimzowitsch
• Understanding Pawn Play in Chess by Marovic
• Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy by Watson

Other very good chess books:

• Understanding Chess Move by Move by Nunn
• Capablanca's Best Games by Golombek
• Tal-Botvinnik 1960 by Tal

Perhaps we are both in the same boat (along with many others).

Apart from reading books and chess.com articles, discussing moves in votechess games, etc., - I find the group "learning with fun" quite useful. I learnt quite a bit.

It takes time to learn important things in chess though. So patience is definitely required.

You must start with the question... How? How do I win a chess game? I win a chess game by attacking the opposing king with more force than he has defending him. How do I achieve this imbalance in force? When you ask yourself these questions, you will be forced to find the answer in fundamental technique, the elements of chess truth. How we mix these elements of force, time, space etc is the endless question for ALL chess players to seek for themselves. Not even Grandmasters have this solved yet, so don't fret. What you can do is focus on your end goal, and keep asking the questions on how you achieve this goal.

To be stronger in chess you need also experience. You need patience and determination to play games regularly and acquire the experience to know what techniques are involved first hand.

Dont be discouraged about losing games. The most important thing is learning from your mistakes. The more mistakes you will learn to avoid, the more stronger you become.

The strong players and masters I encounter encourage a lot of tactics study.  There are a couple of websites that work with this in realtime.  Try www.chesstempo.com or if you are inclined to play blitz games http://chess.emrald.net/

Another aspect is to record your games and analyze them.  Either with a live strong player/master or with software like Fritz. All the serious players that I know automatically record their games.

Have you done any live tournament play?  Look for chess clubs and devote some time to that.  The chess clubs will have strong players that can help you analyze your games.

Good point chessmagic5. Capa himself said he lost thousands of games. NONE of us is a super genius in some perfection vacume. This is real life so you're gonna take your knocks. As Kasparov said in his book, 'Don't begrudge the time'. If you want to be a quality player, you're going to have to put in quality effort... novel idea eh? The most important thing that I personally have made sure to keep in the forefront of my thinking is the idea that Bruce Lee had. He said it is OK to fall, if you ask yourself, why am I falling. Read that last bit again so it can sink in. So when Fritz 6 pummels me into the ground for the ego-crushing millionth time, I look over my training game and ask myself... What happened? Well, it would appear that in this move sequence, I failed to protect e4 properly due to a poor opening, so Fritz dropped a piece into that hole and smashed my face. SO.... next game I will hopefully learn from my previous foray with the bad move. In the words of Mr Fischer, "If I lose, I take my medicine." With every loss we are given a cure to our woes, but we must be objective enough when assessing ourselves to take the medicine that will heal us.

Moaz-

You're 14 years old, you've only been playing chess a year, and you're already at the 86th percentile of Chess.com players. That's a pretty darn good start, I'd say. My experience is also one of long plateaus, then a sudden burst of improvement. I think that's just how chess works. But there really is a lot you can do to help it along:

I learned more chess more rapidly as soon as I began taking Chess.com "turn-based" chess (i.e., modern correspondence chess) very seriously. The analytical opportunities are tremendous, especially if you play just a few games at a time and really delve into the positions as you go.

Also, while the analysis board that Chess.com provides with your games is good, it cannot compare with an analysis board that will save all of the lines of play that you investigate. This enables you to do your analyses without constantly having to go back and say, "How does that line go again?" It's all saved right there. You enter all your candidate moves at a given board position, and then investigate different lines of play from each. Then you select your move. I'm a Mac person so I use ExaChess for this. (It's produced by one of your countrymen.) Because you can use databases and books in correspondence-style chess, you learn from them as you play, also.

After each game, be sure to analyze it, either with the Chess.com computer analysis or your own computer--especially the games you lose. Studying your own lost games is extremely important to improvement. One of the advantages of a premium membership, if you can afford it, is that Chess.com will analyze more games for you and with a higher-rated computer. Platinum members get up to 25 analyses per week at GM analysis level.

Lastly, I'm a big fan of Chess Mentor and I know it's been responsible for a lot of my improvement. As a Mac person, I use the online version by subscription and it works great for me, even on my crummy dial-up connection at home. So, if you can afford Chess Mentor, I say get into it.

What can i say any other thing about improvement..almost everything is said in the above.. especially "cowboynoel" "chessmagic5" "nimbleswich" "chessrosi".. just follow their nice advice... Ohhh thanks to ELABEASTO for showing the list of books.. I cannot afford to chess mentor but if you can then just do it attentively.. i think it is very very helpfull..by the way you are only 14 years old and you have lots of time to improve so be patience..sorry for my poor English

You are in the best country for learninng literature... C.J.S. Purdy your fellow countrymen his teachings can help you start to see chess in ways you have not even considered,Fischer knew this.

Now you do as well.

use the lolli attack: Bobby ficsher played it and won countless games with it.

use this site to help you:http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~goeller/urusov/perreux/lolli_attack.html

and for all you people that have read my comments before: yes, I'm obbessed with the lolli attack.

if the site does not work, google perreux and choose the first link then choose the lolli attack link.

Try this site mate

10 Chess Tips   http://chess-strategies-101.blogspot.com/2007/05/10-chess-tips.html 

GO THE LOLLI!!!!!!!!

nothing to add except, get into the habit of writing all moves down, this can force you to think more.

i think you should get a good chess coach,read chess books, and go too a good chess club

One thing that you definitely need, and it's more important than any book you will ever read - You must be willing to engage in a battle of wills. You must never see that since you are rated lower, you will not win. So what if you go down a pawn, or even a piece? Try to steal it from them - do not exchange pieces when you are down! This only helps the person with more material - avoid exchages, because you're about to aim everything you have at his king, even if you lose pawns, his king must die! If they outrate you 300 points, so what? If they make a bad move, those points can't help them. So you're going to try to outlast them, by making sure every move is a good move, until they crack and you don't. That being said:

Play the board, not the opponent.

Every, and I mean Every, move must have a purpose.

Play with a Plan.

Remember why you love chess.

Find a great player and study him. If your endgame needs help, study capablanca. If you want to learn brillant tactics, study David Gedult, Paul Morphy, and definitely definitely definitely El Greco. If you want to expand into modern openings, then Nimzowitsch and Sierawan are good. One Player at a time though, the goal is to try to get into their head and see what they see.

If you don't get a tad angry after a loss, start!

All this info has also helped me! Thanks for posting guys!