any tips to improve from 900?

I like the advice someone gave you to play 30 min chess. You can play attacking chess, but get a book on an attacker and study it or go to a database and start with the name Paul Morphy. Finally, examine your own games, hunting for typical errors you make. Try to see with your eyes the blunders you make and ask yourself what you were thinking at the time. Good luck.

Let me re-iterate three points that folks have made that I think are the three most important take-aways from this thread:

1.  Learn opening principles, not openings (some have suggested the latter, that's not correct for someone at your level).  I strongly recommend taking eight minutes to watch a video such as this one (Chess Basics: Opening Principles)

It covers things such as: develop your knights and bishops well before you bring the queen out.  Just eight minutes!  (In your earlier games, your queen attacks were working well probably because you were playing lower level players.  Now that you're moving up, you're playing against better players who won't let you get away with that stuff.)

2.  Another problem with many folks learning is that 10-minute games are too fast (they are too fast for me, too).  Play some slower games.  Put thought into your moves -- most games at your level are decided by who makes the fewest blunders, who hangs the fewest pieces.  So, first order of business is: look at every piece that is attacking every other piece, for both sides.

3.  Be patient.  Everyone hits plateaus for a while.  But a willingness to work at it will get you o the rise again.  Enjoy the journey!

I was at your level a while ago. My advice is to not panic about the games where you're losing, just keep playing your games. You'll eventually improve over time. Also solve some puzzles to help you with tactically difficult positions. If you follow these tips, you can improve significantly. This is how I got from 850 to 1000 within 2 weeks.

Thanks so much for all the replies; I've already been putting the tips to use! Researched various new openings, tried them out, and I've wona lqt more again! @Nwap111 I defo need more patience ~ I often get impatient and move too fast wheb someone keeps stalling, then make mistakes

@sholomsimon I will check the video out, thanks so much for linking it! I think you're defo right aboht the queen - my tactics nol onger work at this level haha. Keeping her back longer in my latest few games defo seems to give me an advantage later on. Taking my time also seems to help! Shocking, right!? ;)

@CoolBoi 2 weeks, that's amazing! Congrats to you, and thanks for the advice; I for sure need to look more at the puzzles!

No worries, good luck getting to 1000

I had a look at some of your games and I'll try to add something to what has been said.

You seem to be at your best in open positions when there are less pieces left. Your rook play was good in some of the games. If you survive in an equal position towards the late middlegame, you are able to outplay opponents of a similar strength.

The reason you are now hitting a plateau is that you are facing opponents, who play the opening phase more consistently than lower rated players, defend better against attacks and spot hanging pieces more often. At your level both sides miss tactics, but that will improve with time.

In the opening you need to concentrate on developing minor pieces. When you face stronger opponents, you will need to prepare your attack more. You need more pieces and they need to be well coordinated. Performing a successful attack with only two pieces becomes increasingly difficult, that is why you need to get the knights and bishops out so that you have more pieces to help.

Regarding openings you also need to think, where to put your pieces. In one of your last games you faced the Old Benoni 1. d4 c5. You decided to defend the pawn by 2. Be3. It is correct to not capture (Black regainst the pawn easily and you've lost a central pawn for a c-pawn), but protecting it with Be3 blocks your e-pawn and also your bishop on f1 (unless you play g3 and Bg2). The best defending move would have been 2. Nf3 (develops also your knight), e3 and c3 can be played but they block your other bishop and take the best square from your knight, the main move in the position is actually 2. d5, which takes more space in the center. So when developing, you need to take care not to block your other pieces or you will lose tempi (=have to make extra moves).

Once you gain a bit of rating, you should look at say first five moves of some mainline openings and think why they are played (the latter one is more important than to remember what are the moves, once you get the idea, you will be able to figure out a good move).

You may reach a rating around 1100 with just attacking, but after that you need to start defending, too, as your opponents know how to attack. Castling is one obvious help in this, but you also need to spot checkmate threats and learn the ways to defend against them. There are some puzzles that concentrate on defense.

None of the games I looked had an endgame phase. You obviously can do a ladder checkmate. If you don't know how to mate (without stalemating) with a king and a queen or with a king and a rook, you should look at them and also the idea of escorting a pawn with your king (the first king and pawn drills are good for this). They will become handy once you start facing endgames.