How can I improve as a beginner

I have been learning about chess for a little more than one month, play some games with friends before joining on Chess.com.

I lost some games, mostly on time while I was winning and that was frustrated. I feel like lost when entering endgame with 1 minute, but I see Masters can easily get it done in even less time. How to practice that skill?

Moreover, which areas should I focus on as a beginner? I feel like my opening and especially midgame is quite solid but I am not sure if it is? And why my elo increases slower as I play?
Also, it seems like I am more comfortable playing black, which is strange... Is there any tips improve my games as white?

When beggining in chess, you have to know the chess moves and defenses, so that it would be easier for you, but since you said you've always lost because of time, I recommend you to play a longer period of time so that you could focus more and also do correct practices, analyze your games after you won or lost and see what you could've done so that you'll never make that mistake ever again.

Thank you so much, I am playing 10 minutes game only. I would love to play 10 minutes with increment each move. However, Chess.com only have 15 | 10 which is a bit long for me I feel but I would give it a try. I love also the feeling of urgent thinking, but not when I have 10 seconds left =))

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond…

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

Chess.com also has 10/5, which I play a lot.

Mmmm yea

Ohh, I did not know it. I will check it out. Thank you :>

Dear Iamattacking,

I'm a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one given way to learn and improve.

First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analyzing your own games. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem is that it can't explain to you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why it is so good or bad.

In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames) and if you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. But there are different priorities at different levels. As a beginner, you shouldn't focus too much on deep opening theories, just apply the classical opening principles. It's much more important to sharpen your tactical skills (solve puzzles and learn more and more patterns). Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.

If you would like to learn more about chess, you can take private lessons from me (you find the details on my profile) or you can visit my Patreon channel (www.patreon.com/Bgabor91), where you can learn about every kind of topics (openings, strategies, tactics, endgames, game analysis). There are more than 20 hours of educational videos uploaded already and I'm planning to upload at least 4 new videos per week, so you can get 4-6 hours of educational contents every month. I also upload daily puzzles in 4 levels every day which are available with a FREE subscription.

I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck with your games!