How can I improve positional chess? I keep losing because I get myself into a bad position

I don't think my problem is tactical chess, as my puzzle rating here is around 1200.

But my chess game ELO is just around 400. And what I've observed, is that (when I'm not blundering my queen), I keep losing because I simply get myself into a bad position. So basically I'm quite OK with getting the right move once I'm in a winning position, but I'm terrible if it comes down to getting into the right position in the first place.

So in short, I should improve in positional chess. But how? Are there any puzzles for this?

Also, are there any "reverse-tactics" puzzles, where you simply have to recognize your opponent's plan and try to prevent it from happening? 

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

Forget about improving and have fun if you are going to only play blitz.

So what time control should I play? I used to play 30 min games, but switched to Blitz because I wanted to play more games during the day. More games = more improvement, right?

You would think so but speed chess for beginners will stunt your improvement because you don’t have time to think.

I would recommend 15/10 and use most of your clock by move 30, then finish the game off on increments. Use the extra time for blunder checks.

If you’re pressed for time, play 5/5 to exercise your time scrambles skills under time increments which will benefit your 15/10 play.

When you’re not playing, practice basic puzzles in the 400-1200 range or warm up before your playing sessions.

Mastering basic tactics should be your number one priority. Not opening studies or positional play.

Maybe a dumb question, but how should I analyze my games in order to get the most out of it?

When I analyze my friend’s games, I literally just add up the blunders, missed tactics and hanging pieces. Learn to laugh at yourself and have fun lol.

Analyzing beyond that is a waste of time.

This is the problem! My problem is that I already make mistakes (according to the engine) at move 2 or 3! I basically - if I'm not blundering my queen - just put myself into a bad position, where I can't use any tactics. What I'm struggling the most is after the first few moves, when both sides develop their pieces, what should I play next? All the figures are placed in such a way that no one attack no one, you know what I mean?

First thing, don’t play the opening moves on auto-pilot or blitz them out because tactics can occur right out of the gates.

I just finished analyzing a game (1200 player) and she missed a knight jump, opening up her bishop and winning a rook in the corner.

Let’s assume you are into the middle game now (king is castled and rooks are connected), then look for counter play.

For the moment, 5/0 games aren’t worth investigating so go play a bunch of 15/10 and provide us qualitative examples.

You just need to get better at chess. However, you are unlikely to get better at chess without a solid grounding in fundamental chess principles and guidelines, nor by playing exclusively speed chess (rapid, blitz, bullet). As for the latter, you would increase your chances of getting better at chess if you were to....

Play Longer Time Controls

For many at the beginner-novice level, speed chess tends to be primarily an exercise in moving pieces around faster than your opponent while avoiding checkmate, in hopes that his/her clock runs out sooner than yours. And/or hoping to notice and punish your opponent’s blunders while hoping they don't notice and punish yours. The reason for this is that in speed chess there is little time to think about what you should be doing.

It makes sense then that taking more time to think about what you should be doing would promote improvement in your chess skills and results. Therefore one way to improve your chess is to play longer time controls, including "daily" chess, so you have time to think about what you should be doing.

This is not to suggest that you should necessarily play exclusively slow or daily time controls, but they should be a significant percentage of your games, at least as much, if not more so than speed games which, while they may be fun, do almost nothing to promote an understanding of how to play the game well.

Here's what IM Jeremy Silman, well-known chess book author, has to say on the topic...
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

And Dan Heisman, well-known chess teacher and chess book author…
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/http:/www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/dan-heisman-resources

and the experience of a FIDE Master...
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-blitz-and-bullet-rotted-my-brain-don-t-let-it-rot-yours

As for learning what you should be doing...

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

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

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

When I was a novice, I really liked Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, which was my first "positional" book (of many). The idea that "more games = more improvement" is not quite on the mark. Instead, finding better moves = more improvement.

But playing more bad moves = more bad habits. Also, in slow games, there are huge quantities of moves/variations that we play in our heads (and reject). When you add those, then the quantity of "moves" might be even higher in slow chess than speed chess. Basically, I think we need more time to find better moves that lead to more improvement.

blitz is about finding the second best move quickly. You can get away with unsound attacks and win by your opponent simply missing something obivious. It's posssible to immedialty know why you lost when the game finishes so you aren't learning anything you don't already know.

In slower time controls you want to be finding the best moves. Gaining and building an advantage around creating weakness and exploiting them, superior activity for your pieces. Blitz gives you bad habits. You can lose a slow game and not fully understand why you lost right away, so you look deeper and then learn something.

I can teach you EXACTLY how to think during the game (opening, middlegame and endgame). Your chess understanding will never be the same and you will improve a lot. I charge €20/h, but if you can’t afford too many lessons, don’t worry. I can teach you a lot in an hour. Here to help if you are interested.

If you want to study by yourself, read ‘Logical Chess’. It is really instructive book. You have it on youtube as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eTB7oHeRgM&list=PLUrgfsyInqNa1S4i8DsGJwzx1Uhn2AqlT

I'd say mix it up. Play normal times for when you want to play a good game. Play Blitz for when you want to force yourself doing the same calculations as you do during normal games, but much, much faster.

Then, use Game Review to identify your blunders/missed and spend lots of time analyzing it for various positional considerations. Practice until you can think of them during normal play.

There is a difference between making poor positional chess decisions/plans and playing the correct positional decision/plan that goes wrong due to a tactical reason or poor implementation. I'd say in most cases poor implementation or missing a tactic is the reason for us not getting positional play right.

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funny i have this same issue except i get into winning positions then mess up and lose

subject and verb switch

https://french.yabla.com/lesson-Inversion-When-Subjects-and-Verbs-Switch-Places-284

We could play unrated live chess sometime if you like and I could offer more tailored observations if you like. The chess.com puzzles rating is known to be inflated to game ratings by several hundred points, so without knowing anything about someone other than their puzzles rating of 1200, I could reasonably estimate their current game rating to be around 700 or so (500 points below puzzles rating).

However, learning positional chess and planning is also a useful skill; one that most people struggle with, but partly because most people seldom get a chance to practice positional concepts because their games are flooded with tactics and (sometimes) both sides blundering material.

It wasn't until I was about 1600 chess.com rapid level that I felt fairly competent at exploiting an opponent's positional error and it wasn't until around 1800 level that I felt I could usually convert such an error into a win most of the time.

Positional chess can be hard. The good news is that you don't have to learn everything overnight. Your opponents should be closely rated to you (most of the time) and this means you only need to be a little better than them to have an advantage. An error from either side doesn't mean as much if it isn't exploited and then the game just carries on as if it never happened.

I hope this post helps you understand positional chess a smidge more, but again, we could play some unrated live chess sometime if you want more than a generic answer