I Feel Like Such A Garbage Player

I used to play OTB a lot with friends and family. Was nowhere near IM or GM but I still expected to do a lot better than I've been since starting on this site. I joined because I wanted to actually play with people regularly and have fun but it's kind of hard to have fun when you take regular losses to even lower ranked players.

I did also join this site hoping to improve so I was definitely expecting some pushback, but not on the level I'm getting. I wanted to come on here, learn, and one day maybe be like my personal favorite Mikhail Tal. But I'm pretty sure Tal didn't get to where he was regularly losing to 200-600 elo players who use the wayward queen like it's a classical opening. 

Based on Gotham's videos and these forums, it seems that an ELO of under 700-1000 is considered beginning level, and that kinda burns when I can't even break 500. At 27, I've been playing chess for 13 years now and I'd like to think I'm more than just a "Beginner" but I guess this site is proving me otherwise and I kind of feel stupid at this point. Like was I really that bad of a player just playing with other people who were bad players?

Joining this site is probably one of the most quick and surefire ways to make you start doubting your skills, intellect, and your potential as a chess player. You’re not alone in the way you feel; I used to be in a very similar predicament to you actually, so hopefully I can provide some insight on what I’ve learned since joining this site.

I only had casual OTB experience with friends and family, so I came onto this site seeking to improve. I didn’t consider myself a bad player, but as soon as I joined, I was immediately humbled. Constantly. I thought playing hundreds of games here would help me improve, but instead I just plummeted to the 400 elo range. I knew something wasn’t working, so I decided to take a break from the chess board and watch in-depth instructional videos instead. I started watching John Bartholomew specifically; in his Climbing The Rating Ladder videos, he took his time to explain the thought processes behind his moves in a clear and simple way… and for the first time, something finally “clicked” in my mind. When I implemented his style of thinking into the way I played, I went from the 400 range to 600. Over a couple months, I achieved 800. And finally, I broke 1000.

Playing hundreds of crappy games didn’t help me: I just became solidified in my bad habits. What a lot of players end up realizing is that real improvement happens off the chess board. Watch instructional videos, and observe the habits of people who are better than you. It’s a quality over quantity situation: you will be way better off playing a few 30-minute games a day and analyzing your mistakes instead of playing dozens of blitz games a day for example. Btw, I learned how to play chess late and all my improvement was done in adulthood, so if I can do it, you certainly can do it as well :) keep in mind that most chess players don’t reach their peak rating until age 35+, so imo you still have plenty of time to reach your goals. Wishing you the best of luck!

It's a common story, people can beat their friends and family members, so they think they're pretty good. When they play online they find out they were just a beginner being other beginners.

A true beginner (just having learned the rules) would probably be rated below 0. This site doesn't allow ratings below 100, but that's where they'd be. Beginners improve very rapidly though, so in just 1 month a player would be hundreds of points above 0 pretty easily.

I looked at a handful of your games. Your biggest problem is the typical problem to have... which is board vision. You move a knight, and then oops, your opponent captures the knight for free. I see you're choosing 60 minute games but moving quickly. Instead of that, take as long as you need on each turn making sure your move is 100% safe. Try not to lose anything for free, not even a single pawn!

Play games with that in mind, and your rating will improve a lot in a short amount of time. It's not easy when the board is full of pieces, but it becomes easier with practice.

Oh, and in general, don't get aggressive during the first 10-15 moves.

If your opponent screws up and you can take something for free, then definitely do that! But if that doesn't happen, then most of your moves should be on your half of the board, and doing your best never to move the same piece twice. Again this is for the first 10-15 moves. Your goals in the opening are to get your knights and bishops off the back rank quickly, and castle. After that you can try to attack.

For more detail:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

 

What if they strike first though? For instance in the Scandinavian, I find if I don't take the first pawn, usually the other party does.

There are exceptions, but as a general rule, you don't really want to allow the opponent to control too much of a center (both you and the opponent want to control central squares in the opening). In most cases you wish to take that pawn. After 1.e4, the whole idea of d5 by the opponent is to challenge your e4 central pawn, and defending the pawn has its own drawbacks. 2.d3 is a bit passive and it blocks your bishop, 2.Nc3 is not ideal because of d4, and something like 2.f3 can be really bad. His d5 move challenges your pawn, but it also controls some central squares, so it is a good idea to take it.

So yeah, you have to think in the opening as well, especially when you don't know theory, but in general knowing opening principles and not blundering material will get you far.

Yeah, as said above, in the Scandinavian just take the pawn, and it they recapture with their Queen, play Nc3 and kick the Queen so it has to move again. You win the tempo you lost taking the pawn back this way, as they now have to move the Queen or lose it.

There are pretty much only guidelines on how to play the opening for example, no rules set in stone.

Here are my tips on how to improve (at least this method has gained me about 700 rating points in under 10 months):

Play mostly rapid 15|10 or longer and daily. Analyse after games, at least going through all blunders and mistakes. Try to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Do a lot of puzzles. The regular puzzles and puzzle rush survival are good for learning.

Learn the basic checkmates like ladder-mate with 2 rooks, King+Queen mate and King+Rook mate.

Take the lessons here on basic opening principles and so on.

Read a couple books aimed for beginners. Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide To Chess and Play Winning Chess by Seirawan are good.

Most importantly, do not give up and have patience.

I’d just like to say you’ve got some really good responses here so I want to encourage you to take them to heart.

Chess is a tough game, and in the beginning, you lose more that you win. In fact, if you are winning most of your games, find stronger opponents. That said, you need to try and learn from your losses.  I hope there is some useful knowledge here

 

When I was about eight years old my mom and my brothers taught me how to play chess.  I was soon able to beat all of them.  I played some at school in a chess club my friend started.  He seemed really good at the time, but now, he can't beat me even if I spotted him a minor piece.  I had another friend who was good too, but I couldn't beat him either.  I was good against my mother and brothers, but, not good against those two, and someone else...  I was also good against other beginners I played with, and my other friend at the time had unusual beginning moves, though, sound, however, he didn't implement them correctly.

Later I joined the military and was one day in a room full of GIs beginners playing chess.  I beat all of them, except for the former youth champion, who beat me easily.  

Back then it was yahoo chess, and I was rated 1000.  1000 was 500 back then, I am guessing, because chess knowledge wasn't as readily available.  

my win-loss ratio was probably something like 5000 to 250 wins.  A bit exaggerated but I don't remember the exact numbers, just remember that my winning percentage was well below 50%.  Don't ask me how I was 1000 rated.  Maybe I lost a lot of games at first and started to climb up, perhaps...

Reinfeld books were available at the time, so I guess not having chess resources wasn't a full excuse, though, there are a lot more than there were back then, and there was no chess.com.

I don't think I actually knew about doing tactics until I left the military.  I played a weird opening back then, based on the fact that I thought 1. c4 was the Sicilian.  Don't ask why I thought that, you'd laugh.  I also got scared passive with the black pieces and often just played e6 with now d5 and just sort of pushed pawned here and there until I lost.

I also remember losing to plenty of opening traps at that level, even for people rated as low as me.

When chess.com came into existence, I joined, as Daybreak57, and achieved a blitz rating of about 1100, and a rapid rating of about 1600.  I've always had a lower blitz rating here, except maybe at the point where I achieved 1600 in blitz, then lost it shortly after I changed my opening, again for the 17th time.  (an exaggeration but I lost count on how many times my opening has changed).  Eventually, my blitz went back to 1200 for some reason, and now it's back to 1400, but not where it stayed for a while, 1500.  

This happened over the course of over 20 years.  So I spent at least 7 more years playing chess, and I'm still only rated 1400 in blitz, and 1600 in rapid.  For some reason, I can't get past 1600 rapid...

In the mind of the beginner, chess is a jumbled mess.  Let me explain.  The person may have a lot of chess talent, but it's jumbled, in the form of his own bad thinking algorithms getting in the way.  You have to unjumble that chess brain so you can start to think more clearly so you are able to see the whole board and calculate long variations when needed.  

What I mean by this is when you start playing chess you learn the moves and try to play not knowing much tactics or strategy.  So you rely on basic principles, that you were taught, or just bad advice that someone told you, or, just whatever you feel like doing, or whatever.  

The reason why chess coaches tell their students, "Don't study openings, study basic chess principles," is because they don't know a lot of motifs, tactics, or strategies.  Or even endgame sometimes.  I remember one time I played someone who achieved a rook and king and some pawns vs king endgame with me being on the losing end.  The guy couldn't mate with just the rook, so he had to promote a pawn to a queen to mate me.  Or, he just thought that would be quicker.  Either way, it's good to know basic endgames even at the lower levels, just in case.  Anyway, yeah, they don't know tactics and strategy or even middle game ideas.  The best way for them to improve is by learning basic principles first, to follow, in the absence, of opening knowledge, tactical training, strategic thinking, and middlegame ideas.  this comes at a price, they will lose a lot.  Now, since you are losing a lot, the thing you must do, is analyze your games, annotate them even, then go over them with a stronger player, or a computer later.  Take note of the tactics and strategies and middle game ideas you missed, and store them in your databanks.

That's one good way to unjumble your chessboard, in your head.  There are a lot of other ways, but you must first, give me your soul muahahahahaha!  Nah, j/k, you have to read a lot of chess material.  The books you need to review, are beyond the scope of this message.  I don't create study plans for people anymore because I realized I'm not good enough to know exactly what should one study.  All I am saying, is, unjumble the chessboard in your head.  I told you one way to get started, the rest is up to you.

discover lots of helpful resources here to improve your chess skills...

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

Looking at some of your recent losses vs similarly rated opponents, the main technical issue I see, of course, is that you are just hanging pieces, sometimes outright, and sometimes to simple tactics (not realizing your opponent has more attackers than you have defenders, discovered attacks, pins, exchange miscalculations). This issue needs to be fixed first. I would stay away from playing too many games and focus on tactics trainings. You need to be able to spot these ideas and either avoid them or exploit them when your opponents fall into them.

Another thing I would recommend is playing games at your level out all the way to checkmate, even if you think you're totally lost. Anything can happen at that level of play and losing a minor piece is not a good enough reason for you to resign until you get up above 1200 or so. I wouldn't even recommend resigning unless you are at least 1000, or are playing against someone a lot higher rated than you. It can be frustrating to know you screwed up, and tempting to just resign and start over fresh, but learning to play from behind is a crucial skill at any level. I would recommend learning some basic checkmate patterns or traps, and focus on trying to catch your opponent sleeping. Try to manufacture something--if it doesn't work and you just lose more material, no harm done, but I'm sure you'll win at least some additional games you otherwise wouldn't have if you had just resigned at the first sign of material loss. I can't stress this point enough: at the <500 level you will hang material every game. If you resign every game in which that is the case, you will win very few games. Set realistic expectations and take your mistakes in stride.

A third issue I see in your games is time management: you seem to be playing a lot of 60 minute games--which is great--but you only end up using maybe 5 minutes on your clock for all of your moves! I would definitely recommend taking your time and calculating through the one to two move consequences of your actions before making the first move you see. "Never make a bad move fast" is an important mantra I myself have had to learn to internalize lately.

Psychologically, you need to stop focusing on how good you want to be or how good you think you ought to be and take a proper accounting of how good you are, and get real about what it takes to improve. I've had to do this myself recently. You seem to be taking this first step which is great. You aren't going to suddenly get a lot better just by playing a bunch of games over and over, making and not learning from the same mistakes. Remember--practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent! Make sure you supplement your games with regular tactics and opening principles study and take more time on your moves! If you haven't played any daily games yet, I highly recommend for helping to learn to dive deeper into your positions (it's not the best learning tool but good in moderation imo).

Hope any or all of this helps! Best of luck to you.

Here's one way of looking at it:

At the beginning of a chess game, there is a very approximate equilibrium of position between the White and Black sides. Since White moves first it isn't a perfect balance, but it's close.

Violent attacks (like the Wayward Queen attack) should only work AFTER the equilibrium has already been disturbed. On the other hand, if a player attempts a violent attack in a position that is still in balance... for instance, by bringing out their Queen early in the game and trying to snatch material... then they will (and should!) lose the game against accurate defense.

The advantage is not gained by attack. Attack is a method for CONVERTING an existing advantage into a more readily usable form... for converting an advantage in development and center control into an advantage in material, for example.

You GAIN the advantage by maneuver. You CASH IT IN by attacking.

If I were grading your games you'd have 2 options to get a passing grade (so to speak):

1) You're fully developed on move 15. That means knights, bishops, and queen off the back rank, your king is castled (ideally to a side where none of the 3 flank pawns have moved) and ideally you have a pawn in the center. (Also, the material is at least equal.)

2) You're not fully developed on move 15 but it's because you were spending moves winning your opponent's pieces. So you're ahead a few pawns, or a knight, rook, etc.

 

How you get there I really don't care. In general you should not initiate captures, move the same piece twice, and you should try to make as few pawn moves as possible... but each of these rules of thumb will be broken here and there as necessary... as long as the outcome on move 15 is good then you'd get a passing grade.

 

The general advice above is great, but with respect to the Scandinavian in particular, the best follow-ups for white are to (1) take the pawn and then (2) when black recaptures with the queen, threaten it with Nc3.  At that point, usually they'll move the queen out of attack with Qa5 or Qd8 and then you're about even.

I suggest that instead of worrying about reaching a particular rating you simply enjoy chess. Pick a great player from the past and study his or her games. If your favorite is Tal, then you are in for a fun ride as you play through all his games. 

If you view chess as a kind of job where you regard yourself as a complete failure unless you have reached goal A by date B, you are missing the point entirely.

I see a lot of great responses already. The one that stands out to me is time management. It has already been mentioned you need to spend more time on each move. A lot more.  But, after looking at some of your games, I feel bad time management (i.e. playing too fast) is not the main problem, it's a symptom.  

You should not spend time for the sake of spending time. You should spend time because making the right decision is time consuming. Playing as fast as you do is an indication your decision making process is fundamentally flawed.

An example

Taken from your game vs nolan_sabian. This is a 60 minute game and after 8 moves, you still have 59:12 on the clock. That's 6 seconds per move!

White to move. In this position you played your move after just 15 seconds. It was a blunder, a pretty big one. What I wondered was why you didn't play the totally obvious dxe4? What did you consider the downsides of this move?  Assuming you  had a reason not to take back, what other options did you consider? Bf3 looks logical. Putting the Rook on the e-file (Re1). Bh5? Bf4? d4? Even Nxf7 could be considered. How you ended up playing Nc4 is beyond me.

It would take me more than 15 seconds to just identify all candidate moves, Let alone evaluate the options. 

My guess is that you are skipping the most basic part of chess decision making, which is to identify candidate moves, evaluate them and then make choice. Your play will improve drastically.

Best of luck! 

Most players here take a couple months to improve, I recommend to look into some basic openings like the italian and to play at least one game a day

In the beginning, we all learn how the pieces move and come up with bizarre ideas on how we can win quickly.  Against our friends and family who do not know any better, we may even rack up wins.  When we run into people who know more than just how to move the pieces, we quickly find out we know nothing.  This is very common.

To move beyond that introductory level, you must drill basic tactical patterns.  Think of it like a boxing match.  You would not walk into the ring and just wing a match against a trained opponent.  You would get destroyed!  So you drill your jabs, your combinations, your dodges, your counter punches, etc.  The chess equivalent to those is basic tactical patterns.  The closer they become to instinctual, the faster you recognize them and the stronger you become as a player.

You may have known how the pieces move for 13 years, but you have not really practiced chess that long.  In effect, you are a "chess baby".  To grow, you must eat your vegetables (tactics).