I think you should look into why it's nerve wracking. Is it losing or blundering in front of another person? Because I think that is normal. And not everyone can be comfortable making decisions in a shortly timed manner. Personally, I see the short, 1v1 games as competition and I love that in everything. It's part of my love for chess. It's not for everyone though. Not everyone knows exactly what to do all the time. Your matches will be filled with mistakes from both sides at first and that's normal
I think you should play daily chess. 3 day per move games or i dont know maybe 7 days. Easy chill games.
I agree. Play some Daily chess to ease yourself into it. Im 44 and started in January. I started with Live Chess, playing G30. I was always nervous and this is normal. You are trying to think, not mess up, watch the clock so you have to make some pragmatic decisions, and of course you'd love to win, so the adrenaline will be flowing and you will feel nervous. But too many nerves, bad nerves rather than good nerves, results in stress responses and you wont be able to think properly. Playing Daily will help you improve in a more relaxed format. Then ease yourself into live chess on some long time controls like 45|45.Good luck.
It depends on what your goals are. Games against bots are a poor substitute for playing humans. You can play them for fun, but those games can't be taken seriously because bots do a poor job of imitating lower rated humans.
If you want to improve, then longer time controls live games are the best (you don't have to play too many if you don't have the time, but 15|10 is the bare minimum, and if you can, play 30 minutes per side or an hour per side). Bullet and blitz should mainly be a no no for an improving player as your improvement will most likely be limited because you can't really think about the position (and based around what you've written that you want to engage your brain more, well bullet and blitz are more about chess intuition and less about thinking, so they might not be that appealing to you anyway).
Daily games are ok, sure, but longer time controls live games are a bit better because in daily games you can use opening books and databases without engines and you have an analysis board. This makes things easier as you don't have to visualize the board, you can make moves manually in analysis board, and it is much tougher to mess up the opening phase.
Thanks all, I've started doing daily chess. I'll play longer time control games too.
Interesting to read about your experience MarkGrubb, we are of similar age.
and a similar location 😁. I used to live on the Wells Road, St. Anne's. Near Mapperly. Burton-on-Trent now.
Message me if you'd like to play some Daily practise games. I mainly play Daily (family, job, etc.).
Humans play less predictably than the computers, I think that's most of it. When a human player's move looks strange, it's not obvious whether the move has a solid plan behind it, or whether it's simply a mistake. That takes getting used to, but once you accept that your opponent is going to do what they're going to do, that feeling should go away.
Thanks for the advice Dsmith42. I think you hit the nail on the head there, human unpredictability could be it.
Well.... I'm not that good at chess, but for me, humans are more unpredictable and people do things that you wouldn't expect them to do. Bots on the other hand... You can sometimes guess what they'll do at lower-medium levels. For higher level bots, I haven't beaten them so idk xD.
I find the computer games easier than real people. I feel guilty that I should be all serious about it and bury my head in text books learning moves etc but I find that really boring but wish I didnt as I want to improve.
Is it possible to improve just playing against the computer and not studying opening moves etc which almost sends me to sleep just the idea of having to read up on it.
Is it enough just to play against the computer and love the beautiful chess pieces and have admiration for such an incredible game which surely must be the best game in the world.
Computers are worse than actual players at their rating... Like how I can easily beat the 800 rating Beth, but I can't beat an actual player at 800...
As a beginner you don't have to memorize openings. All you need is opening principles. Tactics, positional understanding, endgames, all of that is more important than say learning first 10 moves of some Sicilian variation. That is because people you play the game against, will not know these moves and will play something different than main lines, to which you will not really have an answer. Knowing opening lines is something that can tip the scales of a game when 2 players are already very strong, it is rarely a factor on lower levels.
But you will not get better just by playing bots. Chess against lower level bots is like a simulation of a chess game, not the actual chess game. Why? Because cpu will play ok and then make some completely illogical blunder without you even pressuring its position.
That is true....
I beat the bot Francis (2300) he played the Irish gambit
better to play full strength engine with no personality to train and then beat humans for fun.
You've been a great help. Daily chess it is 
As I get older (45) I'm forcing to use my brain more in my spare time to try to remain mentally active and try and keep my brain fresh for as long as possible. I've started coding in my spare time and now learning chess.
Initially, I started playing chess videogames then I discovered this site existed.
I find the puzzles to be lots of fun, and I enjoy games against bots too. I find games against humans online a little nerve-wracking, don't know why.
Any tips for someone like me?