trying to improve is impossible..

See the section "Play Longer Time Controls" near the end of this article...

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

My only problem with that is I'm afraid that if I play more rapid, my rating is going to drop.. I get on wicked losing streaks.. ;(

Perhaps try playing more 'Daily' chess games (as opposed to the 'Live' game time controls - Rapid, Blitz, Bullet, etc.). Clearly there would be less time pressure for Daily chess, as the time control is specified as 'days per move'. Do this with a view toward and a means of improving your skill and knowledge while also increasing your confidence.

Note that in Daily chess you can always move as fast as you like, just so long as you don't exceed the Daily time control. This means that you could actually finish a Daily game just as quickly as in Live games, depending on how quickly you and your opponent make your moves. Of course, in that case BOTH players would need to agree to play (i.e, make their moves) much more quickly than what is specified by the Daily control of 'days per move'.

And of course, playing 'Daily' chess has no affect on your 'Live' game ratings.

Time Controls - Everything You Wanted To Know...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/time-controls-everything-you-wanted-to-know

Thanks RussBell and Npczyk.. I'll try to play the traps, though I do that a bunch I'm blitz. Maybe I just need more studying. I'll also try to find some people that want to play daily games. Just want to improve and not be scared of rapid.

@masterius77 -

Forget about focusing on traps. That is dead-end chess (and an unproductive fascination with many lower-rated players). Focus instead on fundamental chess principles and their application to good chess. The three books I had suggested by Bruce Pandolfini at the beginning of my article, "Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond" (see link above), will be of great help in that regard - it's what these books are all about.

A little clarification. If you have an opening that you typically play consistently and that you have or are in the process of learning well, then you might want to become familiar with any well known traps that have a significant probability of appearing in the variation(s) that you typically play. Beyond that, simply focusing on traps as way of improving your chess results is generally unproductive and a waste of time and effort, as there is typically a very low probability that any traps you have learned will actually appear/arise in your games (this tends to be even more true for games between lower rated players).

If you are serious about doing what it takes to increase the probability of improving your chess results, focusing on appropriate application of fundamental chess principles is a much more productive way to go about pursuing that objective.

Along these lines (i.e., the application of fundamental principles) you might also want to check out my comment, about the book "The Six Power Moves of Chess" by William G. Karneges, in the Comments section below the following article...

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

Take up knitting instead.

Hi! Have you tried with the hekp of a coach?

I wrote on the subject of improving at chess, if interested check out my post:

https://www.chess.com/blog/maafernan/chess-skills-development

Good luck!

I'm sorry, but traps will never take you more than a rating of 600. As for you OP, If you want to improve then you need to learn the tactics and basic positional chess concepts like putting the pieces on active squares and controlling the center. I'll go through some of your games and tell you where you have to improve.

Being scared will only take you so far. There is a thing called "rating dip" in chess, where basically a person will have a big losing streak. It's a normal part of chess and every player would have went through it (Including me, I had went through a rating dip where I lost 200+ rating points). But you can only improve if you overcome the fear. Set a target for how many rapid games you want to play per day and do it.

Thanks SriyogeshS. Yeah I know that being scared to play time controls will only get me so far. Every time I play, I get a bad feeling that I'll screw up the opening, or blunder a piece early, and stuff like that I should know better but still do. Honestly, my win loss record is pretty even in wins vs losses. A lot of the time I lose just as much as I win, which won't really help me progress anyways.

I was lucky I decided myself to memorize openings first when I was a beginner. A coach would say start with endgames. Else, I should be still 1300 chess.com today. I studied one hour a day purely on openings. Then after one year I inserted solving chess tactics. Back to back to back.

Thanks anonymous.. I've been studying openings, still have trouble with black at times but been doing okay with white.

To most of my students, I give this advice (and it's almost all they need):

The biggest reason people struggle in lower-level chess is because of blunders. They make them in almost every game.

A mistake can instantly put you in a bad position, no matter how well you played earlier: if you had great opening knowledge, great positional skills, great endgame skills, whatever; a single mistake can change everything (you lose a piece or get checkmated).

So, how do you avoid blunders? Follow these two simple steps:

1. After your opponent moves, think if it's dangerous. Ask yourself, “What’s his idea?”
2. Before you make your move, think if it's safe. Ask yourself, “What attacking replies can he play?”

If you feel like getting to levels like 1600, 1800, or 2000 in chess is super hard, let's look at it in a different way. Those players you're facing make blunders in nearly every game they play. Beating them isn't so tough if you stop making big mistakes and start using their slip-ups to your advantage.

Again, it does not require you to become a chess nerd or spend all your time on chess. Just doing this one thing can boost your rating by a few hundred points right away.

Lastly, while avoiding blunders is crucial, I also share a few basic principles with my students. These principles help them figure out what to do in each part of the game - the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame. Understanding these simple principles is like having a map for your moves. When you use this knowledge along with being careful about blunders, you're not just getting better at defending. You're also learning a well-rounded approach to chess. Keep in mind, chess is not just about not making mistakes; it's about making smart and planned moves to outsmart your opponent.

Yep that pretty much sums me up. I blunder every game religiously.

I blunder more when I have to think about my move.

Hope you get better

Look at what grandmasters do, multiple of them set time limits for moves they make in a game. If they are in a 3 hour game they will limit the time to make a one move down to 15 min, try to do the same thing. Also chess is a game of pattern recognition, if you are scarred to play rapid do puzzles and play unrated rapid. Also from my experience try to learn one opening for black and white that is generally not a main opening, and be the best at those because you play it 100 percent of the time and your opponents only see it time to time.

Studying what?

As the game below shows, you don't know how to give mate with a queen. That would be a good thing to learn, as it comes up frequently. Also, mating with a rook is the same method.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/94097561761?username=masterius77