Am I too stupid for chess?

Ok, if you have zero experience and willing to learn then you will have huge progress for sure. Speaking about books. I'm not an expert in them. I've read different stuff and most likely it doen't matter what book you read as long as it's useful for you. I've heard many good reviews about "Chess for dummies" Many coaches recommend it. The name is funny but actually they say that this book is great and helpful even for classy players.

Keep practising with TT. I would recommend you a book with tactics exercises as well which has diagrams and answers on the last pages. The good thing about such books that they have themed exercises. For example you study fork theme and practise it many times in a row. The one approach is to solve huge number of quite simple puzzles. This approach was used by soviet union chess school which was extremely successful.

Speaking about principles of the game. There are opening, middlegame and endgame ones. Now you don't follow any of them and it's also the reason why you lose that many.

I started playing a little over a year ago and there was nobody worse at blitz than I was. Forget 3 min blitz. If you like blitz like I do play 5 min instead. It will allow you more time to think. Don't make your moves blindly. You have to check each move. Don't worry about losing on time. The time it takes you to find the move will improve. DO NOT MAKE BLIND MOVES. Instead concentrate on having equal material as your opponent during game. Download an app called Perfect Chess Trainer and practice solving the checkmate puzzles for now. Do around 15 a day. Don't rush to solve them in the time allotted. Keep redoing each puzzle as long as it takes until you understand each particular pattern. Don't get discouraged in the beginning, I guarantee one day soon you'll realize how to figure out the solution in your head before you start making your first move. It'll just hit you one day. Right now, as low as my rating is, a lot of people might have just figured the hell with this game, I just can't learn to play it. But my thing is I love playing chess, fast and slow, and I kept at it, and now it's quite satisfying to realize, "Hey! Now I get it!" You will get better. If you keep at it, improvement is unavoidable. Good Luck!

Better use chesstempo.com for TT training. Chess.com TT is pretty flawed.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

@Omega, as far as books goes "Chess for dummies" looks like it's in my ballpark. Literally. :)

@RomancitoG I've stopped playing blitz alltogether.

@Vybor How is chess.com's TT flawed?

I'm going to read "Chess for dummies" someday as well since i've heard many good reviews about it. Chess.com's TT is good for practising blitz tactics because it has a very cruel timer. :) It teaches you how to think under time pressure which is good but it has a drawback as well. Sometimes it forces you to rush and don't think properly. I use both chess.com and chesstempo.

@ realpete: Blitz teaches you bad habits. Long time controls allow you to think, plan, and calculate. I never take blitz seriously.

You want a good book? My System by Aron Niemzowitsch. It's a good book to study positional chess. And it never gets outdated.

I went from playing 5-10 10 min. blitz games/day to playing about as many per month. I now use the time instead to study. I use Chess Mentor, supplimented by Youtube, and a book called 'My System'. I play 1 1 day per move game at a time and use those games (with plenty of time on the analysis board) as additional context for study. Quitting blitz is the best thing I could have done. My play level and understanding shot up quickly - I went from 'not understanding' analysis like you alluded to, to understanding. My long game ability had drastically improved. I rarely have a big enough time slot for a live long game, but when I do play with 30 min time controls now, I can see the improvement - just last night I easily set aside an opponent thqat was 100+ my live STD rating. 

The fun in chess is not in winning games. Chess games that are well-played are fun, win or lose. But the place where I think you should be looking for the most fun is in the 'journey'. Forget about your ratings, forget about blitz, and focus on learning through study and applying chess priciples in games where you have time to think, and you will become a (in the least) a relatively good chess player... 

You're not too stupid. I lost most of my games(hundreds) for the first two years I played chess. I just kept at it and it started to click. Chess is pattern recognition. Try to relax and learn from your games by looking for those patterns. Don't put pressure on yourself by making rating goals. It's often normal to be stuck at a rating and then leap by two hundred points.

Wow, the realpeat you are lucky to get an answer from a Grand Master of chess. That doesn't happen often. You should feel privileged and take this as a sign that you may yet improve.

Have a nice day.

@Omega_Doom

Slightly a redundent question, but if you had to chose between the TT on chess.com and the TT on chesstempo which would you use? I feel like I should take advantage of the TT on chess.com because I get (20?) more attempts at it.

@akafett

I'll check that book out, thanks for the recommendation.

@Blastforme thanks for the lengthy reply, in regards to studying, how do you prefer to study chess? Are there specific study methods that you find to work better?

@GM Eric Hansen, I appreciate the reply. When you first started playing chess, what game types were you playing (blitz or turnbased??)

And another general to question to everyone, is it worth buying some lessons from a mentor/coach to improve my chess play? Or should I wait a while until I'm more familiar with the game?

I do TT on chess.com, chesstempo.com, and 365chess.com. The puzzles are all different with varying difficulty. The tactics rating you get on each one is irrelavant.

Just make sure you either solve the problems or understand why you missed them; that's the most important thing. Occasionally, I'll spend 20 minutes or more on one problem before I solve it. And I'll make the one move I think is the strongest, then the computer tells me "correct". And then I may have to look at the several lines of play in the complete solution before I understand it. But, when I walk away from a problem, I understand it; it doesn't matter to me what my TT rating reflects.

Everyone starts off as a beginner, top GMs included. This doesn't mean you are stupid, simply that you've got all your learning in front of you.

When I first hit 2000 ELO, somebody remarked "I always thought anyone can reach 2000. Now you have removed all doubt." 

Yes! And now go cook your neighbour some dinner!

nobody is too stupid to play chess, most of us are just too stupid to play good chess.

I probably don't have the best, or even a good system for learning. I like to start on a subject with Chess Mentor. The lessons aren't usually very "deep", but they do convey the key ideas behind whatever position, opening, concept, etc, and they offer a challenge here and there (like determine the best move that applies the subject concept, etc..)

I don't study openings per se. But I think a lot in openings about how to best apply opening principles (I.e.: get peices out quickly, to logical squares, look for tactics that hang pieces/pawns, etc..)The way I learn about specific openings is by using the Openening Explorer here during Online games. It tells you the name of the opening/variation you are in. It tells you the most popular "next moves". I play some of them out on the anaysis board until I understand them, and then pick the one I'm most comfortable with.

I submit all of my long games to Chess.com for computer analysis and then go over the results. Then sometimes I use these forums to help understand the positions. I think this has helped me most in terms of developing ability to understand strategic concepts..

For end game knowledge, the book "My System" is really good.  

Try calming down. You sound like you're "on tilt" ( to borrow a poker phrase ). On another note, intelligence is overrated in chess. I work for an e-commerce company that sells Chess supplies. I've talked to D Players that run Law Firms as well as Grandmasters that are barely functional enough to tie their shoes. I know I'm quoting the extreme cases but I've always felt that character is more important to your game than overall Intelligence level.

And you're probably right about character being more important. The link people make between overall intelligence and chess is overrated.

playing blitz is the way to success

First of all, I would have start reading chess books. Use the chess mentor and tactics trainer every day(or at least solve the daily puzzle). You need to take time analysing your own games. Have full consentration when you play.

Just check some articles how to improve your games. You will get better if the more you play, so your rating will soonly get up.