I don't know if I have a chess club in my local area, but next year I will be going to a large university that has one (I'm 17). I'll definitely check out the chess fundamentals series on youtube. How do tactics improve chess?
You should read some basic books to make sure there are no holes in your understanding of chess before advancing to more involved tactics and strategy books, Jose Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals is an excellent relative short (120+ pages) book and a great place to get brief exposure to everything. He write it while World Champion in 1921 and there are legally free pdf versions floating around the internet.
Other than that: tactics, tactics, tactics! You should recognize tactical motifs and their patterns by name. Two good interactive lists are at:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics--definitions-and-examples
https://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html
The tactics trainers at those sites are extremely worthwhile working every day.
Thank you both daxypoo and MickinMD. I'll try doing tactics and will the Chess Fundamentals book. Your responses have helped guide me into what I should be doing
A few years ago when I first started playing I was 800. Studying tactics and following opening principals got me to 1400 in about 6 months. Oh, and don't play any blitz. At your level it will cause nothing but frustration.
Thank you all for the resources and suggestions. Is it okay for me to play 30 minutes live at my level or would it be better to play daily chess?
either works. the best thing to do is not be scared when they bring their queen out or something like that.
Live chess is better than daily IMO. I despise daily chess though so my opinion might be a little biased.
"... 'Chess Fundamentals' ... does not deal so minutely as this book will with the things that beginners need to know. ..." - from Capablanca's A Primer of Chess
Possibly of interest:
Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1949)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Endgames_for_Kids.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf
Seirawan stuff
http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_beginner/ev_winning_chess.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-Beginner
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-winning-chess-endings
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
http://www.nystar.com/tamarkin/review1.htm
Thank you for the list of great openings, improvements, endings, etc kindaspongy!
Low-rated players usually lose because of simply tactical errors. They leave pieces hanging, they walk into checkmate, etc.
Before every move, check if any of your pieces are threatened and not sufficiently protected. Sometimes you can ignore threats to your pieces if you're making threats to your opponent, but you need to be aware of what the threats are.
If you can avoid dropping pieces to simple threats, that on its own might get you to 1200. It should certainly get you closer.
I am very bad at standard chess (900). I just can't seem to figure out what to do next while playing. I'll often mess up and have my queen trapped or something too. I just feel like an absolute failure. I get scared and threatened easily while playing. It seems like everyone is better than me, and I don't know what to do. Is there any way for someone like me to get to at least 1200, or even just securely in 1000?
There have been some good suggestions for achieving the rating you want. If you have a goal of reaching 1000 or 1200 then tactics and study are good places to start. But you also said you feel like a failure, get scared and threatened. To me that's much more the issue. Chess is just a game, its not important in the grand scheme of things. You should not feel like a failure if you lose to a grandmaster or someone who doesnt even know how the pieces move. Either way, if you enjoy their company and you enjoyed the game, you are a success. Even a grandmaster rated 2400 is a miserable failure compared to the very best in the world or the best computers so my suggestion is dont worry too much about rating and instead just enjoy.
When you play against a higher rated player , have the mindset of "I'm taking this turkey down". Be fearless!
Learn some tactics. Start by learning some basic openings, Queen's Gambit Declined or Rudy Lopez, 5 or 6 moves deep to start with, so that you get a decent start to the game.
I am very bad at standard chess (900). I just can't seem to figure out what to do next while playing. I'll often mess up and have my queen trapped or something too. I just feel like an absolute failure. I get scared and threatened easily while playing. It seems like everyone is better than me, and I don't know what to do. Is there any way for someone like me to get to at least 1200, or even just securely in 1000?
Thank you monkeychess09
If you don't mind me asking StupidGM, what are right squares?
Buy Majestic Chess ($10 on amazon); it is an old PC chess game.
I almost want to promise you that if you finish its adventure mode (chess video game), you'll reach 1200 here on chess.com. I "almost" because, as they say, YMMV. It's worked for me; I went from worse than you (don't even know all the legal moves) to 1200 in about 3 months.
In adventure mode, it assumes 0 chess knowledge, so the beginning is going to be very basic for you. But stay with it, it'll introduce you to tactics (trapping pieces, pins, skewers, forks, decoys, etc) and how to evaluate positions (where you pick the side to play in an in-progress game, center control, pawn structure). It'll cover opposition and end games. It basically teaches you each topic then gives you quests that uses them (you win gold or pieces on your quests, assembling your army to fight the boss in each chapter).
I am very bad at standard chess (900). I just can't seem to figure out what to do next while playing. I'll often mess up and have my queen trapped or something too. I just feel like an absolute failure. I get scared and threatened easily while playing. It seems like everyone is better than me, and I don't know what to do. Is there any way for someone like me to get to at least 1200, or even just securely in 1000?