Stuck around 900 ELO for 4 years. What is wrong with me?

Dear chess lovers, I am playing on chess.com for about 5 years now. And I am stuck around 900 elo for about 4 years. As you may imagine, this situation is driving me nuts (and depressed). I daily play 5 min or 3/2, I know that if I really read and study, may be I can develop my chess. But my case (this cycle of 1 lose+ 1 win and getting stuck) seems really interesting to me. I cannot stop thinking that I should have at least developed a little, even if I do not study seriously. 

Precisely I am interested in understanding more this stage of getting stuck for years. Is it normal because I do not study etc. or is it that something wrong with me? Any analysis, any solutions?     

Hey, went through some of your games.

• I'd suggest stop playing f6 against d4 d5 set up. I think you need to focus on opening principles in general a bit
• Stop capturing knights with bishop whenever you can. Sometimes it makes sense but I guess you immediately got for it. Remember this: in open positions, bishops are better than knights in general. In closed positions, when everything is crammed and locked, knights are better as they can hop over pieces.
• Hanging pawns: just pay some more attention to pawns' defenses when playing, they can be important in endgames etc
• Do more puzzles and rapid games - like 15 min etc (instead of blitz)

hope this helps, good luck

#1

"I am stuck around 900 elo for about 4 years."
++ A rating of 900 is a sign of frequent blunders. Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it. Hang no pieces, hang no pawns and you are 1500.

"I daily play 5 min or 3/2" ++ Shift to 15|10. First walk, then run.

"I cannot stop thinking that I should have at least developed a little" ++ Analyse your lost games. If you repeat the same mistakes over and again than it is normal to stagnate.

Finegold sums it up really well.

Super quick summary (he makes some other points too, but these are the main ones):

"Whenever you blunder and miss a tactic, the only way to get better at chess is to remember that tactic, don't blunder it anymore, and do that tactic to somebody else in the future. Most people who are below 1500 their whole life make the same mistakes every game."

"The other thing people who don't improve do is play crazy on purpose because they like to win by playing crazy. They prefer to sac two pieces and win vs winning out of a drawn endgame."

-

Gotta be honest,  I don't know how you're still at 900 elo after 4 years.

i have watched that clip so many times and it still cracks me up at how sad and true it is lol

And what goes along with what Finegold is saying (even though he doesn't say it explicitly) is that (some) low rated players, when they lose a pawn, they think that's ok. Some even think it's ok to lose a knight or more.

To improve, you have to be really greedy. Don't lose even a single pawn for free! In a game, if you make a mistake and lose a pawn, that needs to be a big deal to you. You have to look at the game afterwards and think about what caused it to happen, and come up with a plan for how you'll avoid making that mistake in the future.

For example maybe you were really excited about an idea you had and forgot to check what your opponent could do. Or maybe you lost a pawn because the bishop was far away in the corner and even though you checked what your opponent could do, you forgot to look for the far away pieces. Maybe you move too quickly. Whatever it is, you have to think about it, and come up with a plan to play differently next time.

Most people who get stuck under 1000, they lose a pawn (or more) and they think that's ok... but it's not ok (not if you want to improve).

900 is gud, if u know what i mean XD

also, think about positives instead of negetives. this might help

If he is still blundering after 4 years, he doesn't recognise when he is blundering and telling him to check for blunders doesn't help.

Learn what a blunder is is a good first step.

That's meaningless.

Give yourself more time when playing. Less playing, more tactics, excercises etc.

Chess improvement comes from learning, from studying, from looking critically at one's own games, correcting mistakes, and building upon the ideas that you've learned.

When I was at your level, I only played 30-minute games (not blitz). I also had half a dozen beginner chess books that I actively read and studied. I didn't always understand what I was reading, but I was still making a deliberate effort to improve ...

If you really want to get better, you need to put in the work.

Thank you very much guys for the tips and suggestions.

I will try to

a. play rapid games instead of blitz,

b. analyze my game and be more attentive for blunders and be more consistent during the game,

c. do more tactics and exercises,

d. read books.

Hope to share with you the good results and progress.

Though I am also somewhat stuck, I would recommend watching professional games, especially for the opening and ending sections. Knowing which moves are preferred in which openings (and why) has helped me a lot. Satranç Analizleri is a great Youtube channel in Turkish, giving detaild analysis, and agadmator's channel is also very enjoyable and informative. 

First, I suggest you to play the 10 minutes format insted of bullet games. With more stressing time limits, you have less time to study your position while playing. Studying and understanding your position while playing is a key element to improve in chess, since it allows you to see move sequences and see several moves ahead. Sure, you can always analyse your game after the aftermath, but there is little point to it if you don't fully understand your position in-game and do not understand the better moves or do not see move sequences in-game.

Let's go through this game you have lost [Game1]:

One thing that has been mentionned above is the idea of being greedy. It is better do avoid unnecessary exchanges. Improve your position instead and apply more pressure on your opponents weaknesses while avoiding blunders. And wait for the right moment to crack it open and gain an advantage.

Here, 5...Bxf3 is a bad move for this reason. But there are also many concepts to understand in the opening, which I suggest you to learn. Some of them are piece activity and devellopment. The more active your pieces are, the better your chances are. After the aforementionned bishop exchange, the only piece you have still developped is your knight, while white has two developped pieces. Worse, your exchange allowed white to devellop his knight on the frontline, which is a gift you should avoid to give your opponent.

The third thing to understand is the counting. Before making any move, you need to calculate to the end the result and the consequences of the exchanges. 6...e5 straight up loses a pawn in the end, and the exchange sequence is very straightforward. It is an easy mistake to avoid when the counting exercice becomes a routine.

[Game 1]

A fourth thing to understand is the importance of your pawn structure. There are a lot of concepts to understand about pawn structure. An important one is that the more pawn islands you have, the more exposed and vulnerable your position usually is. After 10...gxf6, you have an isolated pawn on f6. An isolated pawn is a pawn that has no pawn to support it on the file to the left or to the right. Your tenth move cracks your position open and opens many diagonals and files for your opponent to attack your king. 10...Qxf6 would have been a safer move to try to create an escape route for your vulnerable king in the center, even a the expense of your pawn in the center. You would have had better chances at castling after dealing with the queen attack.

The result of your choice of taking with the pawn rather than the queen allows 11.Qh5+. Because your b pawn is now a c pawn (important fact), you have no pawn to defend against the check. Also, your choice completely ruins any idea of castling, since your king has to move, ergo making castling impossible. It also ruins any capacity of a fort to hide your king on the kingside. Furthermore, you can't even run and hide on the queenside, since 11...Kd7 can be answered with 12.Qf5+, and your king could not have gone on c8 to seek refuge on your queenside.

I can't stress enough how much pawn structure is important. Opening your files pretty much lead to your demise in this game. 10...gxf6 is the turning point of the game for me, it just made your king too vulnerable. Taking the bishop with the queen instead was the critical move to make, and you missed it. The rest of the game was a formality, your king was so vulnerable and unable to hide behind your pawns it was easily chased down across the board and checkmated.

I suggest you to learn a few openings (especially the most common ones) for Black and for White, to understand the traps and the main variations for each one. But also, to understand why the moves you make in the opening are important for the middle game and the endgame. If you improve your openings but play them like a robot without understand why you play the moves, it won't get you far. It personally helped me to improve when I was stuck at 1200-1300 ELO.

Avoid sicilians at your level, they are very sharp. As black:

1) Learn the solid karo-cann defense to begin.

2) Be prepared to answer the tricky but classic Queen's gambit

3) Learn the pirc defense. It is a great and solid opening for Black.

As White:

1) Learn the London system, which has a solid reputation

2) Take a look at the Queen's gambit

There are many instructional opening repertoires or videos easily accessible. I suggest long videos (~20 minutes) that go in detail about the critical moves of an opening and the different main lines .

More important than the opening itself is understanding the basic general opening rules and strategies for the opening in order to get a better position for an opening you don't understand or have never faced before.

...How? 

I would say the most important thing is to play more rapid. People who see little to no progress tend to be those who only play blitz. Playing rapid will help you calculate better.