What is the point of playing?

I play chess to win. At least in my opinion, the game is not fun unless I win. For about five years I have had the same exact skill level in chess, right around 1000, and it will never improve. Losing at chess is one thing, but at the pathetic level of 1000, all losses are due to blunders and idiotic mistakes.

People tell me to think evry move what my opponent will do to me or why my opponent made that last move. And they tell me to check to ensure that all my moves are safe before I actually make the move. I listen to their advice, and figure it makes sense, but then a few minutes later I find myself 20 moves into a game and having completely forgotten to use the advice at all. I can't force myself to think that way. It is so tedious. To great players it comes naturally because they have the raw natural talent to play the game. Players like me make mistakes all the time. I have gone through recently a stretch of ten games, in seven of them I blundered a piece.

The worst part of it is that there are no success stories. Players at my level do not improve. Grandmasters and masters these days always reached their title before the age of 15. Past that, you will not improve at chess because if you do not have natural skill at the game from a young age, there is no hope of you being a great player.

People tell me I could work hard and study, but chess books are all about openings and endgames and are of no help whatsoever to a player like me who has major tactical issues. Nobody writes books for players of my level because they know it is pointless. Studying grandmaster games at my level would be dumb because grandmasters never make major mistakes, and when they do it is very rare.

This is my rant on chess. Chess is so utterly frustrating to all players who are not great at it.

Play long games and before every move, first have a look at your undefended pieces and whether they can be captured,trapped or double attacked in someway. If so, find a defence. Doing only that will win you lots of games in the ~1000 rating. You are probably just playing too fast.

Perhaps start a reading program. There are many great players here...Lets have a list of books in the order they should be read, say for beginners...I think thats already done somewhere here. 

Try using chess mentor, or some program that can analyze ur games after you did it, it can find mistakes for you. Also, if ur having problems with ur thought process, try using tactical puzzle books, or Think/Calculate like a grandmaster by either Alexander Kotov, or Danny Gormally

I don't want to know what I did wrong, I just want to not make the idiotic mistake in the first place. I do not know what to be thinking before each move

Do tactic trainer, do 5,000 puzzles and then start playing.. I swear at your rating people make mistakes left and right and you will be the last one laughing!

When I was about 1300 I used to have a checklist I would run through before making each move.  It was basic, sort of thing like:  Am I leaving anything hanging? What did last move change? What lines am I opening?  I don't remember at what point I stopped using the checklist but I know it gave me confidence in what I was doing.  It varies from person to person how to improve.  Your question, though: What is the point of playing - the point is to enjoy it.  I don't play hoping that one day I will be a master, I have no illusions about that. I play because it is a compelling, beautiful game that enriches my life and that of many other people.

I don't know if playing just to win and not enjoying the game itself is the right motivation. Do you enjoy a position, a combination, good moves, a tricky endgame etc. ? If not, I guess it could be hard to study the game seriously. you can't become a better player without training. You are IMO wrong in three points. First: it doesn't come naturally to great players - each of them had to study chess. Some GM said that pattern recognition takes a big part in what makes a GM. Thats a long learning and developing process. Second: Its wrong that players at your level do not improve. they even improve faster than high level players. They just have to learn the right things. Third: books aren't all about openings and endgames. There are many books out there suited for beginners. There are also basic tactics books. if you want to learn from mistakes that players in lower levels normaly make you can look into Silmans Amateurs Mind, oder Euwe's Chess Master versus Chess Amateur.

Chess-advancement can occur in unusual ways (probably due to pattern-recognition beginning to click). It is not always a linear rise & think is important to actually '' like '' the game. (Rather than simply trying to win all the time.)

You have come to the right place. Use all the tools available on this site. Do not despair most players improve. Tactics and endgames are the areas to start.

I understand what you are saying but i am a novice chess player who has only recently taken it up and i think that chess is a mentally engaging game not just some sport and losing helps develop your ability to think and winning means you have learned something.

WE don't play chess because we are happy. We are happy because

we play chess!

Personally I do it for the babes.

And cats.

The response to your question from the title of this thread is different from player to player. Winning at chess is important. But if this is your end goal I think you might have big problems with deception when you loose. And then chess is not fun anymore. 

I think the most important thing in chess is to aim to become a better player all the time and learning from your losses is a part of this process. I am a competitive person and I love to win too but loosing some games is boosting my ambition to try to become better.

I've started chess 3 weeks ago. My dad beat me and I want to do everything to be able to beat him. That's how I've discovered chess.com. After a few days I saw the beauty of the game and now my goal is completely different.

I've reached 598 at live chess 30 min. But after 3 weeks I'm ~950 rating. You said that in the last five years you're around 1.000. It seems that you do something wrong.

Did you see this? http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/top-14-chess-books-for-beginnersnovices. The first six books are great to study in the first 6 months, try one book/month

Also chesstempo helped me a lot. 1 hour/day. You can do even less. Discuss your losses in the forums or with a chess buddy.

Good luck, hope this will help you

If any game is not fun unless you win, then it is your approach that is at fault and you are not seeing the game for its beauty, but for a means to an end.

Start again,follow the advice you have been given, but most of all enjoy the uniqueness of the game, only then will you have a chance for improvement.

I have been having similar problems, although I am slightly less annoyed about them as Sunset96 appears to be. You seem to be hard on yourself.

However, myself, I have issues with thought process too. People make posts saying general ideas on how they think, but I would like to see a specific checklist like Here_is_Plenty wrote. Specific, not just general ideas.

Overall even though I get frustrated from time to time though I play the game for fun and it is all good.

Sunset,

I certainly understand your frustration. I've been there. You're reading advice from a player who once threw a piece across the room in frustration!  (Not proud of that, by the way). Let me try to be helpful by telling you where you are wrong. First, don't let frustration make you fall into the trap of thinking you can't improve. You almost certainly can get better with the right kind of study and practice. The fact that most grandmasters are incredibly strong players at 15 may--and I mean MAY--suggest you won't be a grandmaster, but that is not the same as not improving. Remember, Viktor Korchnoi came late to being a grandmaster, and played at world class levels well into his old age. I suspect you have some time.

My second bit of advice is to try to enjoy the game for itself. Being too frustrated by a loss likely prevents you from learning from that loss. If you drop a piece, for example, you might not be asking yourself whether you just missed the fact that the piece was hanging, or whether you committed a subtle strategic error that, several moves later, led you to a point where the piece had nowhere to go. The result is the same, but your approach to  solving the problem will be different.

Good luck!

It might help to have a look at some ideals in the game.
Development, open files, outposts, 7th and 8th rank, stuff like that.

Not all books are endgame and opening, in fact 'My System' more or less specifically deals with ideals.
I agree that learning openings doesn't help in your situation, nor will endgame theory be very relevant if you're getting creamed in the middle game. So that's my suggestion; learn about ideals.

You don't HAVE to be stuck there forever - it's not a genetic deficiancy, but you'll have to study the right things in order to understand better.

It's tedious at first, because it's difficult.  But the more you do it, the easier it gets. One thing that may help to note is, the game only changes one move at a time, so if you're checking their moves every time, you don't have to check the safety of all your pieces on every move, just the ones that the opponent's last move affected.

But whatever the reason, you're right, books wont help with these kinds of mistakes, it takes a personal decision / a personality that doesn't find it too tedious.  If you can't check to see if your intended move loses the game immediately, then you wont win many games.

If the fact that you may lose the game immediatly after your move doesn't motivate you, maybe learning something new about the game will (as other have suggested).  Not all books are on opening or endgame.  There are attack, defense, pawn structure, general strategy, tactics, and what I'll call universal books that try to cover a little bit of everything, not only opening to endgame but how to plan or manage your time.