What to improve at 1200 rating

I'm returning to chess and I am once again overwhelmed and frustrated/dejected about the game. I'm always blundering, botching the open and lack a direction. I am floating around 1250 and I am very unsure what I should be studying/working towards. I have very limited opening knowledge and am basically just trying to operate under the develop/control the center principles. 

At this rating where should my energy be focused? I want to fall in love with chess but I always end up too frustrated and end up quitting. Any tips to attain measurable progress and actually feel good about chess?

Cheers

Dear Durlag,

I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.

You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.

In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.

I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!

Do chess tactics, try to aim for an hour a day, it makes a huge difference in amateur chess.

I'm doing tactics everyday but I am just absolutely stuck in the dirt at this rating. It's helpless

go over your games each time. There is this free website that gives you a strong engine analysis - see if you can play good moves more consistently each game. And another thing to note about tactics - don't blindly calculate. Note where the pieces are. What squares they control. Look for knight fork squares. pins. Checks. etc. everything will then fall into place.

I find it to be overwhelming. When I'm throwing up 6+ blunders and mistakes per game it's hard to analyze everything. I'm always missing hanging pieces then hanging my own pieces. I think my attitude is just so poor to chess that I feel helpless. Endless losing streaks and zero forward momentum is hard to break through.. I don't know what to do anymore. My tactics feel okay on the trainer but my games are just so poor.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/for-beginners/the-most-important-concept-for-all-beginners

Thanks

I wrote a useful lesson for people who make the sort of complaint you do, and I gave it as a link. Too bad you're more interested in talking to the obvious troll. Oh well.

I am trying to get over 540, and still trying. Having trouble understanding the dejection at 1200. I hope I get there some day.

Learning and play

Worry not, I similarly have no confidence in my ability playing opponents who are my peers in rating.

In fact I’ve seen many a post on this forum and others from 2000+ rated players who lack confidence and feel completely out of their depth.

Chess is a difficult game, and thus many people plateau and struggle to get past a certain point.

For some it is 900, for you 1100, for me 1600, and for others 2100.

Everyone is different, and there is no shame in that.

And I, like you, at first felt it to be a daunting and at times overwhelming task to go over each of my games to look for areas to improve, and sometimes I’m not in the mood to relive my more embarrassing and frustrating failures.

So, I take a break, and do something which I find stress relieving.

Whether that be going for a walk around the block, or having a tall glass of ice tea, or perhaps playing some mindless button mashing fighting games.

Then I will come back in a much better mood and get to work on this unpleasant but important task of analyzing my games and pinpointing the weaknesses in my play.

Two games ago, I noticed three main points of failure.

- I didn’t know how to respond to the Sicilian, which is a terrible thing if you play 1e4 in my rating range onward, given that it is the most common response, especially for higher rated players.

So I was pretty clueless in the first few moves.

So I am working on building an flexible but non-expansive opening repertoire for white.

- I fell victim to a simple tactic, where I get checked by the queen, losing my light square bishop.

- Lastly I just hung a rook for no reason.

It's hard to develop a feedback loop. Sure you can try to follow all the basic principles in articles but when push comes to shove it feels different in the game. I always seem to be slapped silly with black - when there is so many problems fundamentally with the chess it's hard to even remedy and look for positive improvements.

I think I need to somehow find a structured feedback system or study openings more. I don't know..

I'm in the same kind of boat.

Basically, I decided that I'm not doing anything that feels like work.

I enjoy doing tactics on my phone. I like an endgame book that I'm going through. I enjoy playing games and then only going through things like openings afterwards sometimes.

Completely happy with my progression.