Why do I suck so bad? Am I hopeless?

I have been playing chess for a decent amount of time - for fun since I was a kid on and off, and fairly seriously for the past year. I have been very active on this website and others for the year of 2020. I have watched tons of videos on opening preparation, done a fair amount of checkmate training, read a book called "The Big Book of Chess" by Eric Schiller, as well as doing my tactics. One thing I have not done is play rapid games (or any longer time formats); I either play bullet or blitz or daily. My daily record isn't terrible, however not great.

I have never really been able to break 1000 rating points, and starting to get pretty frustrated at my play. Am I hopeless? I generally like to think I am a pretty logical thinker. However, admittedly, I have terrible visual pattern recognition (I have taken tests online). But I'm not convinced that my problem is pattern recognition. 

I feel like I have followed most of all the tips I have heard for training and progressing in the game. But for whatever reason I don't seem to be improving. What am I missing in my training? Have I hit a brick wall, and shouldn't expect to raise my rating? I love the game, but my lack of growth has really been discouraging me lately. Any tips or insight? 

Thanks!

I have been watching a series of shows on the Chessbrahs called "Building Habits" which follows GM Aman Hambleton as he attempts to follow a set of simple rules to play. I think it shows very well the strength of following the fundamentals.

puzzles and rapid. 15 +10 preferably. That's how you improve. begginers such as myself can't get far off blitz.

Omgosh I was just thinking this , I’m so stressed , and right now my everyday life is all over the place ,chess is suffering,and I don’t feel like I’m getting better.or I did last week ..then boom 💥 this week just like that I drop like 130 points .. I write about my chess woes in m6 blog and I knew I needed to write tonight and this post caught my 3ye .. and you got me started 😆 hi I’m Lisa 

I wasn't aware of this stuff, so I watched a game.

I'm impressed by how he explains exceptions (like not winning a pawn or not capturing towards the center). He's not hand wavy or technical about it, he's keeping the explanations simple and straightforward. I imagine this would be very useful for lower rated and new players.

Knowledge and skills are different. I made a post about the most important habit you can form in chess. Without it you wont improve much no matter how much you know.

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

But keep going ,, if you want it , you can do whTeve4 it is you want .. your mind is very powerful ,, you must learn ,, well I must learn to concentrate,pay attention,and study ,tactics , traps ,isolated pawns ,pawn islands,,...everything I stay in sometime 18 hours studying.. ok ..I can keep going .. but never give up .. I don’t know even if I’ll ever have a winning streak lol but wateva 

You're playing all this blitz and bullet...how are you going to improve playing at that speed? It's not possible for anyone to play their best game at 3/2 or 1/1, you are playing on intuition with only seconds to think about each move. To get better you need to see more and understand more and to do that you need to look longer and look harder. 

Reviewed one of your game. Saw that you are losing the game since move 5 in the opening. ( Better move is d5, instead of Bc5)

I suggest you to review your games with engines or study opening other preparation methods.

Otherwise you will do same mistakes again and again.

Yeah, a big part of improving is reviewing your mistakes, and thinking about them.

Like:
"why, specifically, is the move I made a mistake in the first place?"
"why did I make this mistake, what ideas or things in the position was I thinking of (and not thinking of) at the time?"
"what strategies will I use so that in the future I wont make this same mistake again?"

For example, maybe you didn't see a bishop in a far away corner could capture your piece. It's not enough to think "oops" you have to try and understand it. "I often miss long line moves" or "I was too focused on my idea and I forgot about what my opponent could do" and then strategies like "I'm going to routinely check my opponent's back rank and the sides of the board for sneaky far away pieces" or "when my opponent has a bishop on g2, I'm going to put pawns on the light squares, and avoid putting any of my pieces on d5, c6, b7, a8."

---

You make mini lessons for yourself this way, and at first they wont seem to help, but do it day after day, and even within a week you'll start avoiding mistakes you would have normally made.

Don’t say that to yourself! Like they say, Rome was not built in a day. Take lessons, try tactics, join in on some classes. My honest advice, though it may sound insensitive considering our rating difference, is to aim lower. 1000 too high? Aim for 800 or 850. More importantly, don’t get discouraged if you encounter setbacks, and your rating takes a hit. Be a good sport, analyze losses, learn from them. At the end of the day, the goal is not rating points, but to have fun.

I only play rapid. Games are normally done in 20mins tops. I never play blitz; you'd have to be at a high level to play those games. I'd play un-timed with someone in person but I like to stick to 30min, each side games in person. I've been playing chess about 30 something years. When I was younger, I read books, played electronic game, played individuals. I consider myself a pretty good chess player but not a master by no means. I've only played 17 rapid games since I've join the site about 2 weeks ago. You have to have balance. I've done tons of puzzles and I find that my game is improving consistently from doing the puzzles. I'm at a 1298 Rapid rating right now, definitely trying to get higher. I don't know how often you play but I say take it back a little, and explore some of the other things this site has to offer, especially playing out the Grand Master games. It's interesting to play their games out and you may learn something.  The bottom line...you have to put in the work if you want to get better. 

Coming from a 1700 in rapid: 

Play longer time formats. 10+0 or 15+10 as other comments have suggested is great for training because they're short enough to not take hours like a 45+0 game, but long enough that you can really spend time on your moves and think about what you want to do. Just spending more time on each move and going through the motions of checks/captures/attacks will really help. 

I used to be stuck at around 1300 but when I started to spend more time on my moves, I saw great improvement. 

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Look who’s talking.

I'll put more thought into this. A quick thought is that a different visual approach might help you see the game differently. Look at the game as if you were the opponent. Even flip the board around to get a different perspective. After some time this might become a habit that enhances your perception of the game.

And..... ignore the jerk who posted above. People like that.....

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PeacemaKing

Your right. I did learn how to play the Traxler and the normal fried liver defense after that game. Spent some time playing those lines in the opening explorer. Hopefully it sticks. Great tip, thanks for the insight!

I will check it out. Thank you!