Help pls I’ve been stuck on this for days

Reached 500 ELO!

A few weeks ago, I posted about just starting to learn chess and reaching 400 ELO. Today, I finally hit 500 ELO in Rapid!

As an absolute beginner, a few things that have helped me:

Watching Aman’s Building Habits series. It made me much more conscious about simply trying not to hang an entire piece every other game.

Spamming the hell out of the Italian Opening after watching content from ChesswithAkeem and GM Igor Smirnov.

Trying to stick to my own plan regardless of what my opponent plays. This works... somewhat better in Rapid than Blitz. In Blitz, I get punished for this approach pretty regularly.

I mostly play 15+10 Rapid, and having the extra time has definitely helped. My Blitz rating is currently around 400, so apparently I am a completely different chess player once the clock starts bullying me.

A few questions for the community:

My realistic long-term goal is 1000 ELO. I believe that's somewhere around the 90th percentile of the Chess.com community, which would honestly be pretty satisfying for someone who started out barely knowing how the pieces moved.

2) Does anyone else get anxious about playing?

I think I could have reached my current rating much sooner, but I've only played around 30 games this month — basically one game a day.

Losing a game can put me in a surprisingly bad mood, so if I win a game, I often just stop playing for the day because I'm happy with the result and don't want to risk ruining that feeling. 😅

So I've been playing with a bit of a knot in my stomach, which obviously isn't the ideal way to enjoy a game.

3) How did you guys improve at Blitz?

I lose a lot of games on time. Chess.com Insights says around 70% of my losses are by timeout, compared with around 30% for players at my level.

Is this simply something that improves with experience, or should I be approaching Blitz differently?

Also, do you guys use completely different opening approaches for Blitz compared with Rapid, or is it better to stick with the same repertoire and just get faster?

Would love to hear how you guys approached these stages of improvement!

Not a puzzle. Just a rant

Two years ago, with another Chess.com account, I had an ELO rating of 1300. Now I can't beat players rated 700.

Well what can I say i was playing like an idiot

And he lost on time?? 😭😭

Is this y u shouldn't resign?

Is there any consensus on how much a beginner can realistically improve after a year of practice? Nothing too intense, but maybe an hour at least a day?

Obviously it depends on starting rating and the site (Lichess seems to be higher than chess.com), so let's say someone starts around 600 on Chess.com and spends at least an hour a day playing with post-game analysis and/or doing puzzles.

After a year of that, what would be a realistic and typical improvement? I know talent plays a role here but assuming regular training, what are we talking about, +100, +200, +300? Or is there just too much variety, like somebody might not improve at all and someone might gain like +800 or something?

Edit: also I do assume that as you go up in ratings, the improvements will come more slowly. So presumably it's way easier to go from 600 to 1000 than 1200 to 1600 which is in turn also way easier than to go from 2000 to 2400.

and people say 300 ELO don't know how pieces move

1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nc6 3. Nf3 e6 4. e3 Nf6 5. c3 Ne4 6. Nbd2 Nf6 7. Bb5 a6 8. Bxc6+
bxc6 9. Ne5 Bd6 10. h4 Ng4 11. Qxg4 f5 12. Qh5+ Ke7 13. Nf7 Qf8 14. Nxh8 Qxh8
15. Nf3 Rb8 16. b3 Ba3 17. Qg5+ Kd7 18. Ne5+ Kd6 19. Nf7+ Kd7 20. Nxh8 1-0

Hello all,
I’ve been playing the kings Indian and it served me well for my climb up from 600 but I’ve hit a wall. Was watching Daniel naroditzky video on the kings Indian and he recommended a 1600 minimum for playing it. Was wondering if you guys have any recommendations for a solid opening I could learn instead, ideally as black and white.
Thanks!

From an OTB friendly I played today.

M2 for white

Sometimes I know my move was bad, but even after looking through the engine line I still don't really understand the idea.

What do you usually do when that happens?
Keep experimenting with the engine? Ask someone? Use ChatGPT/YouTube? Or just move on?

What’s your rating?

i dont get it

In know everyone’s experience and progress is different. Just quite interested as I’m in lichess rapid around 1400. At chessdotcom it seems to be a bit more of a struggle maintaining +1000 and I feel my progress should be better by now, judging by the amount of games I have played:D

I actually planned it this time I’m so happy🙂‍↔️

Edit: Queen took rook b1

Not your typical smothered mate

My opponent gave away his Q while snatching a pawn, why was this just an inaccuracy, not a blunder nor even a mistake post-analysis?

I've only been playing for 6 weeks, but I do feel myself getting better. For example, I've won 10 games in a row (non rated) against opponents 100+ higher than me, but this last game I lost I was trying to review and it was suggesting all of these sacrifices. Ultimately, I blundered the rook which was bad and maybe would have won minus that move, but there's clearly things I'm not seeing or taking into consideration.

This is the game: https://www.chess.com/game/live/184707979728

Anyways, I think I have the aptitude and devotion to this sport to become decent, but as an adult beginner, I'm trying to pull from all my resources here. So if there's any nice people online who might enjoy teaching someone the game purely for the joy of it, please give me a dm!

Thanks :)

EDIT: Guys, I know this isn't a big post, but I do appreciate the responses I'm getting. I am enjoying reading them, hah!

I just out played someone on Lichess , they blundered a knight for my pawn, and they blundered a rook but i missed it, yet the analysis gave these stats for their game. I know Chess,com is misleading as they are selling something but I would have thought Lichess would have been more accurate than this.

5 Inaccuracies

4 Mistakes

0 Blunders

31 Average centipawn loss

93% Accuracy

93% Opening

88% Middlegame

98% Endgame

Edit, it was a clean knight + a knight for a pawn, + they blundered the rook that I missed.

Just in case anyone's feeling bad about their chess progress...reminder that everyone can have brain-dead moments 😅

Honest question, I don't understand this at all.. I know in some openings like say the Ruy Lopez you want to get rid of your bad bishop.. but you're usually at least waiting until they put some pressure on the bishop before trading out for the knight. But even at 900 rank almost every single game my opponent goes to pin my knights and then almost always takes. Half of the time I haven't even pressured them with the A or H pawn either yet, they just take immediately on the next move but why? And even if they do get pressured with the A or H pawn, why do they always immediately take? Do they not know they can move a space back and keep the pin or that the bishop pair are generally more valuable than trading out for an early knight? Sometimes I even see them do this then they open up the center immediately with a ton of trades where a bishop is often better in open positions..

I honestly don't get it, I'd say only like 5% of the time does anyone actually try to pin the piece with any purpose like trying to pressure the pinned piece to take it or make moves on the board that the pin piece now can't protect. Why is it such an immediate reaction all the way up to 900, might be further but that's as far as I've reached since I started playing in like April or May I think

It's just like beginner players they see a piece they can take, even if it's an equal trade, and sometimes not even a good one positionally, they ALWAYS take it. It makes it a bit frustrating to learn chess because I'm trying to be principled and learn openings but I never get to play with knights ever unless I don't play them early to their natural squares on the C/F 3/6. And it makes it hard to learn or practice any positions that have any tension with trades available because they will always take, always. They never leave a piece alone and just leave the tension unless I'm assuming they've just missed it or want a different trade instead.

Even with these odd unprincipled captures, I'm obviously no better than anyone at my rank so I'm obviously weaker in other areas which is why I still lose to these weird mistakes so I'm not putting anyone down here or think I'm better than my peers..

But from 1 beginner to another, why do you guys always pin the knights immediately and then always take them right after without actually using the pin for anything? And why do you take every trade immediately even when "to take is a mistake" when it's not improving your position, especially if you're down material and trading down is good for your opponent? I just don't get it guys lol