5 Helpful Tips to Improve Your Chess

Sometimes, we just never seem to do that great in chess.
One of the most annoying things in chess is having your rating drop a bunch with no improvement.
Some of the things that seem to help me in chess is to follow some of these tips I will mention in this blog. Hope this is helpful!

1.STAY FOCUSED.
Sometimes in Rapid or Classical games, players sometimes seem to forget that SPEED IS UNNECESSARY. If you just stop, calm down, you can redirect yourself and do your best. Here is an example from one of my games.

Here, my Knight is pinned to the Bishop, and if i don't do something about it soon, he would bring his Knight over and put pressure on the pinned piece. I decided to bring my King over to protect my bishop so i can move my Knight.
this wasn't a bad idea in general, but what I played after Kf2 was horrific
The best move in this position was probably Na7, but i missed it. What i probably should have played in the beginning was probably Bf1, allowing me to move the Knight safely. Instead, i made a blunder and before i knew it, i was down a bishop.
However, i stopped, studied the board, and continued playing. My Opponent also made a blunder and i was able to trade a promoted pawn for his bishop, and promote again and checkmate after about 35 moves.
I was able to recover from a lost position by staying 100% focused on the game.

2. ASK QUESTIONS.
If you're not sure how to progress in a game, or your worried your going to make a mistake in some given point in a game, here are some questions and things to do when it's your turn.
1. What are my Opponents plans?
Naturally, you should stop what your Opponent might be doing or about to do or could do before he could do anything about it. If there are none, continue.
2. How can I improve my pieces?
That is, are any pieces undeveloped? Or they are, but they aren't in such a great spot? If not, improve them. Make sure they have some sort of job.
3. Is my King safe? Is it castled and safe? Or not? What if they are castled, but they don't have much shelter? If bad shelter, How to improve it?
4. Do i have tactics? Ways to gain material? Or control of the center?
5. Can i trade pieces? Ways to get the game moving?
6. Do I have enough space and/or control of the board?
These sort of questions can be helpful if you find yourself stuck in a game.

3. DON'T GIVE UP.
Naturally, you should never give up in chess. Your Opponent is going to checkmate you? Don't give up. Is he up multiple pawns and pieces? Don't give up. Is the only thing you have left your King? Don't give up. We are Human. You just never know when your Opponent makes a silly mistake, or accidentally stalemates you, sometimes blunders that makes lost games won. These happen. All. The. Time. Unless it's a really simple mate where it's hard to stalemate or maybe it's a simple Queen and King checkmate but they stalemate you by accident because they have 5 seconds left on their clock. You just never know. One time a couple months ago i played a game versus someone a lot better then me and they actually sort of forgot how to do the rook checkmate so the game drew by the 50 move rule! There are all sorts of different checkmates in the endgame your Opponent might not know. Like the Bishop and Knight checkmate, for example (I actually still haven't learned it completely yet :D). So in short, don't give up.

4. Practice.
You've probably heard this thousands of times, but you should practice. Like, a lot. Do your puzzles, study openings and endgames, analyze your previous games, but most importantly is to just play. Don't just spend all of your time on blitz and bullet. Play Rapid and Classical games. You can make them casual if your worried about your rating. Your not exactly going to get better without doing all of these things unless you practice, practice, practice.

5. Socialize.
I saved one of the best for last, but Socializing and talking with other people and learn about the ideas they have and what helps them when playing chess. You can learn a lot from other people's perspectives, and maybe learn about tactics or concepts you never knew about.

Conclusion:
Hopefully these tips will help you throughout your lifetime of playing chess! I may have not been on Lichess very long, but I have been playing the game of chess for years.