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@creeffryer
I think it would be actually really instructive for you to take a close look at the position above from that game. White is completely winning. Black's best hope here is a draw and, because their king is so weak, it's very easy for them to end up getting mated (even trading the Queen for both rooks still wins for White). There is no reason why you should ever resign a position like this... even if you didn't know what to do to actually win this, it's pretty easy for White to force a draw if they wanted to. Especially when you have 52 (!) minutes on the clock. I'm sure there's other games in that you've played that have similar situations since it took me like 4 games to find this.
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Yeah, I see it now. All of your wins are blowouts. Your opponent blunders all of their pieces and you win easily. Your losses you give up too early so you never actually challenge yourself. I don't normally give this advice, but I think it applies to you more than anyone I've seen: You should stop resigning. Ever. Play every game to its conclusion. Yes, most of those losing positions you will still probably lose, but that's not the point. The point is to play the best moves you can, whatever position you're in. Sometimes you'll find that those positions you thought were lost you end up winning. Sometimes you'll hold the draw. Sometimes you'll lose. But at least you'll have tried.
My first advice: Cut the personal history short. If you want lots of input, you will increase the chance of getting it by making the post trimmed down to the minimum (reading time max 1 minute - remember reading on a small smartphone screen takes long). Maximum of 5 sentences.
Your training is better than mine: going over games manually and annotating seems great (it’s what Dan Heisman suggests). Maybe consider making the studies public, so you can get some input.
Imo to go over 50% percentile all you need is lichess —> learn —> practice (without N+B mate). Go over those lectures repeatedly, they are really good.
Your tactics rating seems really low, but I checked one rapid game of you and you immediately saw a top move in the middle game that was better than what I was considering.
You really need healthy mix puzzles, don’t do themed puzzles for the next 3 month! It will help determining the areas to work on with the puzzle dashboard.
Do 3 runs of streak and storm each day. Analyze all fails in storm and everything you don’t fully understand in streak. Those easy puzzles can be very instructional.
Analyze your games immediately (win and loss). Better to analyze with fresh memories. You don’t need to analyze every game. The people who analyze every game go quickly up in rating tho. For me playing games is more important than improving. I have 100 bookmarked games for later analysis, I can only assume you procrastinate similarly with your games study.
Discard all paid options. This is important for you, because you seem to put yourself under additional psychological pressure by the investments. Focus on lichess for now and unify your efforts. I will add another post with great outside resources within the next 2 days.
An easy way to gain a few hundred rating points:
1. Use the time you have.
If you finish a game with most of your time remaining, you're just playing with a handicap as your opponent has used more time to think than you.
2. Before playing a move in rapid or classical, ask yourself. What pieces are being attacked. Just look at every piece and check if it is being attacked and if so, if you need to do something about it.
3. After your opponent has made a move. ask yourself, why did he do that? Is he threatening to do something?
if you do these three things on every move, you will see large improvements. in rapid and classical you have the time to check these things. so do it before every move.
Good luck, and let us know how it works out for you.
@creeffryer
Looking at your Lichess activity I suggest to go for moderation. Your activity history shows two days where you spend time on more than 200 tactic puzzles (5 to 10 puzzles per day is what I recommend, and keep the daily pace). That can be counter productive at your level, as you may start to see tactics in your games which are not there. It makes sense to figure out your strengths and weaknesses, not just as a chess player in your games but also for tactics training. Let's say you find out you are a star at pin tactics but not so good at back rank tactics, then you can work on the latter.
I would also recommend to ignore your ego and try a few chess coaches. Chess coaches can quickly spot weak points and give you a working plan.
Good luck, have fun !
I would like to give advice here, but i can not, without knowing, where u struggle. If u want to, text me in dms, and i will do my best to help...completly free ofc, i am no gm to want money from it @creeffryer
There's only one thing... don't give up! Continue practicing!
I've played for many years. I am older. In the last year, I have increased my chess study at least 100-fold, maybe 1000-fold. While my rating does not show it, I feel like I have learned a lot. I think what I am realizing is that chess has a ton of stuff one can learn. Until I learn a lot more, it will be hard for me to improve at online chess. Online chess is as varied as the game itself. But somehow I feel (very subjective, I know) that I have improved. Hang in there and keep studying! Think of Chess as Mt. Everest, and you are at sea level - hiking to the top is a long journey and just because one is stuck at a particular elevation for a while does not mean one is terrible at hiking!
You should probably play more games, I see you have less than a thousand games under your belt.
Sounds frustrating for sure, let’s see if I can work with you one on one and get you moving in a better trajectory. I’m an adult improver with my own ambitions in chess, so let’s see what we can do for yours here. Send me a message and we’ll find a time to meet up and figure this chess thing out for you.
-Jordan
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