Stuck in 200s

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

Use your time and think. Don't play random moves.

This was your last rapid game:

https://www.chess.com/game/live/121638243344?username=tanman715

You won a rook on move 9-10, so at that point you're totally winning. Your opponent decided to throw a knight in the garbage can as well with 12. Nxf7, which you can just take. Instead, after just 4 seconds (??) you decided to take with the queen, losing the queen.

Your opponent ignored the queen, so you are super-winning again (trade queens, win another piece). What you need to do is think and try to find the best move. But instead of that, you spent 6 seconds (??) and decided to throw away your queen again. This time your opponent took it, and took everything, and mated you.

This was a 10 minute game, but you only spent 2 minutes. Don't do that. Don't play random moves very fast. Use your time and think.

Learn basic chess principles: Develop your pieces. Don't bring out the queen too early. Don't move pieces more than once in the opening without a very good reason. Generally develop knights before bishops. Bishops work best on open diagonals, rooks work best on open files (unless critically needed for defense). Castle fairly early to improve king safety. There are lists of these things you can find in many places. Learn them and keep them in mind when you play.

Play longer time controls and/or daily games. Chess is largely a game of experience. If you're new to the game, you'll need to gain experience to achieve better results. You need time to think about the position, assess your opponent's threats and your own opportunities, and then decide on your move. Playing longer games will give you that time. And as magipi said, use your time and think.

Personally, when playing over the board with friends, we almost never play anything faster than 60 to 90 minute games. I've been playing for decades, and I never play anything quicker than 30 minutes.

If you don’t know what to improve, You should Start at the beginning!

Start by learning how the pieces move!

- Learn how they can Attack with each other

- Learn how they can Defend each other.

- Learn the special moves as well such as King side Castling, Queen Side Castling, & En Passant

Next you need to select openings to play!

- Every Chess Game has an Opening, Not Every Chess Game has an End Game.

- You will need 3 openings at the start.

1) White Opening

2) Black Opening which you will play when your opponent starts game with 1.e4

3) Black Opening which you will play when your opponent start game with 1.d4

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The above are what I consider fundamentals because of their real world application.

If you was playing chess against another person in real life, You will need to know how your pieces move so that you don’t play an illegal move and embarrass yourself.

Nothing is more frustrating than a person telling you a move like “En Passant” doesn’t exist and is made up.

A real life friend told me that believe it or not. Image a 70 year old man telling you the move your doing is wrong because it doesn’t exist when it does exist!

I was in a completely winning position and I played the move en passant because it was good move in the position and my 70 year old friend wouldn’t allow it to be played. He, literally, said the pawns don’t move that way and I made up that move.

I was forced to play a different move because he didn’t allow the move. I didn’t really mind because I was absolutely winning anyway, but the fact remains that if you don’t know what your pieces or your opponents pieces are capable of it can cause issue.

If it was tournament game, I would of had to call the Arbiter so the move could get played.

The game I played was casual game and I was winning so I let it slide, but you need to know.

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In addition to making sure the moves you play and your opponents play are legal, you also need to have an idea on what your starting move will be.

Some starting moves are considered better vs. others and if you don’t have an idea of what your doing you could start the game off on the back foot and never recover.

So yeah - Work on Fundamentals and start at the beginning of a chess game!

for 200s reti is a bit advanced

Hi.

I am rated over 2400 online (https://www.chess.com/member/ppandachess). I created a free course that will teach you a training plan to improve. Feel free to check it out: https://www.panda-chess.com/daily-improvement-plan

Learn and apply the most important principles of chess. - (core of my teaching)
Always blunder-check your moves.
Solve tactics in the right way.
Analyze your games.
Study games of strong players.
Learn how to be more psychologically resilient.
Work on your time management skills.
Get a coach if you can.