I’m a noob getting smoked

I’m new to chess in general and started on chess.com but left after getting my subscription refunded b/c the app quality is trash, I like this site much better but as I’ve been playing for around a month in total and have only been here a few days and it started me off in the mid 1000s, coming from a solid 350 at chess.com, I keep getting smoked.

I like feeling like I’m making progress but this is kind of a dumb waste of time so far, any tips?

Looking at the average rating of your opponent, I suspect you may have been aiming too high. This is understandable because your early games were subject to provisional ratings, which may have given you the impression that you were strong enough to take on much better opposition.
Now that the system is beginning to assess your level with more accuracy, you can seek oppponents who are similarly graded. This should result in more evenly contested games with fewer losses.

Thank you for the reply, but how do I ‘aim’ it? I think it set me here, I’m still kind of stuck and not sure where to go from here, it’s demoralizing, I can’t imagine it’s much fun for my opponents either.

Personally lichess is definetly better than chess.com. Why I still play on chess.com for longer games idk lol. I'm mainly on lichess since chess.com is blocked on my school laptop. Anyways, lichess and chess.com have a huge rating difference which you probably know about. Lichess is a lot higher (it evens out as you get 2200+) elo than chess.com. So from a 350 on chess.com to 1000 here is actually a great for a person your elo. Using the formula it should even out to 800 here but you're higher than that. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Just continue improving, and you'll get higher up. :)

Its just not as fun as chess.com for beginners I think, it kind of sucks as I find no utility in this site now. Being a beginner has to have some kind of reinforcement or way to logically develop, which chess.com does better than this site, if their site actually worked I'd probably still be there.
I guess its either chess.com's crappy app and lousy community or getting smoked here unable to find rhyme or reason.

I think part of being a beginner is that you want a place to get familiar with the game and how it works while you get up to speed on bigger topics, (for me that's openings). On chess.com I'd do a few things I remember and then eventually battle out mistakes, on lichess I continue to make mistakes but my opponents don't make as many obvious ones, so its like remember a few things and then struggle and lose, it sucks as I'm obviously playing against much better people.

@Ff2x said in #1:
> I’m new to chess in general and [...] I keep getting smoked [...] any tips?

Try to follow the BASIC opening rules in your next games:
1) Move ONLY 1 or 2 pawns into the centre (don't touch any more pawns if possible)
2) Develop your pieses (preferably knights before bishops) and thereby only move each piece once in the opening (if possible)
3) Get castled as soon as possible (hopefully before move 10)
4) A little bit more advanced: Now ONLY after completing steps 1-3, you can connect your rooks by moving your queen forward. Congrats, you survived the opening stage of the game.

When you managed to castle before move 10, then you already did 300% better than in all of your recent games.

PS.: Dont forget to view ALL of your recent games (only 30 available so far) one after another on an "analysis board" and check for where you violated the 3 to 4 rules I mentioned above. This should give you a good learning experience for your start in our beloved game.

Good luck on your lifelong chess journey!

@derkleineJo said in #6:
> Good luck on your lifelong chess journey!

Thank you, I appreciate it.

I get what you’re saying, I guess I’m saying is that I’d hope to be matched against people making the same mistakes. IIRC I heard somewhere that I’d expect to win/lose around 50%, I thought that was regardless of level and was more like my experience on the other site, that metric keeps it engaging, here I believe I ‘tilt’ really quick into any game and after that its kind of a waste b/c I’m not really learning, don’t have a real chance to do anything, etc.

I get what you’re saying about openings and castles but usually have to defend an attack I don’t understand before I can.

I’ll see how it goes but my own usage of the site is already dropping b/c its just not exciting to want to use it, maybe I’ll try again after learning on my own and practicing against bot apps.

Thanks for the help but I guess I was really looking for a noob setting or a preference, I found the rating sliders but still seems to be the same.

@Ff2x said in #7:

> Thanks for the help but I guess I was really looking for a noob setting or a preference, I found the rating sliders but still seems to be the same.

Actually, on the lichess start-page you can select "lobby" and then knick the preferences-icon and set the rating range for your opponents to face.

Bye!

@Ff2x said in #1:
> I’m new to chess in general and started on chess.com but left after getting my subscription refunded b/c the app quality is trash, I like this site much better but as I’ve been playing for around a month in total and have only been here a few days and it started me off in the mid 1000s, coming from a solid 350 at chess.com, I keep getting smoked.
>
> I like feeling like I’m making progress but this is kind of a dumb waste of time so far, any tips?

you have to be motivated and just enjoy the game. and be patient because progress takes a long time. I had your level when I arrived on Lichess more than 3 years ago. I'll let you judge whether my comment and my experience are sufficiently worthy for you, given that I am only an amateur. but you can progress. To do this, gradually create a work environment, a little routine. even if you only have 30 minutes or 1 hour per day for chess, you can progress: first, find your strengths and exploit them. At the same time, reflect on the causes of your defeats, and seek to transform this weakness into strength. on Lichess, you can analyze each of your games and those of everyone else for free and unlimited! and what's more, the insight function allows you to graphically visualize your current strengths and weaknesses (but it remains more complex to use than analysis). My advice is: create an opening repertoire, and think about chess in a creative way by looking for your playstyle, which will become an additional reason to motivate you.

If you wish, I can give you FREE advice so that you can progress

I did adjust my sliders when I found them.

I guess I was more motivated to enjoy it when I was around 50/50, which makes sense to me, I just tried again and think I’ll just come back when I’m not a beginner, thanks for all the help, I don’t want free advice, I guess I just want chess.com matching, which kept me much closer to 50/50 but on a site that actually works like this one.

On chess.com (www.chess.com/stats/live/rapid/ff2x) I’m 106 wins, 107 losses and 23 draws. I kept starting to lose games to ‘game abandoned’ w/out ever leaving the game and it took away the kind of learning progress ethos I was experiencing, so I wound up here after looking for alternatives.

On this site I’m 7 - 24 - 1, which for me, is way past the zone of learning and more into blatant frustration. I also now am noticing people ‘playing’ with me, like not mating me when they can in one move but instead eating my pawns/etc. to make it last longer, I know that’s part of the game but I’m not exactly looking forward to games like that again.

I do follow something like that, on chess.com I’d do puzzles for some set amount of time and then play between 5 - 10 games, where I would analyze and generally feel I could learn from my mistakes in that context. This is a much more disconnected experience.

The analysis doesn’t seem as straight forward here, I have to go to each game and then hit request analysis, which is fine but it happens in a way where some context is lost so it doesn’t seem as beneficial to me. I’m also not motivated to analyze things where I don’t even understand what happened in the first place. Though I’m new so I’m probably missing something.

I don’t think my experience can be that unique, or maybe I’m just really bad, either way, thanks again for your help, see you around.