I keep playing these people who play some number of moves that I studied and prepared for and then they play stuff I never seen. It’s like super aggressive pawn push and no development but then I’m super passive and they get too close and I lose material and I can’t continue properly because of their pawn placement or something. How do I punish this stuff so that doesn’t happen?
Well, find whatever specific moves you keep running into, put them in the chess.com analysis, and see what move it says is best. (Turn on suggestion arrows under the settings in there)