Why do I play terribly in-games?

This has been a big problem for me lately. I love chess a lot, I watch videos, do private lessons with coaches online, do puzzles a lot, and I always enjoy myself when I do anything or hear anything related to it. Whenever I review games, do online lessons, watch videos, or do puzzles, the things that I learn from them make sense to me. And when I do chess related things I feel like I’m a good player. But when I play an actual game, it is totally different. I usually play quite long games, but I make the obvious blunders ever. I fall for extremely basic tactics, and I always review them after, and in that moment I understand what I did wrong, but my terrible moves in game never change.

It looks like you won your last 9 games.

I guess they were unrated but they were still wins.

In rapid games, you have won 82, lost 21 and drawn 4 games in the last 90 days.

I don't see anything to complain about.

I don’t usually use chess.com for games. Those games were just for fun against my friend, who is a beginner and who I’m trying to teach some stuff to. This pretty much started after I did an otb club yesterday, where it was 15+10 and when I made a quite obvious blunder and before I did, I was still thinking a lot (I had 1 minute left at the end of the game and my opponent had 13 minutes). The problem is my moves during the games where I make obvious mistakes

Aoooooooooooooo

I think this might be due to tunnel vision. (tunnel vision is when you only look at one side of the board or focus only where you played a move.) Before you play a move, think to yourself if any tactics are available or any pieces could just take a free piece. Dont be playing blitz, btw. Play at least 10 min games

What i just said.

I used to teach chess at various clubs. One of my students reached 2400+ FIDE.

One thing I noticed was that when a person learns something new - and especially new strategy rather than new tactics - they start making basic mistakes, the sort of obvious error that they usually avoid. It seems to be because they haven't yet managed to incorporate the new info into their chess game, so there's a conflict between the new ideas and the old.

It isn't until they play several (or even a dozen) more games that they finally succeed in assimilating the new information into their playing style... and then they stop making silly errors and start winning more games than ever before.

My advice:

Play through it.

Improvement requires study, followed by playing several more games until your style of chess play includes the new ideas... then back for more study.

Ok sure, thanks!

This is a pretty common problem to be honest. Because in all the things you mentioned where you feel you know what’s going on and you understand, it’s a sort of ‘controlled environment’ there’s someone else (whether that be the video author, the puzzle AI or an actual human coach), you’re only having to think ‘yes yes that makes sense’ and you get it, but when you’re actually in a ‘game-day’ situation with an opponents that’s actually not being helpful and you have to create something from scratch is different and you blunder.

An analogy would be just because someone reads hundreds of novels doesn’t mean they can write one.

You just have to try and learn from your mistakes. Doing lessons etc is fine but you need to go back and look at YOUR decision making process and try to correct that. 

I don’t think you should be too concerned though as what you describe is normal.

Hi ROADKILL! I have the opposite problem :) I am much better OTB than online. I can give you some tips: 1. Always spend time for "not calculating", when you just check the board for potential T

...tactics, hanging pieces (both colors). Spend time for making plans (a GOOD plan is better than no plan :) ) 2. With classic time control sometimes check the position behind your opponent. It can help evaluate the position. 3. Don't panic! If you missed a move take a deep breath, wait 15 seconds and think as if nothing has happened. 4. Always find your mistakes after the game! You always have! And don't make them again! ;)

OTB ratings at your level are probably much higher than online ratings. So, if you are rated 1,000 at chess.com, you are likely to be from 700-800 OTB. No need to look for another explanation for a disappointing result at the club.

Rl

I've noticed the same thing whenever I teach myself something new.

Thanks guys! Last week was that game that made me make the first post. I did the same club today and i actually played the exact same color, exact same opponent, and my opponent played the exact same opening. I was able to study what to play against it a few days ago, and managed to do well in the whole game and get a win against them.

Hi OP,

I'll repeat for you what I'm "preaching" for years: stuff on the screen doesn't print in memory same way as it does when you study the old, classical way, as in, using paper books and magazines, and moving by hand the pieces on a real chess board.

I won't expand again on the possible reasons why it's so, and nor will I comment about the handfull of lucky ones who can learn or on screen, or by just playing. Just, it's so how it is for most people, not gifted with photographic memory nor any other such rare mind/brain feature. In short: stuff on the screen doesn't send the right type of message to your brain, regarding wether it should store the newly acquired information in the permanent memory area, or not. (and we are not talking about remembering a movie, but chess stuff).

But sure, feel free not to believe me, that's alright, and not my life anyhow.

That's the fundamental challenge of chess, mastering all aspects of chess simultaneously. You have to watch out for tactics, positioning of your pieces, King safety, every piece that's eye-ing another piece. For every position you have go over your candidate moves as well as your opponent's, evaluate all possible positions and calculate what's best for. While at the same time knowing you can spend too much time on each decision.

Meanwhile your opponent is doing the same. Every move they see if they have a way to attack your King or attack your pieces, try to trap your pieces and if that doesn't they try to restrict your pieces , slowly build a stronger position, etc. In other words you are under pressure constantly until there is a moment when you lose focus for a second and make a blunder.

If you review that moment afterwards and analyze that blunder in isolation it looks like a basic blunder. But if a blunder was indeed that obvious, you wouldn't make it. I'm not saying you didn't make any obvious blunders, I saw at least one that I consider unnecessary. But if you have strong opponent they will do their best to make the game hard for you and overload your brain as much as they can.

It's a pet peeve of mine that I don't like it when my opponents put too much emphasis on their one blunder that cost them the game. When they act like they gave the game away because of one blunder, while being unaware of how hard I worked to force them to blunder. Unless they did gave it away with one stupid blunder, which also happens.

Anyway, this was an interesting topic. I've seen several useful responses already. Good luck on your progress.