Hard low level players.

What's with some of these players in my level playing so well? I'm under elo 400, anyone I play who is 400-500 is hard as H3LL. Playing with 0 blunders in their end at times. I thought elo 900 and below were people making blinders EVERY OTHER MOVE? I got people here playing all kinds of crazy openings. Every counter to the Italian ect. Why does everyone say people elo 300-400 don't even know how the pieces move? I got so mad one game I threw a container at my wall trying to figure out how my opponent kept finding outs on every move. One guy I beat but he was HARD AS FK. I had to stop and think while this guy had immediate moves every time without him hardly pausing all while he his getting bonus time on his clock. I'm playing 15 min games. I feel like I'm in try hard sweat call of duty lobbies. I can understand people higher level being hard but I'm here playing 600 game and vs people who are low level. I practice tactics and play 7-10 games a day. I do better when I slow down and think, however when I DON'T blunder in a game I can still get outplayed at times!! I'm frustrated. 

I face a similar issue, and I think there's three things at work:

a) The media/chat around low level Elos being total garbage/newbs is false. These are still players who play regular chess, watch chess videos, do puzzles daily, do lessons and so on. These are not total beginners.

b) We are generally underestimating just how much range there is in chess ability. A 1200 is much, much better than a 600-700 player. Even an 800 is going to be noticeably better than a 500. A +- 200 difference is actually quite large in terms of ability.

c) We are underestimating just how much we suck at chess. At 700 we don't even know what we don't know and don't even perceive just how often we blunder, move inaccurately, hang pieces, get bad positions and so on. We think we're playing ok, but we aren't.

Of course, it might also be other things, but that's plenty enough as it is.

I also face a similar issue. I keep getting dogged on chess.com online chess despite applying everything I've learned in not only chess.com courses but downright intermediate-level courses everywhere and even have been going as far as sticking to the King's Indian system which was already touted as the one opening you can "use against anything" which the way these players go about this game makes the statement look less and less true. Imagine playing everything by the book and still losing because these players have somehow found moves that suddenly check your way out of guarding your rooks and queens with no way to bounce back, or they somehow trap your pieces just by pushing pawns. Not only that, the OTB chess Discord servers have revealed that a lot of 100s elo chess players are actually sharks at OTB chess so the stuff they teach you on how to play at "low elo chess" is absolutely useless. And yea, I can actually see where they're getting at, because I'm definitely a pretty decent OTB player myself and my elo is still all the way down at the very bottom 100 at chess.com, simply because of one clutch move that these kids somehow randomly found that isn't very probable, and if it were to happen occasionally that would've been fine, but when you keep running into players that repeatedly have these exact patterns you can't help but realise most of these low elo users could very well be rubberbanding AI disguised as real players much like what we have in competitive racing titles like Kartrider. The site is basically a casino.

There is NO WAY these actual 100 players can repeatedly keep finding clutch moves all of a sudden to rob us out of an easy pickings game. They're very likely either site-generated bots, or the entire 100s-800s area in actuality are strong OTB players that somehow wound up in the elo hell where they don't actually belong. And I can truly see that, because I know many OTB friends on chess.com now, and these guys aren't weak players, and their chess.com elo is still far below what they should be based on their OTB rating.

llamal after mocking you, gave some good reasons.

Imo 400 are far from beginners and it is really hard at even such low elo levels. I mean, I can totally feel you and the others that replied and relate to what you are saying.

Things are a lot weird for me. The opponents that I play now, about 1300 seem pretty easy and I almost always come on top of them, but many times I lose because of time, which I prefer from playing fast and learning nothing. The opponents I was facing when I was 1500+, seemed even easier. On the contrary, when I was 1000, the competition seemed super tough and had to try extremely hard to come on top.

By playing 15min games and doing puzzles, you are doing the right thing for learning. Add to that to always analyze your games after and you will increase your elo and the higher you will get, the more exiting the games will be. Low elo's are full of opening tricks, playing proper dull moves in every game, pawn rashes, stupid defensive moves, like a2, h2, that are hard top panish if you are not a master... As mush as you go up, the games will become more exiting, with less opening and much more tactics, checkmates etc. This is probably true, up to maybe 1800 or even more, but I don't have much experience in playing players above 1800. I suppose at that ratings the opening theory returns and plays again a significant role.

Keep doing what you are doing and you will certainly improve. Don't switch to blitz, because if you do, you will stay around the level you are now for ever.

gl and mostly hf

Ok but concretely Apl3pi3 vs. DelightfulLiberty | Analysis - Chess.com 1) d4 d5 2) c4 Nf6 It's playing into a refuted opening Chess Openings: Kasparov's Refutation of The Marshall Defense!! (youtube.com)

Smurf accounts

It's called cheating

Honestly I wouldn't doubt that they might actually be cheating after all.

And what's more is that we've had the exact opposite experience. They're playing fundamentally wrong, i.e. just pushing pawns randomly or playing some other cheese opening that theoretically shouldn't work (e.g. Van't Krujis) and they somehow play horribly until they find one move and just clutch the win just like that, and again, if it were to happen occasionally, that would've been fine, except that's literally the pattern every game. The only real explanation is either sandbagging or cheating. It literally takes beyond-intermediate levels of chess knowledge just to stand half a chance and we still get dogged on. There's really no other explanation. I'm not even a weak player, even the arbiters tell me that I'm getting much stronger at chess and I should have my first upset pretty soon.

i find the 1000-1200 range really tough, and i've climbed comfortably into the 1400s. i don't know what causes this.

Bear in mind, when an opponent is on the tilt, they might have dropped 200 rating points in the span of a few hours. They hit rock bottom (you, no offense) start winning again and are back at their previous high watermark. So you might find yourself playing a 600+ player who is having a bad run but turning the corner.

Many cheaters anyway