Any tips/suggestions to improve?

Hello everyone! (Excuse the Agadmator pun)

I'm a fairly new chess player, having been playing for less than a year. I started playing moderately in August with my ex boyfriend as he peeked my interest. We would always play, but I could never beat him. He's an excellent player, so no big problem. I started watching agadmator's commentary on chess. They're fairly entertaining and I've learned a lot from them, such as chess openings and tactics.

Problem is, I don't know how to get better. I push myself to do better, but I just can't seem to DO better. I want to be a challenge when I face players. I understand a majority have been playing for years and have thousands of game. I look up videos on YouTube to learn new moves and openings. I practice with the computer. I even think about my moves, and think it's a decent move but I get out beat. Sometimes I just zone out. Sometimes I just make the stupidest move and I don't even know what i'm doing.

So, how do I get better? Do I replay my games using the engine and see what I did wrong? Do I continue playing with other strangers on Lichess instead of the computer? How do people memorize every single opening, tactic, name move, etc?
If you have any feedback, please let me know. Thank you for your time. :)

P.S: If you wondering, this is my alt account. I deleted my old account.

Start by study the endgames instead of various openings : find a book about it or youtube channels
Practice tactics, study GM games..

Depends how long you've been playing chess and where you are at. If you're not there yet, your first goal should be to play lots of games just to get experience and know how the pieces move without thinking about it (so, if you have to remind yourself that the Knight moves in an L, then you need to play until this is automatic).

Once you are beyond that point, the single most important skill is being able to punish mistakes. This means you need to recognize when your opponent makes mistakes and figure out how to take advantage. This generally means working on the basic tactical motifs and knowing the general principles (Rooks belong on open files, don't bring your Queen out early, passed pawns must be pushed, etc).

A good beginner manual covers all these details, and there many examples to choose from. If you're past beginner level, then a pure tactics book may be more in your wheelhouse. After that, improvement tends to depend on increasing your general chess understanding (how to play different types of positions, for example, and learning the most common sorts of positions, like Isolated Queen Pawns, Rook endgames, typical openings, etc) and further increasing your tactical accuracy. Studying annotated master games is excellent at this stage, and it's never a mistake to study master games. Good luck on your chess journey.

Hi! I hope you don't mind me posting this here, but I have a lot of free content and resources on my site, chesspathways.com

The "Getting Started" videos might be a good place to start if you're new to chess - though if you've been playing a few months already, you might know what's in them! I have lots of "Game Analysis" videos of games played by playing around your rating - it's been fascinating to see some of the patterns in these games of what players struggle with and how to improve it. And as for the tips you're looking for, I have a "Move by Move Guide to Chess Thinking" available to try to teach newer players how to plan and avoid common pitfalls and blunders.

All free. If you do decide to check it out, please let me know what you think of it! I'm always trying to make my content better so I can help more players become masters.

ever since i started doing puzzle rush on chess.com i have seen my game improved rapidly especially shorter games am pretty sure if i continue doing puzzle rushes by december i will reach 2100 blitz online

Thanks for the tips. Are there any YouTube channels other than Agadmator you recommend I watch?
The Saint Louis chess channel is nice too.

Here's a piece of advice to get from 1200 to 1900: Play 4k games, best quick time controls.

Do not botjer with openings: general principles are enough. You do not need to memorize any moves: it is just ballast and bad investment of your time.
Activate move confirmation in your profile. When you have decided on a move, you play it. Then you check it is no blunder, then you confirm it.
Every time you lose a game, stop and analyse it thoroughly. Learn from your mistakes.
Do many tactics puzzles.
Study basic endgames. It will teach you what to aim for and what to avoid. It will teach you how to play with the pieces. It will give you confidence that you can finish off a game with little time left on your clock.
Play classical and rapid only, no blitz or bullet.

Hey @tpr all my advice contradicts what you said. If you want really QUICK improvement, bullet/blitz is the way to go. Because you value experience, analyzing games and tactics puzzles are a waste of time.

@xSnowearth if you want a surefire method to improve, tpr's method is great

but if you want insanely fast improvement (i.e. jumping 700 rating points in 1 years), I think my method has proven the best

@NoobBatter I have literally never heard a titled player give this advice :)