How do I improve my chess?

I want to be great at chess, but I feel like it won't help by researching since it can only help in certain situations. Someone please give me advice, and please note I am a beginner.

Tactics problems. A little every day, make sure there's some checkmate ones in there. They show you how to win material and the power of mate threats. That's how you win games. Surely the best way for a beginner to improve. Chesstempo is good for that but you could just smash the tactics trainer here on lichess for free. If you get time go over the basic endgame ones here on lichess, do them numerous times even repeating them to drill them in. Do that and play chess. Don't bother much with studying the opening for now, just play and you'll learn about that. Tactics tactics tactics.

Play a lot of chess
/thread

No variants, no blitz, no bullet. First crawl, then walk, then run, then sprint.
Use all the time allowed by the time control.
Enable move confirmation in your profile. Think about your move, play it, check it is no blunder, confirm.
Whenever you lose a game, analyse it thoroughly so as to learn, from your mistakes.

https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/how-to-improve-in-chess?page=1

Do not resign

play more games, follow some old masterpieces... i started with greco vs nn those games were awesome the first time ive seen them, i think starting out its hard to find good moves because your trying to look for all the moves , that was my problem anyway, when you get better you develop a natural intuition for what to do and when to do it, finding weakness and exploiting them is what wins games, material and practice calculating moves and candidate moves in your head , start with easy 2 to 3 moves and then try and build on that... the problem is we all know what we must do to improve but when it seems like there's too much its overwhelming and we just don't bother and play more games. take your time learn basic endgames, do tactics, and play more games if your consistent it will come eventually...

7 steps to pick up your chess

1. Daily solve puzzles. I recommend solving a set of puzzles until you can instantly see the solutions to them (this is called the woodpecker method) before creating another set of puzzles. You can use puzzle books or online, whichever works better for you (I like books best).

2. Pick some openings and never deviate from them for at least 6 months. You’ll learn the openings better over time and understand the typical themes of the middle games this way. Less “lost at sea” feeling in your games.

3. Work on basic mates (king and queen and king and rook) then king and pawn only endgames until you’re comfortable with them, then work on rook and pawn endgames for life (seriously those are so hard!).

4. Review master games daily, specifically master games using the openings you’re playing. This way you get to know the openings you play better and the typical middle game ideas masters use from those openings.

5. Play long time control games only- correspondence and classical to start with. You want to find time understanding positions and finding the best ideas you can, fast chess relies more on your intuition which as a new player you have little to none- you won’t improve that way.

6. Analyze all your games you play afterwards, noting the mistakes, and understanding why your ideas were mistakes.

7. Make puzzles of your mistake positions from your games and review them routinely, making sure you’re training to not make those mistakes again!

Have a great chess journey and enjoy it!

-Jordan

Just play from what I gather. Slower time settings. Stick with limited openings for a good while.
I made the mistake of going down an openings wormhole this year. On Chess.com for my first year I play nothing but C4, Caro-Kann and Slav. I was going great guns (relative to my own crappy standard). Then I hit a plateau and obviously it could not be my fault so I blamed the openings I was playing. HUGE mistake. I am worse now than I was a year ago and by a long way.

I am going back to what I was playing. And sticking with it.

The learning resources on this site seem pretty great for endgames and middle games, I only discovered Lichess (and that you can get all the good stuff for free) recently.

"Opening study is a waste of time until you get above a certain (insert rating) level", people often say this and I took not one bit of notice but they are 100% correct.

I have the distinct disadvantage that when I play online chess there is a 50/50 chance I am under the influence. If this relates to you, perhaps best avoided. I have no intention. Chess and a glass or two of something nice is a great way to unwind.

HangingPawns has a great couple of playlists on youtube about middle games and end games. I am working through them now. Good place to start.

@ashwei
How long have you been playing chess ? Just curious.
Your ratings on Lichess are low but I see that you managed to win several times against Stockfish level 2. Very good !
Did you check out the Lichess video library ?
https://lichess.org/video?tags=beginner