Improving basic tactics and board vision as a rapid 1600 player

I’m 1600 and have been playing for about a year and a half now. I have had a very unstructured learning process, and I feel as if I’ve missed some very important foundational lessons as a lot of my recent games I feel have been decided by simple tactics and my lack of proper board vision. I’ll blunder my queen in one move, take a poisoned trade and lose my queen, or just not see a very simple tactic that wins my opponent a piece. It’s really frustrating for these basic mistakes to happen, and I just don’t know what to do. I’ve been all over the place, doing 50 puzzles a day here, doing a woodpecker type method on a tactics book, etc; and while they help me improve, they aren’t helping the problem I’ve been having. So please, help me

it too dificult

Just hung a free piece myself. I feel like you need a good mindset to stay cautious.

Every time you make a significant blunder as such, note how much time you took to think.

Make sure that you understand all the aspects of your position. Moving your pieces with purpose can result in you blundering less often. If you constantly assess what each and every piece is doing then you are less likely to blunder. For a while you should do this for just about every move that isn't opening. As time goes on you will understand everything in the position better

@SupremeCrowOfJudgeme said in #4:

Every time you make a significant blunder as such, note how much time you took to think.

Make sure that you understand all the aspects of your position. Moving your pieces with purpose can result in you blundering less often. If you constantly assess what each and every piece is doing then you are less likely to blunder. For a while you should do this for just about every move that isn't opening. As time goes on you will understand everything in the position better

Thank you so much, this is perfect advice. I play primarily 15+10 so I’m guessing it’s probably best to switch to a longer time control for a bit so that I can effectively do this, right?

15+10 is a wonderful time control.

Depending on how fast you can calculate this time control might be just fine

but if it takes you a full minute or 30 seconds to do threat assessments then you should definitely go to a longer TC

Sounds like an issue with thinking process.

When you consider making a move, go through each of your opponent's pieces one by one, starting with King, Queen down to pawns. Consider each possible legal move, and check to see if one of those moves tactically refutes your move. Most moves you can dismiss in a second, but if your move is a basic blunder, you'll be able to prevent it.

When coming up with your own candidate moves, always consider checks, captures, and threats, even ridiculous moves. Most moves you can dismiss in a second, but if there's an obvious winning tactic, you won't miss it. Go through each piece one by one to be thorough.

You have enough time in slower time controls to do this. Practice this thinking process a lot in classical games, and you will greatly reduce your simple blunders and missed tactics.

@pErSoEst said in #1:

[...] I have had a very unstructured learning process [...]a lot of my recent games I feel have been decided by simple tactics and my lack of proper board vision. [...] So please, help me

Here's one, that my coach told me:

1. Play "Puzzle Streak" here on lichess. Take your time for every puzzle and only make your move, when you think that it is 100% correct. Really try to get a new streak record every time. Quality over quantity! YOu can even pause your streak and continue on the next day.

2. If you find a puzzle challenging or even did it wrong, then put this puzzle into a lichess study (or any other database).
   I personally divided this database into 2 areas, since puzzle streak mostly presents me puzzles of this types: tactics and endgame

3. Review the study/database every day (you'll do this quicker every day, since you start remembering the patterns you struggled before or calculate the endgame positions faster)

Good luck on your lifelong chess journey!

' I’ll blunder my queen in one move, take a poisoned trade and lose my queen, or just not see a very simple tactic that wins my opponent a piece.'
These are all typical human errors. Because there are too many possibilities in a position, our brain automatically filters many of them out. All of us have accumulated hardwired subjective opinions that result in poor evaluation. Some may think 'Always grab a pawn if it's free' or others 'Always check, it may be mate' or 'A rook is always stronger than a bishop' without concrete calculation. An engine, on the other hand, will examine every possible move and reach an objective judgment. You need to train yourself to think like a computer and when you're starting out, it can be helpful to systematically go through the following steps in a position.

1. Consider every check
2. Consider every capture
3. What are your opponent's threats?
4. What are your threats?
5. What has changed since the last move? Are there new threats?
   As you become stronger you will automatically evaluate a position in this way and go through these steps subconsciously.

@derkleineJo said in #8:

Here's one, that my coach told me:

1. Play "Puzzle Streak" here on lichess. Take your time for every puzzle and only make your move, when you think that it is 100% correct. Really try to get a new streak record every time. Quality over quantity! YOu can even pause your streak and continue on the next day.

2. If you find a puzzle challenging or even did it wrong, then put this puzzle into a lichess study (or any other database).
   I personally divided this database into 2 areas, since puzzle streak mostly presents me puzzles of this types: tactics and endgame

3. Review the study/database every day (you'll do this quicker every day, since you start remembering the patterns you struggled before or calculate the endgame positions faster)

Good luck on your lifelong chess journey!

Thank you, I think I’m going to start doing that today.