What level should I be playing at?

Although I have known the rules for many years, I am a beginner at now trying to play the game. I have just found Lichess and am playing the computer. How do I know what level to choose? Does Lichess rate me automatically?

Thanks

Computer games are unrated and generally a waste of time. Play against people.

i do not know, but i beat level 3

@HarryCrumb If you are not comforable playing other people (which should be a priority over playing the computer) as stated Stockfish Level 3 or 4 might be a good start. You can always get a feeling for the strength by just playing a couple of games.

Do not worry about rating. Yes lichess will match you automatically. You will need at the beginning to do 1à or 15 games before your elo will be stabilized and lichess will be sure that you are properly matched.

If you play people at the beginning you will certainly lose 5 or 6 games in a row then you will win some. The match making will be all rigth then.

If you are affraid of the ladder. You can launch your first 15 games and resign everytime (Make 5 stupid and random moves then resign). So you will be around 600 elo or something like this. Then you can try to climb. It will be perhaps a more interesting surprise to see that you are around 1300 elo if you start from 600 elo to 1300 than perhaps going from 1500 to 1300 and it will boost your confidence

Then concerning the time for a game I would advice you do start with a 15 minute game. Then when you are confident you can go shorter time control.

3+2 or 5+2 are great when you want to train your openings, still have a interesting middle game and try to convert your advantage in the endgame

Deliberately ruining your rating is against the lichess rules. I recommend against that advice.

To answer the original question: When I look at your games so far, I think you should try playing against the computer at level 2 most of the time, and sometimes try playing level 3 again to challenge yourself more.

I also recommend that if you find yourself almost always winning against level 2, increase your level (to play against 3 most of the time, and 4 sometimes). Winning is fun, but to get better, it helps to face opponents that are a little stronger than you are and learn how they play.

Hi, Harry! If you don't have any idea what your strength is, which is to be expected as you are a beginner, I would suggest playing games against lower rated players at first. LiChess lets you match with players as low as a rating of 800, so I would try matching with players in the range of, say, 800-1200 for a start. After you play maybe 8 or 10 games like this, you will have a better idea of your rating, and you can adjust your opponent's strength accordingly. I see you have played a couple of bullet games, but for a beginner, playing slow games is much better for improving, so I would start playing Classical time controls, say, at a time control of 30+10. (Bullet games are best played by highly advanced players who have memorized thousands of tactical and strategic patterns). I don't think you should play against the computer much, though. Computers play very differently than humans, so the methods you learn to do well against computers will not help against human competition. Hope this helps!

put on zen mode for like a month and just focus on playing games... set your seek for like +200.. When you encounter a loss use analysis and see where you went wrong after a month turn off zen mode and see where you are. I like to warm up with puzzles until i get sick of them or get a good streak going.

Thank you to everyone for your replies, messages and advice.