Help with Chess Game

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I am an upper level Casual/lower level intermediate player an I would LOVE to boost my game to Amateur. I play online all of the time and also try to study it when I can. But I am such a visual person that just reading notation is really tough. Doest anyone have any recommendations? Any medium is appreciated. Or maybe a way they study games that worked for them?

I improved my game immensely by watching chess games with commentary on YouTube. I really like Kevin who runs thechesswebsite channel.

And, while not notation-free, I loved the book reassess your chess but it's geared towards players around 1500 elo and up.

Reading notation is really hard to do in your head. I read chess books with a board next to me so I can set up the positions. Helps a bunch.

the entire game should be seen as a grid of potential occupation and the king should be the focus of one's attack at all times. the pieces that i find the most troublesome are the knights and i aim to vanquish them on my way to the king, but i like to draw defensive pieces from my opponent into areas where they feel obliged to defend their knights and i like to threaten the queen simultaneously while they are moving to defend their knights, and when they have enough pieces engaged in warding off what they think is an immediate threat, i try to sneak my way into a winning position so that the checkmate seems like a simple by product of my otherwise perceived brinkmanship pertaining to their lesser pieces that i pretended to attempt to predate on.

it is a combination of seeing all the possibilities of the occupation of spaces by your men in the next few moves as well as leading the opponent into a defensive stance against a play by me that is only posited to align their pieces in an area that they are impotent from when i arrive at a space with an appropriate piece that is the square from which checkmate can be declared.

There's a website called pogo.com where people can play chess, but you can also watch people play chess. They are different skill levels so maybe watching people pay who at a a higher level would be helpful.

So, now that I'm on a computer and not a phone I can type out a better response than I did earlier.

Here are a few tips, in no particular order:

- Learn a few openings and pick one that you like. Use that opening exclusively until you are 100% comfortable with it. I recommend always opening with E2-E4. It leads to an open game, as opposed to D4, which usually leads to closed positions which are more complicated.

- Memorize the fundamentals of the opening: 1. Try to control the centre with your pawns, 2. Don't move a piece more than once until you've finished your development (unless you have to, of course), 3. King safety (castle as soon as possible), 4. Don't bring out your Queen too early as your opponent will just harass her and make you waste moves, 5. Connect your rooks

- Every pawn move creates a weakness. Try to make your opponent push his/her pawns to open up space on the board or to limit the movement of his pieces.

- Focus on attacking the king only if he doesn't castle. If he castles, don't attack the king until the major pieces are off the board. A castled king is too well-protected in the beginning.

- If you can't think of a move, ask yourself two questions: 1. Which piece(s) aren't living up to their potential? and 2. Are there moves that could limit the mobility of my opponent's pieces?

- Study grandmaster games on youtube to get ideas about middlegame strategy

- Learn endgame theory (mating patterns with different pieces)

- Always be on the lookout for forks, pins, skewers, and discovered attacks/checks.

- Try to get your bishops on long diagonals (A1-H8 and A-8 to H1) so they can put pressure on the most amount of squares.

- When your opponent moves a piece ask yourself why. If you were the one who made that move what would your accompanying strategy have been?

- Make sure that at some point if you've castled short-side that you move your A pawn to A2 so you won't fall victim to a back-rank mate.

- Bishops work best in open games, where they have mobility to swing all over the board. Knights work best in closed positions. Try to exchange your knights for bishops in an open games, and vice-versa.

- Bishops work best in pairs, since they are confined to only the black or white squares.

- Keep your knights off the side of the board, it limits the number of squares they can jump to.

- Practice the C7 knight fork, which checks the king and wins a rook. This can only be done once the queen is off D8.

- Check to see if your opponent has any unprotected pieces, or pieces that are overloaded and focus on putting pressure on those pieces.

- In the middlegame, take a moment to see what side of the board (kingside or queenside) has the most attacking potential and move all your pieces over to that side to start a coordinated attack. Don't attack until you have all your pieces working together.

- Black's F7 square is extremely vulnerable in the opening as it is only protected by the king. Exploit this if possible.

If you need any more tips or anything just let me know either here or in a PM.

Cheers,
The Cat Ghost