Why do I keep losing at chess? Usually, it is the same mistake again
You play a game, you lose. You play another, you lose again. It feels random: a different opponent, a different opening, a different blunder each time. It usually is not. When you look at many games of the same player together, the same positions keep coming back, and so does the same wrong move.
That is good news. A random mistake is hard to fix. A repeated one is a single thing to learn, and it pays back every time the position comes up.
The same positions come back every week
You play the same openings almost every game, so you reach the same positions again and again. If your move there is wrong, you lose points there again and again, without noticing that it is the same position.
Club players are not alone. In our opening guides we counted what club players really play in the most common positions, and many of the most played moves are mistakes.
In the Italian Game, after 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5, 46% of Black players take back with the knight, and they score only 35% from there. The players who find 5...Na5 score 51%. It is one move, in a position that comes up whenever you meet 4.Ng5.
In the Queen’s Gambit, after 2...Bf5 3.cxd5, 80% of Black players take back with the queen and score 42%: White chases it with Nc3, then e4, and gains three moves (Stockfish: +2.8). In the Scotch, 54% of Black players grab a second pawn in the Scotch Gambit and score 37%.
Each of these players probably felt they lost to a clever opponent. They lost to the same position, again.
Why you do not see it yourself
You review a lost game right after playing it, if you review it at all. One game at a time, every loss looks different. Seeing that the game you lost today and the one you lost three weeks ago went wrong in the same position takes a memory nobody has over hundreds of games.
Engines do not help much on their own either. A game review tells you which moves were mistakes in that game. It does not tell you which mistake you make every week.
Other reasons you keep losing
- Playing too fast. In blitz and bullet, the move you play is the move you know. If the known move is wrong, speed makes it come out every time.
- Playing tilted. After two losses in a row, it is tempting to start the next game at once, to win the points back. That game is rarely your best. Stop after two losses and come back later.
- Hanging pieces. Before every move, check what your opponent’s last move attacks, and what your move leaves undefended.
- Learning the wrong things. Memorizing long opening lines does little if you lose before move 10 to a trap, or in a position you reach every week.
How to stop repeating the same mistakes
- Look at many of your games together, not one at a time. Note the positions you reach most often.
- In each of those positions, check your usual move with an engine. If it is a mistake, find the better move and understand why it is better.
- Replay the position until the right move comes without thinking. Then it will come in your next game too.
Doing it by hand takes hours. Chess X-Ray does it for you: give your chess.com or Lichess username, Stockfish reads your recent games together, and you get the 10 mistakes you repeat most, each as a lesson on your exact position.
And if you play the Italian, the Queen’s Gambit or the Scotch, start with the opening guides: each one lists the mistakes club players make most often in that opening.