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Hi everybody, I’m not 100% sure why I write and post this here. I’ve studying chess for about a year and I really enjoy all aspects about it... studying openings (yes, I know ;-), game collections, memorizing games, training tactics, everything, except, well, playing. At least playing online against opponents from the pool on lichess or chessdotcom. For some reason, my anxiety goes to through the absolute roof when even thinking about seeding a game. In fact I haven't played a single rapid game since December. So while I’ve been very much enjoying my journey so far, there’s always this nagging shame or sadness that I’m spending considerable amounts of time on a game I’m not actually playing. I’ve been battling this for a while and tried various things (playing a lot of bullet to get over my fear of blundering, playing unrated games etc) but nothing really did the trick. (I discovered recently that I have an easier time playing daily games and I have been enjoying those for the past month.) And so now I find myself in this weird spot, where I’m faced with this very basic question: what am I doing, spending my time on a game I can’t seem to play? Am I wasting my time? Am I just not cut out for playing chess? Or is there a way for me to work through this and actually enjoy playing a casual rapid game at some point? Could I go around the problem and improve my chess enough through daily games and tactics that I no longer feel so self conscious when I play? (I have a considerably easier time losing against a 1600 rated player than being evenly matched against a 500-900 rated opponent...) Maybe if I could somehow reach 1200 I could suddenly start enjoying my games?! Or should I just let go and appreciate the fact that nobody actually forces me to play. That I could just spend the rest of my life doing puzzles and studying game collections and let all those self-imposed expectations be damned? To circle back to the beginning of this post: the reason why I post this here is that I have been wondering whether I should join up with the dojo here. I’ve been enjoying a lot of the content on youtube and twitch and maybe this could be a place for me to learn to play? I apologize if I have wasted anybody’s time reading through all these ramblings. If anybody would like to leave comments, recommendations etc, please do, it’s all appreciated! cheers and thanks again for all the great content! Bruno

Just paid the subscription and yet has not appeared in my profile pointing that out .I cant either access the material.

Is there a big benefit in using Polgars book vs doing 300 mates in one / two on another puzzle platform such as chess.com when appropriate filters are placed.