Inspect Her Deck
Skins of all colours come together as brothers
Think it's because I'm not well versed with the strategies, openings, defenses and etc. Would be nice if I did. Almost put in work on some hard core dudes too where they had to give me props because i had them sweating like so I know I have potential. Just haven't tapped into it yet. playing off and on for almost 20 years too. I'm gonna get back into it and get a uscf membership again to rank nationally and internationally.
One thing though chess doesn't have any measure on intelligence. It's just a game.
if you already have some lvl of natural intuition you're at an advantage. once you learn those openings/strats you'll be good to go. only need to know a handful at first.