I have been gaming off and on for a few years now. One thing that I have noticed is that I still am not getting any better and that I consistently fall for the same tricks.
Sometimes I'll impatiently look through some of the better player's games and try to figure out why they did what they did. I'll even try to use those same moves in my games. The majority of the time it looks like jumble and random moves and I just don't get it.
What does it take to get better? Any good chess theory books or ways to look at the game that I should consider?
RahimK gives some good advice for developing fundamentals in the following thread:
http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=39309&page=2
The following is a good site for learning fundamentals as well:
http://members.aol.com/manusfealy/index.htm
Scroll down the page to the heading "The Great Pawn Hunter University", then proceed through the lessons one at a time. Best of luck.
This question has been addressed quite a bit at this forum. If I were you I would thumb through the threads looking for titles that smacked of "chess improvement" and the like. There is much good advice here. Two good beginner's books are: "Play Winning Chess" by Seirawan (sp?) and "Invitation to Chess" by Irving Chernev. After these, you may want to tackle Chernev's "Logica Chess: Move by Move." And thirdly, tactics, tactics, tactics. Good luck.