Not sure if there are any chess players on here or not, but I wrote this up and thought it was kind of fun. Decided to post it here and see if anyone cared.
I play chess on my phone, against a cpu that should be easy to beat. I play too quickly all of the time and make stupid mistakes like hanging a piece I wasn't paying attention to or allowing pins I should see coming from a mile away. The undo button is a close friend of mine that I always feel a little guilty when I see him because he pays for everything. I often don't think and end up playing in "bullet mode" even though I have no business trying to play this game quickly at all.
I had a few drinks tonight and decided to try a new approach where I said at the beginning of the game that I want my knight on e6 with pawn support. Then I tried to make it happen.
1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 O-O 5. Bd3 Nc6 6. O-O d6 7. d5 {At this point I'm feeling pretty good because I've provided the support to start moving my king side knight to e6} Ne5 8. Nxe5 {damn, oh well, guess that'll wait till next game.} dxe5 9. Be3 c6 10. Qe2 Cxd5 11. exd5 Nxd5 12. Nxd5 Qxd5 13. c4 Qd8 14. Rad1 Bd7 15. Be4 Qc8 16. h3 Bf5 {I had some trouble here with black's light squared bishop and had to take back a move or two, don't remember the exact moves but it had to do with not realizing when my queen was or wasn't protected.} 17. f3 Bd7 18. Rd2 Be6 {It was here that I realized the importance of secure pawn structure before trying to attack, I need to keep that in mind} 19. b3 Re8 20. Rfd1 Rf8 21. Bd5 Qd7 22. f4 exf4 23. Bxf4 Qc8 {I got here and just stared blankly at my phone, it was an odd moment of thinking "Should I initiate that trade now or avoid it?" I guess deciding this just comes with running the variations in your head and recognizing when you come out ahead. This was the first time I've used a computer program to run analysis in order to make sure that Bxe6 really was the right move.}
The key to getting over both a reluctance to trade pieces and an over-flippant attitude about trading them is the realization that the purpose of pieces is to control territory. Once you've learned to see through the pieces to the squares underneath, your game will likely improve immensely.
I'll be honest, though I learned chess at an early age (through a computer game) I don't know that much about chess strategy. Do you just play chess casually or do you try for more competitive knowledge?