Newbie questions - what does this all mean?

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place for these questions, I've looked elsewhere and can't find the answers.

Background - returning to chess after many decades idle and want to enjoy it and hopefully improve my game.

I understand that you use something called the Glicko-2 scoring system - I can look that up offline, and I see some stuff on it on your site. I understand that I get given an initial score of 1500, which I can increase or decrease by playing other people. If I win then I get a percentage of their score and vice versa. Presumably I can't improve my score by playing the computer? Would be nice, if only to save my embarrassment :-)

I've already screwed up a couple of times, accidentally starting games against real players, and hastily having to exit - potentially getting myself blocked by the site. I also tried one game where I got timed out after only a few minutes (seemed like seconds) - I have no idea why (and no, I can't remember what type of game it was). Curiously, my competitor in that game adopted a really weird tactic - mainly moving their pawns up the board. Might have been gaming the system? I just don't know.

Final *big* question is what do all the "quick games" types mean, e.g. 1+0 Bullet, 2+1 Bullet, 3+0 Blitz, all the way up to 30+0 Classical. Where should I start? As a broader question... ...where should I start? I've tried most of the exercises and practice things but I'm running out of ideas - any suggestions would be really appreciated. I guess I've got to start somewhere but I don't want to a) Make a fool of myself; or b) Pick on someone much more inexperienced than I am and make a fool out of them (and I am *very* inexperienced).

Thanks

> I understand that I get given an initial score of 1500, which I can increase or decrease by playing other people. If I win then I get a percentage of their score and vice versa.

Yes but not only, a factor called rating deviation affects it too. Basically, how confident the system is about the number it shows as your rating. So when you start the RD is 500 which is extremely high and your rating change depends on it too, so you win/lose rating depending on how high the RD is.
The system starts getting confident when the RD is below 110, that is when your question mark besides your rating number disappears. You start getting a leaderboard ranking when your RD is below 75 and your rating starts being pretty stable when your RD is about 55.
The minimum value is 45, but the RD goes up until you play again, so if you take a break from chess when you return your RD will be high again. To decrease the RD you just need to play rated games.

> Presumably I can't improve my score by playing the computer?

No, you can't. But you can played rated games vs bots: lichess.org/player/bots.

> I've already screwed up a couple of times, accidentally starting games against real players, and hastily having to exit - potentially getting myself blocked by the site.

Aborting too much in a short period of time can indeed get you playbanned, that is blocked to play games for a certain time.

> I also tried one game where I got timed out after only a few minutes (seemed like seconds) - I have no idea why (and no, I can't remember what type of game it was). Curiously, my competitor in that game adopted a really weird tactic - mainly moving their pawns up the board. Might have been gaming the system?

No, you just played a very fast game, 1+0. It means that for the entire duration of the game you have only 60 seconds. You timed out because your time ran out and you lose when it happens.

> Final *big* question is what do all the "quick games" types mean, e.g. 1+0 Bullet, 2+1 Bullet, 3+0 Blitz, all the way up to 30+0 Classical. Where should I start?

As earlier shortly mentioned, the first number is the minutes and the second number is the increment in seconds. The increment means that after every move you make (from the first one in a real life game, the second one on Lichess) the correspondent number of seconds is added to your clock.
As a beginner I strongly recommend to start with long time controls with increment, such as 10+5, 15+10, 20+10, 30+20 and so on.

> I've tried most of the exercises and practice things but I'm running out of ideas - any suggestions would be really appreciated.

First of all I would say you need to study a couple of openings, one for white and one for black. Usually beginners start with the Italian and the Spanish and the Queen's gambit. There are several places where you can learn openings, on Lichess there is: lichess.org/study/all/popular.
I also recommend watching some videos on YT about fundamentals, for this purpose I strongly recommend John Bartholomew YT channel.
Then I also recommend you play puzzles, which it seems you are already doing.

> I don't want to a) Make a fool of myself

You aren't. Beginners need to start somewhere and we all have been beginners.

> b) Pick on someone much more inexperienced than I am and make a fool out of them (and I am *very* inexperienced).

This can happen only in tournaments because in lobby games first of all the system pairs you with similarly rated opponents and secondly you can adjust your parameters using the orange wheel.
I recommend playing rated games as soon as you can so that you have an idea of where you stand. And I suggest you start playing random players from the lobby or the quick pairing so you can get familiar with the site and its interface.
After a while I recommend starting joining rating restricted arenas (U1300, U1500) which are beginner friendly and climb your way up to higher ratings.

Lichess is a wonderful place, I'm sure you will enjoy it as hundreds of thousands already do.

Thank you so much for such a helpful and comprehensive response! I will follow your advice :-)

Aborting is better (friendlier) than "hastily backing out". Click the X. Or better yet, consider playing the game anyway.

@Windy_Miller I just wanted to touch on the openings. I don't think it's necessary for beginners to bother with openings much unless you like the experience. I think it's better to implement some general advice (e.g. don't move the same piece twice, develop bishop and knights before queen). Of course every move is dependent on the actual opening but it forces you to understand the meaning behind the moves instead of making it a game of Simon says by memorizing lines. It's also going to be frustrating because beginners rarely play optimal moves and opening lessons can't cover everything (even if they did, no one could remember it), you will spend time learning the main line and be out of prep after the first move if opponent plays something unexpected.
If you do want to learn openings maybe start with openings that have "system" in their name. Those are usually bullet proof openings that you can play against anything your opponent does. Lot less to memorize and that's helpful because chess is overwhelming. Lot of beginners indeed do start with stuff like Italian but don't be fooled, it's an incredibly complex opening.
I would suggest spend more time on tactics, mating patterns and engames. Beginners rarely lose game out of the opening. It's going to be the 20th blunder that does it. Understanding your opponents threats, whole board vision and spotting mistakes is way more important than memorizing 10 moves of an opening.

@Windy_Miller said in #1:
> I understand that you use something called the Glicko-2 scoring system - I can look that up offline, and I see some stuff on it on your site. I understand that I get given an initial score of 1500, which I can increase or decrease by playing other people. If I win then I get a percentage of their score and vice versa. Presumably I can't improve my score by playing the computer? Would be nice, if only to save my embarrassment :-)

The rating change depends on the difference between your rating and theirs, as well as how stable your rating is. It becomes more stable as you play more games.

You play against people with a similar rating, so you don't need to worry about embarrassing yourself—after just a handful of games, you'll wind up playing people you can expect to win against roughly half of the time.

Also it's rating, not scoring (which is what you get in tournaments/matches, with 1=win 1/2=draw 0=loss). So Bobby Fischer's score against Spassky in 1972 was 12 1/2 (against Spassky's 8 1/2)...and that led to his rating becoming 2780.

I really like the title.

Just to add some to all the previous replies. If you feel stressed about rating then you can play unrated games until you feel more comfortable. Just concentrate on playing better chess and have fun. And no need for embarrassment. Everyone starts as a beginner and ALL chess players make mistakes (we are not machines!) . It’s also more interesting to play other humans. The lower level computer makes bizarre nonhuman errors and I think you will learn more by playing humans. If you do make mistakes , don‘t be too hard on your self: analyzing why your moves are mistakes is one of the best ways to improve.

There is a candy store in correspondence time uncontrol. You can play fast in there too, not forbidden, but not imposed either.
vacation, and pause for some other life activities are allowed too. And lots of external memory goodies to learn the most out of your slower games.. and test plenty of ideas.. if you like ideas. starting with your own, but not excluding those you might learn around here, in the forum. (or it used to be that you could, I don't know anymore, one has to want to go manually check all the forum cats.. there are blogs too). or any other source of mostly tested ideas.