Decreasing Stitches in Crochet

I’m still working on the crochet book
it says that decreasing stitches is really easy
you simply leave the stitches alone and just don’t finish the row with the desired number of stitches to decrease

that’s what I find so practical about crochet
with knitting, decreasing stitches is so much harder.
well, for me anyway
because I can’t do it.

Yeah, that’s true. It’s easy. If you want to decrease a few stitches here and there or reduce the number of stitches, you just pull the yarn through the first stitch, leave it on the hook, pull the yarn through the second stitch, and then work them off together. You can do this with three, four, or even more stitches.

I’ve also done that binding off thing before; it works pretty well.
tell me, Clara
You know your stuff.
in crochet patterns it always says that when crocheting double crochet, you need three turning chains and then skip the first stitch, since the turning chains replace the first double crochet. So you then insert your hook into the second stitch of the row, the stitch next to the stitch that the turning chains sit on.

This method doesn’t work for me.

I always do it like this:
for double crochet, two turning chains and then don’t skip any stitch. and the same at the end of the row
then I always have the same stitch count and the edges come out even

but I think you’re not really supposed to do it that way
do you have any idea why it only works for me that way and not with the three turning chains and skipping the first stitch?

That’s a bit unusual.
Are your chain stitches significantly taller than your regular stitches?
Do your turning chain stitches form a sort of curve at the edge?
I somehow can’t imagine that would result in a smooth edge.
Would you mind taking a photo?
That would make things easier.