I need some answers. I have only been playing chess about 2 years, off and on but lately, on.  I hover around a 1200 rating. I have never studied any books or videos. My main education comes from watching numerous games on chessgames.com, especially games decided in 12 moves or less.  I guess I am  a little fascinated by the early kill. However, it bugs me that no matter how much I play, I cannot spot these weaknesses in my opponent except on rare occasions. It seems that in order to separate myself from the hack player, I will have to learn how to sacrifice pieces and visualize the 2nd, 3rd and 4th move afterwards to get in a position to mate. So far, I have pulled off one Legal's mate but besides that, I just end up grinding it out with my opponent.  I have won more than lost but most of my wins come in the middle game.  I am ok at openings and my middle game is my strongest strength when I don't blunder (which is fairly often). Now, the end game? I play the end game at about an 800 level. I am the WORST end game player you will ever find for someone at a 1200 level.  I lost a game recently up 2 rooks, 2 bishops and 3 pawns against 1 rook and 5 pawns. I lose 75% of all end game battles no matter who I play.  How?  I blunder like crazy in the end and make illogical decisions against advancing pawns but I digress.  What does it really take to improve in chess? Does it take mountains of practice or mountains of reading or what?  I started playing almost daily here and my rating has actually dropped after a lot of practice! The problem with books seems like I will learn what to do and what not to do but when the real games begin, the board never looks the same as the exercises found in books.  Also, who can remember all the things that books teach when in a real game?  Can a person be taught how to be a high level chess player from books or do they have to have some kind of freakish mind that can visualize amazing queen sacrifices and such? What do you think?  What is the best method for jumping from 1200 to 1800 or higher? Thanks!

"games decided in 12 moves or less"

 

What ideas are you getting from these games?

I think I know the source of your problem. You only play live chess! Rarely do you play above 15/10 time. This means that you are severely hindering yourself from developing tactical and strategical ability! By playing correspondence chess, you can spend a long time on a single position, and find much better moves than you did before. When enough practice has been done, these tactics will appear faster to you when playing live chess.

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What it really takes to improve depends on your weak points. In your case, that's apparently blundering away pieces, especially in the endgame, and being fascinated by quick wins (long games where the decision comes in the middlegame are perfectly normal ways to win, quick wins are only rarely possible and not better than longer wins).

Books won't help. Books can give you extra knowledge. Therefore, they only help when the problem is not enough knowledge. That is not your weakest point.

Playing a lot of games won't help much. Playing by itself won't cure your weak points.

What helps is to figure out for yourself what you can do to stop blundering pieces, and then practice that.

One way (not necessarily the best for you) is to always check, before every move you make, which captures, threats and checks your opponent has and whether they are bad for you. Write it down: check all of them, before every move. Then practice that. Doesn't really work with blitz, but that is not surprising because you can't really expect to improve with blitz.

Similarly, perhaps you should try to win in long games on purpose. Win a pawn or two and convert the endgame, no matter how beautiful the attacking possibilities look along the way. Overdo it. Just a guess, don't know if this works :-)

 I have not thought of that. However, even with more time, I am not seeing my level getting any better when I play at home with my son with no time limit. He is 8 and beats me 60% ofthe time!

I have studied the 12 moves or less games just to learn openings and traps and hopefully, find weaknesses. Not sure it is helping or not.

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I would say not. You are much better off being able to play all stages of the game. It is rare you will be able to 'trick' your opponent in the opening, and even rarer when you go up a few points. This is definately not the way to progress.

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OK. Maybe if you posted a game of yours then people here in the forum could give you some ideas.

Thanks, Scarblac. Being careful on each move is not my strong point. IN 2 years of playing, I still give away pieces for nothing on a somewhat regular basis. When I don't, I play ok many times.  I always try to think of double attacks and discovered attacks.  I do think I play a lot more offensively than defensively. I am so concentrated on what I want to do, I don't notice my opponent setting me up for the mate. It is ok to lose a game against a better opponent but I really hate getting checkmated when I never saw it coming because I was looking at what I wanted to do. 

So, do most of you play more offense or defense?

do chess puzzles until your head hurts, rest, repeat. serious. it will help you to stop blundering, and you will see weaknesses in your opponents position and annihilate them when they make a tactical error. it will also improve your endgame because endgames tend to be highly tactical. thats how i improved from probably 900 player

One of you suggested that I show  a game that I have played here on this forum. It is embarrassing but here you will see all of my weaknesses.  I am playing someone over 100 points lower, I am ahead in pieces and well ahead in pawns and I still cannot get it done in the end. I kept my king on the edge like a "royal" idiot. I swear, a first timer can beat me in the end game.  I don't know how to post games but here is the link.

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game.html?id=21879080#

I'd get a solid grasp on correct opening and middlegame principles. Play over games between good players with those principles in mind, and take your time until you feel you are understanding what's going on in that light.

After quite a while of this, observing games where blunders/mistakes are punished will actually be helpful to you. It's like training someone to detect counterfeit bills; first you immerse them in the real thing and then when the phony shows up all the alarms go off at once.

Of course, while you work you will have to be developing your calculational ability. Otherwise looking at games is really glancing at games--not much help to you. So tactics exercises for pattern recognition and longer ones for calculation practice.

Don't be afraid to consult a book or site for K+P v. K and K+R+P v. K+R. These are common endings.

Looking at some of your games' final positions, I'd suggest you castle in the first 7 moves and then leave the 3 pawns protecting your King in place until the end game. Forget about quick wins - your not playing proper chess if that's your aim.

Check "The Theory of Chess improvement" by Dan Heisman

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman54.pdf

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In this game, you made at least 3 tactical, 2 positional errors and carried out a bad plan.

9.Bd2 ?positional blunder - miss simplication
10.gxf3 ?positional blunder - miss capturing with Kt and developing it and giving yourself double pawns

16.Bc8? tactical blunder - Rook can be taken by Kt.

22.c4? tactical and development error? d3 pawn can be taken. Kt at g1 not developed

26-30 wrong strategical plan - not making active Kt at e2 and Rook at g1, exposing the White King to attack by the black rooks (complex tactical error).

Assuming that 1 game reflects your style of play. You need to focus on the following principles:

1) develop all your pieces first. You get carried away with attacks without regard for developing your other pieces.

2) Simplify when you are ahead.

3) At this stage, avoid double, isolated and backward pawns. At a later stage learn when you can have those but at the moment avoid those like a plague.

4) make all your pieces active even at the cost of a pawn. I noticed you value gaining 1 pawn even at the expense of active piece placement and danger to your king. don't overvalue material (1 pawn). It is only a pawn.

How to improve? I suggest getting a book called chess amateur vs chess master by Silman(?) or understanding chess move by move by John Nunn - play over classical games of Capa etc.

Learn that you can win by not making just piece attacks in the opening or checkmating the king.

Good stuff that I needed to hear, I must admit!! Thanks

Hey Brett,

I can't analyze games like the experts on this site. I can say that you need to study some endgame techniques though. Not only so you can use the techniques but also so you can see what position your opponents are trying to force you into or waiting for you to slip into. My philosophy now is, It only takes one pawn to win. There are 8 potential queens trying to help you out. I played one blitz game here and realized that I was not ready for that. Definitely play long games so you can study the positions. Many chess positions occur repeatedly and you have to be able to recognize them and recognize how you can make them occur. Out of all of that, I would recommend most to play long slow games with a minimum 2 day time control. I sometimes look at my games for a full day before I make a move.   

Yep, even on long games, I can find a way to screw up. I was nicely ahead against a 1545 player tonight in  a game and simply took a pawn and never saw his Queen taking my queen.  What an idiot! No matter how careful I am, it is never good enough.  thought I played pretty decent until that move. Here is that game:

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=21926994

Some tactical blunders by your opponent and yourself.

17. tactical error should have taken the kt. You need to learn how to deal with the pressure of being attacked. I guess this comes with experience.
19. should have cut your losses and play Raf1
24.Qxe5 ?? losing your Q

I think at the moment if you can reduce your blunder from an average of 1-4 blunders per game (1-4 move tactical errors) to an average of 1 blunder for every 3-4 games, then you can go to the next level of chess improvements.

So to improve:

a) before you click submit move check your move has a tactical flaw or there is any tactical opportunity

b) do some tactical exercises everyday.

c) when ahead always look for ways to simplify and play safe. All your pieces are protected and your king is safe.