What I Learned After Analyzing 100 of My Own Games
Ever wonder what you’d learn if you studied your own games like a coach? Here’s what I found when I reviewed 100 of mine…
When I first started seriously playing on Chess.com, I had no idea how much I was repeating the same mistakes over and over. I’d play a few games, maybe win some, lose some, then move on.
But I never really stopped to ask:
“Why did I lose that one?”
“What could I have done better?”
That changed when I made a decision to analyze 100 of my own games not just with the engine, but with my own brain, trying to understand my patterns.
What I found was humbling… but also super helpful. If you’re trying to improve your chess like I am, maybe you’ll relate to some of these lessons I discovered.
Mistakes Happen Right After a Good Move
This one surprised me. A lot of my biggest blunders didn’t come when I was behind they came when I was ahead. It’s like my brain would go: “Cool, you’re winning now. Time to relax.” And that’s when I’d hang a piece or miss a mate threat.
I started calling it “relax blundering.” Honestly, it’s the worst kind, because it turns a winning position into a loss, and it hurts more than just losing from the start. Now, whenever I feel like I’m winning, I remind myself: Don’t chill yet. Stay sharp.
Openings Are (Kinda) Important
I used to think that studying openings was overrated, especially for players below 1600. But going through my games showed me just how many times I got into a bad position before move 10 not because my opponent outplayed me, but because I didn’t develop properly or played some weird sideline I saw in a random YouTube short.
What helped wasn’t memorizing lines, but just understanding basic principles: control the center, develop your pieces, don’t bring your queen out early, don’t move the same piece twice. When I started following those more consistently, my early game got a lot smoother.
Bullet Made Me Impatient in Longer Games
I love bullet. It's fun, chaotic, and feels like speedrunning chess. But after playing too much of it, I noticed something weird in my rapid games: I was playing way too fast in critical positions. Like, I’d get 25 minutes on the clock and still blitz out blunders like it was 1|0.
The habits from bullet crept into everything I’d premove without thinking, ignore tactics, or rush in endgames. Now I try to balance my play a bit more. Bullet is still fun, but when I want to improve, I stick to longer time controls and make myself slow down.
Endgames: My Silent Weakness
This one hurt. I realized I lost way too many endgames that should’ve been easy draws or even wins. A lot of them were just poor king activity, pushing pawns at the wrong time, or not knowing basic techniques like opposition or the Lucena position.
I started watching a few short endgame videos and even did some endgame puzzles (which I used to skip entirely). And wow… just knowing a little theory made a huge difference. If you’re ignoring endgames like I was, trust me — it’s worth it.
Analyzing 100 of my own games didn’t make me a master overnight. But it did help me finally see the patterns I was missing. It’s weirdly satisfying to look at a new game now and go, “Oh this is just like that one I messed up last week.” And then… not mess it up again.
Improvement in chess is slow, sometimes frustrating, but also kind of addictive. If you’re reading this and haven’t tried reviewing your own games seriously, I really encourage you to do it. Even if you start with your last 10, you'll probably spot something you never noticed before.
Let me know what you’ve learned from your own game reviews I’d love to hear what habits you’ve broken or breakthroughs you’ve had.
See you on the board.
If you liked this, you might enjoy my first blog:
👉 Does Bullet Chess Actually Make You Better?
