The Road to Redemption: A Bad Chess Player's Journey to Mastering the Game

Introduction

Hello chess friends! This is a blog about beginner mistakes, and how to prevent them. But specifically, by analyzing @wwindeww, a 700-800 player who has improved 300 rating points this month from 500 ELO! He recently got into chess and climbed his lichess puzzle rating from 1500 to 1900. So, good for him . Today, I will analyze who he is as a player, how he has improved, and his recent games from this month. 

He's been grinding puzzles quite a lot in the past few months and is improving rapidly.

Recent Games

 Punishing His Opponent's Mistakes

@wwindeww is decent at punishing his opponent's mistakes. However, with a decisive advantage, he blunders quite a lot, and like an 800 player, he drops pieces, pawns, and quite a lot more. Below is a quick game, where he punishes his opponent for having "unsteady" opening fundamentals. 

Okay, so that was a questionable game. @wwindeww often has a problem with board vision. That is, he doesn't often see pieces hanging, both his own and others. But his use of Tactic's hard carry for his deficiencies in board vision.

This last game of the section, it shows how he uses his tactical vision to punish his opponents and make them resign quickly, even if he hangs a few pieces here and there.

Brilliancies With Totally Sound Sacrifices

@wwindeww has a way of making some brilliant moves, but not really understand these moves . Although, he is a really good player when it comes to sacrifices. And he doesn't sacrifice every piece willy-nilly like a drunk 1700, or some random SuperGM on crack. He is extremely good at making them seem innocuous and interesting. Below is a game he lost, but had beautiful brilliant move.

Find the beautiful brilliancy: 

Sure, that sacrifice was a little flashy, and he could've won a trapped rook in one move. But however, it's nice that he still found the best engine moves for the situation. Although, it's unfortunate that he lost.

Find both brilliancies that @wwindeww made.

Questionable game, especially because he definitely could've won . But that's alright, the only problem with @wwindeww is that he blunders pieces and does not really "notice" his opponent's ideas. He plays very sharp, and tactically, and usually has good positions, but most of the time he throws. Although, in the final game, he destroyed his opponent, with a very nice brilliancy/tactic, and punishes his opponent's mistake of bringing his queen out early.

Very nice game by him . Now, let's move on to another issue with @wwindeww's style of game.

Throwing The Advantage

As you can see from all of those previous games @wwindeww often throws the advantage away. Not to be offensive or anything here, but he is very bad at keeping the advantage. , and this is very unfortunate. If he could stop blundering pieces, I believe he could at least reach 1800.

Here's an example of him throwing a +8-10 position away after winning the queen.

It Twas not a great game for @wwindew, definitely a questionable one at best. With the multiple blunders, and the multiple mistakes . He definitely does not have a good board vision, and often blunders his pieces willy-nilly, a big flaw about him. He usually wins when most of the pieces are traded off, due to very grand/crushing positional advantages, or from tactics.

Here is another game though, where he proceeded to lose even up a considerable advantage.

losing a queen led to his demise, and his failure to spot tactics. He was +8 or +7, and then lost due to this immediate fork of the queen and king, and his opponent converted very well. The big grievance of his level of play.

Find the one move that traps the queen

Yeah, so King Safety was very important there, and he didn't see it in time unfortunately , and with one check the entire game fell apart for him. 

Now to move on to the final and fatal flaw of @wwindeww and the final fatal analysis of his games.

Crazy Up And Down Swindles

@wwindeww often has a crazy way of swindling, often times the eval bar will go up and down, crazy, like a man getting an aneurysm, or Gothamchess screaming at the top of his lungs "The Rook!!!!!!!", or "Brilliant Move!!!!", or Hikaru dying after telling somebody to move. Some of these games are predictions of Satan, but I like to think of it as methods for beginners to improve. @wwindeww is an alright player, if he didn't blunder so much, but these swindles are proof of something godly different, from +8 to -10, these are some of the grandest swindles of @wwindeww.

The below game is a very funny one.

 

And the opponent resigned instantly?? Why? He could've continued to play , NEVER RESIGN. This was essential to @wwindeww's philosophy as a player and allowed him to win many games, even if it seemed that he was dead lost.

Another good example by @wwindeww, not a great game, is this game below. He evidently did not swindle at all that much (except near the end where he was down two pawns, and white was completely winning.) 

Tactics saved the day. Once that knight was trapped, he cleanly converted and went on to win the game.
Analysis Of @wwindeww As A Player

@wwindeww is definitely a very tactical/positional player, however, this is overshadowed by the fact that he often loses quickly when he loses pieces or just hangs mates in one . He's definitely a very solid player, never resigning. He struggles in the opening and often struggles to know what to do playing as black and what openings to play, although I definitely think that he should be focusing more on his middlegame/endgame because he blunders too much . @wwindeww definitely needs to improve by 

1. Doing Tactics (so that he can improve at spotting them more often, but also so he doesn't lose if he falls to a tactic)

2. Reading Chess Books (so that he may learn new tactical motifs/mating patterns/endgame patterns, and also concepts)

3. Play more rapid games(or Classical, the longer the time control, the better), so that he understands how not to hang pieces in one move or less. 

4. Not Hanging Pieces or Mates (AKA Not Blundering)

As long as he continues to learn new concepts, and feels good motivation toward chess, then he should most likely improve. By doing so, @wwindeww will improve by a lot of ELO, and he'll also become a better player. The more dedication one puts into a sport, the more one improves, and the more it's drilled into their head, the more one understands. Chess is intuitive, chess is taught through example and games, which is an example of learning through intuition. Sure, in chess, one can be intuitive or very systematic, but one must be intuitive to succeed at chess.

This is an example of "I sound very much like a posh British person". But improving in chess is hard and takes time and work and dedication. Hopefully, @wwindeww get's better.

A Graph Of His Very Solid Achievement

Conclusion, or the "I'm Glad You Made It Here"

Wow, you really made it here! Well, time for a funny story. Here's a very fun game where @wwindeww was down 13 points of material in the opening, and then proceeded to win the game.

I guess, it's not really a method of ending articles, ending them with games. However, it's somewhat of a funny game I guess. Thank you for reading this article, hopefully, I'll write about Amateur Usat North someday, but not today . Probably the next blog.

Thanks for reading! (Again)