How an ~1100 Rated Player Beat a Fide Master!

In lieu of a lesson, our contest winner RkFloridaChessonTwitch requested that I do a blog to review their games.

One is a win, one is a loss, and one is a draw.

Believe it or not, the win is against a 2000+ rated fide master!

Before we get into the analysis I just want to say, great job on capitalizing and not simply cracking under the pressure of a higher rated opponent RkFloridaChessonTwitch!

I want to start with the loss because that's where we can see our greatest potential for growth in most cases.

To keep things brief, the majority of my analysis will be contained within the game notations.

This first game was a rapid 10 | 0 game.

That was a very dramatic game and it demonstrated some very important themes that we can all learn a lot from. Thank you for sharing it!

One note that I mentioned that I would cover later is the time that was spent during the opening.

Unless we're talking specifically about bullet chess or an opening you know by heart, by the time you get to move fifteen, you want to have spent about 20% of your allotted time considering various options, weighing the pros and cons.

Mistakes happen, and that's okay.

But we can work on learning from them and improving our process along the way.

Alright, so this next game was a draw. I haven't looked at it yet either so let's see how it goes.

Because it's coming up so often, I figured I would point it out here as well, when you are down in material, unless there is a significant positional advantage you gain from trading equally, or you are going to gain more material than you are down, avoid trades. You don't have to take any trades unless they are forced so wait for moments when you can utilize a tactic or capitalize on your opponent simply hanging pieces. 

And for a moment of high recognition, we'll look at a game where RkFloridaChessonTwitch beat a Fide Master (Which is something very few people on the planet can say that they've done relatively speaking)!

This just goes to prove that even masters are human and capable of error. What's more impressive though is the fact that you didn't give up for a second! There were many areas where both players could have improved their play but when the dust settled, you were the victor!

Thank you for taking the time to read these analyses.

Please feel more than free to share your thoughts on the games and congratulate RkFloridaChessonTwitch on a very nice victory!