Chess awareness and why we are stuck at chess plateaus

I've had some more creativity ideas, but writing blogs is kind of limiting in many ways so I decided to rather make youtube videos to complement it for a change.

This one is about chess awareness and how lack of it keeps us stuck at rating plateaus as we every now and then play like 500 points below are average. I was kind of surprised to see to what extent I sometimes avoid thinking and start blundering from move 3. The worst thing about this is that you won't often even realize it - and then its easy to get frustrated at own inability.

First I've spotted this few years ago when I was looking at my Sicilian games - where I realized that I actually play significant inaccuracy already at move 3. Its hard to score well when you often make a mistake on move 3 as black. At times that helped me move from 1400-1500 range upwards.

Nowadays at higher rating I seem to be making this mistake much less but it still happens - just in less openings and I do recognize when opponents make it so I can score more wins.  The key to improving in these areas is to be *aware* of them - and to start thinking - even if its needed from move 3.

You can't just blitz out opening that you don't know and hope for the best. But we all do ^^.

Hope you find it useful - there's more to it in video for interested.