Road to 2000 Rapid, Expert Level: Searching for Improvement Following Each Game - August 2021

1. Eliminate horrible blunders, such as leaving pieces en prise, falling for obvious skewers, dangerous pins, forks and "mates out of the blue". Win, lose or draw is not the important part here, I just want to practice good chess habits and learn how to play patiently and solidly. If I lose I want it to be because I got thoroughly outplayed, not because I gave up something for free. At least this way I can go through my loss and learn something more productive than "I shouldn't have left that piece undefended"

2. Don't play when tired or distracted. Chess time will be "tunnel time", during that time it will be my sole focus.  I am going to set aside time specifically for that purpose. I will warm up with some tactics puzzles, and if I'm so tired or distracted that I can't solve any of them then I'm probably better off doing something else than chess at that time. 

3. Analyze every game. By forcing myself to analyze every game, I am forcing myself to learn from every game. If it is a particularly instructional game, or the opening catches me off guard or the endgame is completely unfamiliar or something like that, I will do a deeper analysis. I will study the unfamiliar opening or the particular endgame, as to be better prepared in the future.

Horrible Blunders: 0 This game was near perfect for me with no horrible blunders. Stay vigilant and avoid horrible blunders!

Note 1: I remained confident even against my higher-rated opponent and came out victorious! Thanks to an early mistake by my opponent I was able to get a step closer to my goal of 1700 Rapid!

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Game 2
White
"Breaking the Barrier"

Horrible Blunders: 0 I was careful to avoid any blunders in this game. Woohoo!

Note 1: This was a fantastic game and I put up a great battle for my opponent, took advantage of a few mistakes, and came out victorious! I still was pretty surprised and happy that I beat an 1800 as a brand new 1700.

Note 2: This game took me past the rating of 1700 Rapid leaving me 296 points away from Expert level play of 2000 Elo! 

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Game 3
White
"I Slipped..."

Horrible Blunders: 1 In this game I made one major mistake that lost the game on the spot.... I hung a Rook. With my time situation being at 30 seconds I didn't thoroughly check the board to see the discovered attack that my opponent launched. Following that, I gave up a Bishop with under 15 seconds left. At that point I was just playing to play; meaning that I just wanted to enjoy my last seconds of playing chess and tried not to lose on time. I won't count those as blunders since I'd mentally resigned the game after losing the Rook.

Note 1: I reached a position where I have made a game-losing error, and took the time (2 mins 39 sec) to find a decent move in response. My move wasn't the best as I didn't have enough time to calculate all of the possibilities and their consequences, and ended up choosing a response that got me into a slightly worse situation than I had hoped for. This position is one that I should spend 30 mins studying, to cover all of the variations and to find the best move in the position.

Note 2: My blunder and mistake toward the end of this game were due to time pressure, so I won't go into too much depth with the mistakes made there. I think my foreshadowing that I was going to lose the game happened when I spend almost 30% of my time getting out of a tricky situation with many possibilities. I couldn't find what would be best and eventually settled with a sub-par move that didn't quite work out.

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Game 4
White
"Missed Counterattack"

Accuracy: 51.3 - 72.7

Horrible Blunders: 2 In this game I made two real blunders, but one was worse than the other.

The first blunder was not playing Qh1 which would have saved me from attack by providing a counter-attack on my opponent which could have saved me in this game.

My second blunder was a more minor one as my position was already toasted after I didn't play Qh1. This blunder was Ke1 which tossed me into M9 which quickly became M2 and that was the game.

Note 1: This game was a strong one, and I am proud of how I handled the various challenges throughout, but as you can see a single missed counter-attack can be the difference between winning and losing. Chess is such a marvelous game! One move can spell disaster or success! It is such a precise game and I love it!

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Game 5
Black
"An Arrow Through The Heart"

Accuracy: 75.1 - 66.5

Horrible Blunders: 1 I overlooked the danger of Rxf6 and using the attacked Queen to pin my Pawn from taking back the Rook. Had I noticed this, I would have been able to avoid it and likely have gone on to win the game with my dominance on the Queenside.

Note 1: As the middlegame progressed I became more and more confidant in my position, but simply through the carelessness to not check the threat of Rxf6, I ended up getting struck down in this match. Other than this gross oversight I feel that this game was a strong performance.

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Game 6
White
"A Touch of Luck"

Accuracy: 66.1 - 31.3

Horrible Blunders: 0 I didn't make any horrible blunders in this game but did make a handful of minor mistakes. I call this a win!

Note 1: I'm noticing that my calculations are a bit inaccurate, as in the last few games I have been missing certain move possibilities for both me and my opponents. Through practice, I am sure that I can improve this area of my chess play.

Note 2: Overall this was a good game and I am happy with how I pressed forward towards the enemy King and kept up the pressure all the way until checkmate.

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Game 7
Black
"Hold Up....!?"

Accuracy: 90.5 - 90.5

Horrible Blunders: 1 A fantastic game ruined by one careless move, Rxg4. I just did not scan for the threats prior to that move due to carelessness... and paid the price!

Note 1: While a loss, I am really excited that I can put up great fights and win against 1800 rated players. As a 1700 rated player, this shows me that I have a lot more room for growth as a chess player if I can hold my own against these strong players just after reaching 1700.

Note 2: I'm happy with how I was able to spot my opponent's weaknesses regardless of his rating and push forward on my own to gain a favorable position. While I did slip up with a single careless move, I regard this game as a win in my book because of my overall great performance.

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Game 8
White
"Opponent Throws Away the Game!"

Accuracy: 65.0 - 74.2

Horrible Blunders: 1 Two main blunders happened in this game but both were due to time pressure. Neither really had much of an impact on the game. The first was Kc2 which allowed my opponent to run in and promote their Pawns using support from the King and the second mistake was allowing Nd3+ which could have lost me the game. My opponent had only 7.6 seconds after my move, and waited until 3 seconds to play their move, so I barely skimped out of that one!

Note 1: Double-check for threats especially in key moments in the game. Don't rush more than necessary.

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Game 9
White
"This 1800 Doesn't Know The Queen's Gambit!?"

Accuracy: 99.5 - 3.9

Horrible Blunders: 0 A laughable game for me, as my opening preparation proves decisive!

Note 1: A great example of how badly things can go for Black when they try to hang onto my "Gambited" Pawn in the Queen's Gambit opening. This game was just a display of my preparation in this opening and past experience. Unfortunately for my 1800 opponent, he did not know this line, and was unable to recover after a series of poor moves. 

Note 1: Just take a look at the game's accuracy!

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Game 10
White
"Destroyed by Confusion"

Accuracy: 60.7 - 85.9

Horrible Blunders: 2 Each of my two horrible blunders in this game occurred when I had under 10 seconds of time remaining, so I won't hold those against myself since it would unlikely happen if I had more time. These two moves were 65. Kd5 hanging the Bishop and 69. Kc6 allowing White to simplify and promote.

Note 1: What started off as a strong game eventually fell apart during a complicated position and overthinking for my moves. In a 10 min game, if you are not playing a critical and game-deciding move, spend no more than 20 seconds on a single move. After that alarm bells should be going off as I am using too much time.

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This month I played more 10 minute games than I had time to analyze, and because of this I haven't played any games since. I didn't want to keep playing because I was forgetting my older games. I have decided to simply not analyze the remaining 12 games because I'd like to just start fresh for September 2021. Check out the next month's blog posts and analysis of games here. On to the games!

(If you would like to analyze any of this month's unanalyzed games for me, I'd be happy to post your notes and give you a shoutout in the blog! Thanks in advance

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Game 11
Black
"Pawn Massacre on the Light Squares"

Accuracy: 93.9 - 90.5

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Game 12
Black
"Battering Ram"

Accuracy: 43.1 - 80.8

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Game 13
White
"The Forgotten Cavalry"

Accuracy: 94.9 - 81.5

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Game 14
Black
"Quit Hanging Your Pieces!"

Accuracy: 79.5 - 96.7

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Game 15
White
"Brilliance + Blunder = GG"

Accuracy: 84.3 - 75.0

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Game 16
Black
"Blunder + Mistake = Smooth Sailing"

Accuracy: 44.4 - 90.3

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Game 17
Black

"A Slow Squeeze"

(Not sure why the game isn't showing up. PGN below)

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2021.08.17"]
[Round "-"]
[White "TuaraChesS"]
[Black "RogueAI3160"]
[Result "1-0"]
[CurrentPosition "1B3Nk1/6R1/p3N1p1/2Pp3p/3P3P/q7/1p6/5n1K b - -"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "B12"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Caro-Kann-Defense-Advance-Variation-3...Bf5-4.Bd3"]
[UTCDate "2021.08.17"]
[UTCTime "02:53:54"]
[WhiteElo "1782"]
[BlackElo "1705"]
[TimeControl "600"]
[Termination "TuaraChesS won on time"]
[StartTime "02:53:54"]
[EndDate "2021.08.17"]
[EndTime "03:09:04"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/22907984811"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Bd3 Bxd3 5. Qxd3 e6 6. f4 Qb6 7. c3 c5 8. Nf3
cxd4 9. cxd4 Bb4+ 10. Nc3 Nc6 11. O-O Nh6 12. a3 Be7 13. b4 Nf5 14. Na4 Qc7 15.
Be3 b5 16. Nc5 a6 17. Bf2 O-O 18. g4 Bxc5 19. bxc5 Nfe7 20. Bh4 Ng6 21. Bg3 Na5
22. f5 Ne7 23. f6 Ng6 24. Kg2 Qd8 25. g5 Nc4 26. Ra2 Rb8 27. h4 gxf6 28. gxf6 h5
29. Ng5 Qa5 30. Nxe6 Rfe8 31. Ng5 b4 32. e6 Rxe6 33. Nxe6 b3 34. Raf2 b2 35.
Bxb8 Qxa3 36. Qxg6+ fxg6 37. f7+ Kh7 38. f8=$146+ Kg8 39. Rf7 Ne3+ 40. Kh1 Nxf1 41.
Rg7+ {<br /><br />Game may have continued...} (41. Rg7+ Kh8 42. Nxg6# {+M1}) 1-0

Accuracy: 83.1 - 49.6

Thank you so much for reading my blog! Stay tuned for new posts each month! I update the month's blog post as I have time and as I play games.